Day 66 - Springfield to Roodhouse, Illinois

Day 66 of this odyssey didn't start out very promising. The rain that has dogged us off and on since we arrived in Florida, continued in Springfield, Illinois, as we prepared to go visit the home of our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln. As I wrote in the blog yesterday, the skies looked threatening when we made camp, and sure enough, by morning the pitter-patter of rain drops greeted as when we awoke. Still, where there's a museum or point of interest to be visited, there's hope.

We arrived in at the visitor center fairly early and the parking lot was nearly empty. That was the good news. The bad news was that there was no parking provision made for RVs. So.....as we have been known to do in the past, we just took up four spaces in the truly tiny lot next to the visitor center. Grabbing our gear, we were about to set out, when a ranger-type person approached and declared that we could either pay for all four spaces, or we could move the rig and park next to the school buses on the other side of the center. "Piece of cake," I said, and moved the rig as she directed.

Fortunately, even with all the fooling around with parking we were still able to make the 9:05 tour which headed straight for the Lincoln's house straightaway (photo upper right). Concetta and I found the interior a bit gaudy for our tastes, with wallpaper and carpets so busy that they were magnificently off-putting. Even stranger, some of the furniture was black, which seemed all the more odd next to the background colors.

The house we toured was the only house that Abraham Lincoln ever owned and was sold to the state of Illinois for a dollar by their son, Robert Todd Lincoln, after their deaths with the stipulation that the state would not charge an admission fee for anyone to see it. The Lincolns bought the house for $1,500 when it was only three years old. Abe had $1,200 to put down and he traded the owner a piece of property for the $300.00 balance.

The original Lincoln Home is set in an actual restored and/or reconstructed neighborhood that replicates exactly the neighborhood the Lincolns would have known. That means you get to stroll the sourrounding dirt streets and visit some of the other period houses while you're there. We were extremely fortunate in that within thirty minutes of our arrival the sun started to show its face. Though some of the initial photos were pretty bland, subsequent ones were much better.

With another hour left on our parking ticket in the bus lot, we decided to walk to Lincoln's nearby law office. By then it was so bright we had to wear our sunglasses. When we got there we found that we were off by forty-five minutes for taking the tour, so we walked over to the old Capitol building across the street from Lincoln's law office. There they wanted a princely sum to view the collection of antiques on display, so we decided to shift gears and go visit the Lincoln tomb located a few miles away. This turned out to be the best decision of the day.

Although Concetta had mentioned the tomb of Abraham Lincoln to me, for some reason it just hadn't registered. But when our foray into old town Springfield didn't turn up anything that intrigued us, I asked her what she wanted to do, leave town or what? That's when she brought up the tomb again. This time I paid attention and we plugged the address into the GPS and set off.

Minutes later we were pulling up to the cemetery parking area and caught sight of the monument to the great man. We were stunned. I think I had been expecting a simple structure, perhaps a hundred square feet in size. What we saw was certainly akin to the magnificence of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. The main body of the tomb was perhaps the size of a large house. Towering over the main part of the tomb rose an obelisk to a height of perhaps a hundred feet or more. Surrounding the obelisk and a standing statue of Lincoln himself, were the most finely-crafted bronze statues of Civil War soldiers you might ever want to see.

After parking the RV, we approached the front of the tomb where a guide was standing. Moments later, we were invited inside! We had no idea anyone was allowed inside, but there we were. The guide proceeded to give us a rundown on the what we could expect to see when we toured the inside. Meanwhile our eyes were on the fantastic bronze of Lincoln in the entryway which appeared to be an exact replica, on a quarter sized scale, of the seated Lincoln from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.

I immediately realized that I should have brought along my smaller, interior-shooting Nikon. There was no way I was going to be able to photograph the bronze with the larger camera. Concetta and I retreated to the RV to have lunch at that point, promising the guide what we would be back with the proper camera.

The setting for the tomb is on twelve acres and we were able to take full advantage of the park-like scene as we ate our lunch just steps away from the great man's resting place. Then, the correct camera in hand, we retraced our steps to the tomb and this time we took extensive photographs of all the interior bronzes, included the seated Lincoln in the entrance way. The subject of the interior bronzes are the various stages in Lincoln's life, from the time he was a young man, until he was late in his Presidency.

The most humbling and wonderful aspect of the interior of the tomb was the seven-ton, reddish marble tombstone that covers his actually grave location. The tombstone is surrounded by a collection of flags, seven of which are the flags of states in which Lincoln and his ancestors once resided. The last two flags are Old Glory and Lincoln's Presidential flag.

Believe me, Concetta and I were very humbled by the whole experience. There was no way to tour the tomb and not leave with tears in your eyes. On a final note, as you leave the tomb you encounter a bronze bust of Lincoln in the front entrance way. The bust was crafted by Gutzon Borglum, the man who was majorly responsible for the bust of the Presidents on Mount Rushmore.

As a final note, if you're ever in Springfield, Illinois, you must go visit our sixteenth President. We predict it will be one of the most memorable of your life.

After leaving the Springfield cemetery we headed west and south towards my evening destination of Carrollton, Illinois. We drove through mostly farm country and a whole lot of emptiness with not much on the horizon that might turn into a camping spot. But when we got within about a dozen miles of Carrollton, we ran across a municipal camp in the town of Roodhouse. The camp, though pretty "buggy" with lots of flying creatures, was nevertheless simply beautiful. It had its own lake next to the camp and quite a bit of walking area where we were able to get some exercise. Once again I was taken by the numbers of people living full time in these camps. Roodhouse has almost completely full, and many of the rigs had been there a long time.

We're finding that these municipal camps are often outstanding. This one came complete with all the amenities, including water, sewer, and electricity. Additionally, the cost at $25.00 was more affordable than most so called professional camps where we often pay twice that amount. Yes, the roads to these municipal camps can be a little rougher as they're often more removed from the highway.

And you will probably need to pay with a check, so make sure you bring one along. Sometimes they'll even sell you firewood if you need it, though a municipal camp host in West Virginia offered to give us firewood if we wanted it. We didn't take her up on her offer, but we sure liked her a lot for asking.

So, as the sun sets over our man-made lake, I bid you adieu for now. Tomorrow we'll be visiting Carrollton, the town where my mother's father's ancestors once lived back before the Civil War.