First let me say, that without all the work that Andrea did to prepare for this trip, to plan for this trip, weeks in advance, it would not have been possible to make. Andrea made all the reservations, washed, dried, folded and packed all the clothes, got all the AAA books, maps and brochures, created the itinerary, and cleared the schedules, so we could go on this 4 day educational trip down to Springfield, IL and St. Louis, MO. Pictures of this trip is on my Facebook page.
I LOVE YOU, ANDREA!!!!
The chart above shows approximately what my levels where for each major point of interest during our trip.
Ok so then off we go.... We got up Monday morning, the 28th of June, and packed up the car, and we got on the road heading South by about 11am. We drove down to New Salem, IL, which is where Abraham Lincoln lived as a young adult, starting out with his first job as a trading store clerk. We walked around this area for awhile, seeing how life was like, back in the 1850's before the Civil War. The walking was not that bad, but I got tired pretty quickly. We got to our hotel in Springfield at about 6:30pm.... so we had enough time for Ainsley and I to go swimming at the hotel pool, which was outside and unheated... BBBRRRRRR!!! After the swimming, we were all exhausted, and were asleep by 9:30pm.
Tuesday, June 29th -- We woke up at 8am and Ainsley and I went to the hotel lobby to partake of the continental breakfast.... not sure what continent it was from, but it was pretty low budget. But what do you expact for Howard Johnsons. Of course we can't complain too much since we only paid $47/night. We left the hotel at about 11am, where our first stop was to the Springfield Tourist Info Center. There we bought tickets to tour Lincoln's Springfield home. We walked around the area waiting for our tour time, and visited the church that Lincoln went to, which was a beautiful old church with beautiful Tiffany stained glass windows. From there we took the guided tour of Lincoln's home, then we walked over the the OLD State Capital building. I say OLD, because it is now a museum, because our tax money built a beautiful NEW State Capital building just down the street from the OLD one. Our next stop was over to the Lincoln Museum, which is fantastic, and will take you hours to go around it and take it all in. For dinner we drove down to the south side of Springfield and went to the Cozy Dog, which is one of the landmarks on the original Route 66, which goes from Chicago to Los Angeles, where we had hot dogs and fries. After dinner we went to Lincoln's Memorial and Cemetary, where there is a weekly re-enactment of the Evening Colors by the 114th Illinois State Brigade. Great side story about that one..... Anyway, after that, we went to the Springfield Mall, because our room was very humid, where there was a beautiful Italian made Merry-Go-Round that Ainsley got to ride on. After the Mall closed at 9pm, we went to our hotel and crashed again into our beds.... end of Tuesday the 29th of June.
Wednesday June 30th -- We woke up at about 8am, had breakfast, checked out of our hotel, yadda yadda yadda, and started off again.... We went back to downtown Springfield where there was a 2 block closed-off Open Air Market, where Andrea and Ainsley went to, while I stayed in the car. Then we went over to the NEW State Capital building. One word - incredible. We asked the people at the information booth where the office of our District Senator was, Senator Suzie Schmidt. We went there and as the Senator's assistant showed us into the Senator office, Ainsley walked in and said, "my tooth just fell out." LOL... We had been working on that tooth for weeks to get out, and of all places for it to happen, in a Senator's office!! Well everyone there was very nice and extremely helpful. We also were able to see Governor Quinn's office, and to sit in his chair. The Governor's head of security was very helpful and showed us around the Governor's offices too. From there, it was off to St. Louis, stopping off first in Hannibal, MO, to see Mark Twain's home. That was very interesting, but not as grandiose as one would think it should be.... From Hannibal, we tried to get down to St. Louis, but the road we were on suddenly had a road closed sign on it, because the Mississippi River had overflowed and washed out the highway. So we had to double back and find the alternate route to St. Louis. We got into St. Louis around dinner time, and after driving around for some time, finally found the parking garage for the park around the St. Louis Arch. Well there are no fallen arches in St. Louis.... that is an amazing engineering marvel. We had planned to take the ride up in the Arch and get the view from the top, but as we got closer, Andrea became nauseous, so we decided not the go up the Arch, but instead go have some dinner at a restaurant close by, called Calico's, then we went to the museum under the Arch. The museum and gift shops under the Arch are very impressive and informative about how the Arch was built, and about the history of the "Gateway to the West." We left the Arch at about 9:30, and went to our hotel in O'Fallon, IL, which was about a half hour away from St. Louis. There, we checked in to the room and exhausted again, crashed.... end of Wednesday the 30th.
Thursday, July 1st -- We got up, had breakfast, showered, got ready to go, yadda yadda yadda and it was off again... Our fist stop of the day, was Cahokia Mounds in Illinois, jsut about 10 minutes from our hotel. This place was incredible, because it was the center of the population and at one times as many as 20,000 native Indians lived there. I wont go into detail about this area, you have to go there and see it for yourself... One particular part of it is called "Monk's Mound" which is were it is believed the the Cahokia Chiefs lived. This mound is amazing... covers 14 acreas of land, and is over 100 feet tall, and took over 165 years to build. Andrea, Ainsley and I climbed up to the top of Monk's Mound, which was hard, but I made it.... After Cahokia, we went back into St. Louis to find some points of interest, and to see Scott Joplin's house in St. Louis. Ainsley really liked that, because she enjoys playing Scott Joplin's ragtime music. Then it we pointed our car North and headed home.
I drove all the time up to this point, in small part because I needed to contribute where I could, and not make Andrea do all of the work and I was just along for the ride... But by that time, I was so exhausted that I napped, while Andrea drove us home, from St. Louis up I-55 all the way to Lake-Cook Road. By that time it was 11pm, and Andrea has trouble seeing in the dark, so I drove us the reat of the way home. We hit our garage at midnight, with Ainsley asleep in the back.
This trip was a whirlwind of driving, walking, hiking and climbing, and it proved to be an overload of information about Abraham Lincoln, the history of the land and its people. Sure there times where we got tired, stressed, worn out and short tempered, but we survived with all fingers and toes intact, we made the trip with losing anything, without breaking anything, without forgetting anything. All in all, it was a joy to be with my girls, to learn so much, and get much closer to my GOD and my family.
