Thursday 10th November – Lincoln day

Having successfully ended week three of our budget only $50 over (I can wear that) it was time to go be tourists again!  The reason for taking a diversion North, away from our planned destination of Dallas?  Mr Abraham Lincoln’s home town of Springfield, Illinois.  On our arrival at the Visitor’s Centre (can you see a theme emerging?) we got reduced entry tickets to the Lincoln museum and cheap street parking for a few hours in which to enjoy it. 

Quality fakeys...

The museum was brilliant.  There was so much to see and you are led through Abe’s life from his birth in Kentucky where he saw first-hand the horror of slavery, through his move into law and politics and his successful election in 1860.  Extremely topical following the events of this week, it was intriguing to hear how close the 1860 election was and how much anti-Lincoln feeling there was during his time in office.  It seems he was hated on both sides.  His emancipation proclamation was naturally
rejected by the Southern states who wanted to keep slavery as a part of their lives, but at the same time those who wanted to see an urgent end to it felt that it didn’t go nearly far enough.  Abe couldn’t win…. But of course, he did, history commending him for saving the Union, sadly at the expense of hundreds of thousands of lives in the bloody Civil War.  And at the toll of his own health; by the time of his assassination in 1865 he appeared a shadow of the man he was on election only five years earlier.  Here is a look at the fantastic presentation in the museum, look at the quality of those fakeys!  Also, spot the odd one out….

The Lincoln family in front of the Whitehouse

From there, we crossed the square to Union Station that had been taken over as an homage to Stephen Spielberg’s film ‘Lincoln’ starring Daniel Day-Lewis.  There were props and costumes on show that had been used in the movie, reminding us that we really should get around to watching it!

Having collected Harvey, we drove to visit the Lincoln family home which has been preserved as it was within the local neighbourhood:

Then onwards to the Lincoln tomb:


Having seen the Lincoln memorial in Washington it was surprising to be even more enamoured by the splendour of this monument.  You are able to walk right inside the burial chamber which contains Lincoln’s immense marble headstone, surrounded by flags with the quote ‘Now He Belongs to the Ages’ carved above it.  So many accolades and plaudits for achievements throughout his 56 years of life.  How much could he have achieved if he had been able to complete his final three years in office?

Late afternoon was a race against time and the sunset.  We drove into St Louis really only to see the Gateway arch, a magnificent feat of engineering.  Although we could see it from miles outside the city, getting right up to it was another matter.  Mostly due to the fact that it was closed for grand-scaled renovations which meant travelling up to the top of the arch was an impossibility and the arch itself was surrounded by roadworks.

Forget the construction site look... eventually it will look like this picture!

Hopefully this picture will help you with the scale of the archway.

So, we were reduced to paying 50 cents for ten minute’s parking (25 cents per axel!), sprinting to take some photos and beating the traffic wardens back to the RV!  Got some fine pictures though before we moved on another state into Missouri, back on our westerly course.