Our Time in the Land of Lincoln

We loved the Double J campground at Chatham, IL. Beautiful trees, lots of open grassy areas, many great amenities. I'd definitely stop there again.

On Thursday we went to the Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield. It was so well done. There was a Disneyesque quality to the presentations. The first film had vibrating seats, cannons booming, hologram people in the film, etc. Then we attended a live play detailing what transpired around Ford Theater the day Lincoln was shot. It was all based on fact and not conjecture. Several things that Booth did that day in hindsight were clues to his intentions. Everything was presented in such an interesting manner. It was well worth the visit.

I always try to learn something and I learned the Emancipation Proclamation didn't free any slaves. It freed them in the north, where there weren't any; in the south, but he had no authority in the Confederacy and the four union states that did have slaves were excluded. The consummate politician! It was the 13th amendment that actually did it for the whole U.S. The most interesting thing was a photo of Lincoln in his open casket. When it was taken Mrs. Lincoln demanded it be destroyed. The surprise print was found in a book in 1952 and is on exhibit.

Pictures were only allowed in the gallery so I have just a few.




From there we went to the Lincoln Tomb. Lincoln's wife and three of his four sons are buried there. His fourth son is buried at Arlington at the request of his son's wife.


The present tomb had to be expanded because this single door could not handle the crowds who visited the tomb. Now they enter from the front.



A seven ton piece of granite marks Lincoln's tomb. A small version of the Lincoln Memorial sculpture graces the rotunda.




We've traveled quite a bit of the Mother Road, Historic Route 66 so we couldn't let the present opportunity go by. We headed to Cozy Dog, a remnant of days gone by. Ted had one cozy dog and I had a Cherry Coke. We talked to these folks in town for the Thunderbird Classic Car Rally. They had orange drinks in Route 66 bottles. We had a lot of fun with them.




The next day we visited Old Salem where Lincoln lived as a single young man. He met Herndon who would eventually be his law partner. The village was reconstructed on foundations by the CCC in the 1930s. It has been kept as simple and realistic as possible and it is a beautiful area.







Today we drove to Columbia, MO. When we pulled into the campground we both realized we stayed here two years ago on our way to Denver! We went to church at 4:30, had dinner and came home. The County Fair is going on next door so we did a Tom Sawyer/Becky Thatcher and slipped through an open gate between our campground and the fairgrounds. We walked the midway and watched a show with live bears. The tractor pull was making a lot of noise and smoke and the bears were very distracted so they cut the show short. Ted wanted to watch the tractor pull but you needed a ticket which we didn't have. So we went to the show ring and watched the awarding of the show horse ribbons. They were such beautiful animals.

Tomorrow we move on to Lake Jacoma, a Jackson County, Missouri campground that is southeast of Kansas City. We are going to see Brian who Ted worked with at Abitibi years ago. More later ... much later since I don't think I'll have wifi until next weekend.