Sunday June 23 - A Day that will live in Infamy ( Well in my memory for long time, anyway)

We left New Salem and headed north to Minnesota (eh) and the land of 10,000 lakes.  I knew it would be a long day, but we wanted to push through because we spent an extra day with Mr. Lincoln.  So off we go.

Dodging weather and cruising through Illinois and Iowa was easy enough.  We even were able to make it through Illinois without having to buy gas.  Illinois prices are 30-40 cents more than Kentucky or Iowa, so we planned to buy gas again in Davenport Iowa.  When you're filling a 75 gallon tank, that matters.  Hey, every penny saved on gas is one we can spend on fun stuff!

Did I tell you they grow corn in Illinois?  Lots of it.

A fact of life if you travel by road in this great nation.  Sooner or later you will find construction.

Crossing the Illinois River.

An finally in Iowa!

We stopped in Davenport (gas and dinner) and Waverly (supplies at Walmart).  It's getting quite late, but that's okay - I've called ahead to the campground and made sure they know we're coming and that we'll be late getting there. Easy?  Right?

Well, sure enough we were late getting there - about midnight - and getting there was no small feat.  Several miles down a gravel   dirt road path, the kind that makes you think there's something not quite right - and finally we end up at the end of the trail (it really wasn't much more than that) and there's the campground.   

The owner had said just find a place and we'll settle up in the morning.  So I pull into the campground and we start to talk about which site might work best.  We're only here for the night and back on the road in the morning - right?  Stay with me now.

We pull ahead and find that all the sites are grass - and there are some tire marks showing others have been in them with no problems - right?  We find a site that "looks" good and start to pull in.  As soon as my rear tires leave the gravel - we stop - WE'RE STUCK!

After several tries at trying to free my ourselves - after I've had much to say about the owner and his campground and not warning us of the soft ground - it's useless.  I call the campground number and drive the car -which I've had to unhook even though I had planned not to -- back up to the office.  The first call gets only the campground's voicemail. On the second call, a lady answers and I - as calmly as I can - explain to her that I'm stuck in her campground.  Then I hear her talking to her husband in hushed tones ("it's that motorhome that came in late" ---"they're stuck").   He comes on the phone and I explain AGAIN what has happened and his response is "Well, I can't help you out tonight - I'll be out about 5:30 and see if I can pull you out".  

Are you serious?  You want me to spend the night blocking the access road with my motorhome and just go to sleep?!? 

Yep.

By now, it's after 1 AM.  I tell him don't come at 5:30...let us at least rest (I won't sleep much) until 7.  

Okay.

Back to the MH and explain this to my sweet and patient wife.  No A/C..  She deserves a medal for this.

Sure enough - about 7 I hear the sound of equipment coming and here he comes on a bobcat.  We are able free the MH and to get it back on the gravel road.  As soon as it's free, he climbs in his bobcat and starts to leave.  Excuse me?  Do you have a site I won't sink into?  

I don't know, you can try on of the others.  

Now I've just made a battlefield decision - we're leaving.  Before I can inform him, hes gone.  I pull around to where I've parked the car - hook up - tell Donna what my plan is - and we start out.  Donna and the girls are trying to sleep.  After all, it's 7 am and we're on vacation and we were up after 1.  

The final insult - As we start out, I wanted to make sure he didn't call the sheriff or someone to come after me for not paying for the night - 

When I asked him about it - I don't owe you anything for the night do I, since we never made it into a site?

"Nope I guess not, just $20 for pulling you out."  

And he said this with a straight face, people!  And he was serious!  He was bigger than me or I might have argued more - so I paid the $20 and left. 

I drove for 3 hours before anyone else woke up - some much needed "alone" time to mutter about that place and all that I will write in my review of his dinky campground.  

But seriously - this is part of our collective story - to be told every time we remember this trip with the girls - and thankfully nothing was damaged on the MH.  All I have to do is get that Minnesota mud off! Eh!

They tell you Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes - what they don't tell you is it's also the land of 10 bazillion mosquitos and flies and gnats!!!  

Boy, am I glad to be in South Dakota!

Visiting Mr. Lincoln

June 20-23

We rolled into the Springfield area and set up camp at Lincoln's New Salem, a reconstructed village to match the time when Abraham Lincoln spent his early adulthood here.  There's a lot to tell where he obtained some of his thoughts on life and who he came to be.  Lincoln was here in the 1830s and left in 1837.  Curiously, the village was pretty much abandoned by 1840.

Twelve log houses, the Rutledge Tavern, ten workshops, stores, mills and a school where church services were held have been reproduced and furnished as they might have been in the 1830s. The furnishings, including many articles actually used by the New Salem people of Lincoln's time and others dating back to the same time period, were assembled and donated to the state by the Old Salem Lincoln League. The collection includes such early-nineteenth-century articles as wheat cradles, candle molds, cord beds, flax hackles, wood cards, dough and cornmeal chests and early American pewter. 

One note - the girls took a lot of these pictures.  Budding photographers!

Lincoln's New Salem

One of the period characters demonstrating how they dyed the yarn to get the different colors.  They used everything from some tree barks to bugs.  Do you know which ones?

 The one room schoolhouse and church building.  Emi is ever the teacher!

 Lincoln's 1st store....He and a partner had two stores here and both failed, or "winked out" as the story goes.

Saturday -The Lincoln Museum and Library

Some history...

Planing for the museum started in 1990...The Museum was dedicated on April 19, 2005, in a ceremony attended by President George W. Bush, First Lady Laura Bush, future President and then U.S. Senator Barack Obama, and about 25,000 guests from around the world who crowded Springfield’s downtown for the occasion.

The public responded enthusiastically to the Museum, quickly making it the most visited presidential library and museum in the United States. Attendance reached one million visitors on January 6, 2007, and two million on July 4, 2009. No presidential library and museum in the United States had reached the two million visitor mark more quickly. The three-millionth visitor passed through the Museum’s doors on August 21, 2012.

The Library wasn't open because it was Saturday, but we were able to spend about three hours in the museum.  

We tend to think of news coverage of politicians in our current day environment.  One of the things that surprised me was the amount of vitriol directed at Lincoln in the press and commentaries during the days of the Civil War and even before when he was talking about freeing the slaves through what we now know as the Emancipation Proclamation. It definitely wasn't nice - they just didn't have any electronic means to spread it as quickly as today!   

Did you notice the poses?

John Wilkes Booth

They loved the gowns and dress of the era, so they loved "Mary's attic"  a place to play dress up.  And it was one of the few places they allowed photography.

The Lincoln Tomb

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This is a replica of the statue of Lincoln by Daniel Chester French  in His memorial in DC

The rotunda and corridors contain reduced-scale reproductions of important Lincoln statues as well as plaques with excerpts from Lincoln’s Springfield farewell speech, the Gettysburg Address, and his Second Inaugural Address. Lincoln’s remains rest in a concrete vault ten feet below the marble floor of the burial chamber. A massive granite cenotaph marking the gravesite is flanked by the Presidential flag and flags of the states in which the Lincoln family resided. Crypts in the chamber’s south wall hold the remains of Lincoln’s wife and three of their sons.

 Now I can prove that I really am on this trip.  Thanks Lizzie!

bronze reproduction of Gutzon Borglum’s marble head of Lincoln, located in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Can you guess what else Gutzon Borglum is known for?  I'll share the answer soon.