Springfield, IL
Abraham Lincoln is from the great state of Illinois and just like The Simpson's, he hails from Springfield. Lincoln's house has been made a national monument by way of it first being a state park. It was made a state park by being sold by Lincolns family to the state for the price of one dollar. The only stipulations were that the house be up kept and free for all visitors to see.
Lincoln's house is in stupendous shape, given that it is well over a hundred and fifty years old. The house is 80% original on the inside and 50% original on the outside. For a house that old to still hold onto that much of its original makings is incredible and much of that is due to the state and federal governments keeping up with it.
Jen and I arrived in Springfield in the middle of the afternoon and cruised the town for Lincoln's home. We followed the signs until we finally came upon it. Seeing that there was a fee to use the parking lot, we swooped in on a metered spot just outside the lot. This saved us some money and that is always a good thing when you are unemployed and on a road trip across America.
To some disappointment, Lincoln did not live in a house made of Lincoln Logs. He did however, live in a very nice two story house. The visitors center dished out the free tickets for the guided tour and we picked up ours and headed to meet up with the park ranger. The park ranger waited until the specific time that was printed on our tickets and started with her bit of a history lesson about the house. The ranger told us of all the original parts of the house and how the wallpaper is even the same as it was in Lincoln's time. This prompted her to reiterate how important it was to keep our hands off of the walls and off pretty much everything in the house. We even had to walk on a nice walkway strip of blue carpet, that is obviously not original to the house, placed on top of the original ornately designed carpet that lied beneath it. She also warned us all of the alarm system that is set off if someone steps off that nice blue carpet. I impulsively figured that this was a scare tactic, but I wasn't going to try out my theory and step off the walkway, out of respect to Mr. Lincoln, and History in general.
We walked through the house in awe of how great everything was and in amazement that Abraham Lincoln once stood in these rooms. As we walked upstairs the ranger let us know that the banister that led us up the staircase was original and that it was the same hunk of wood that aided the President to climb up as well. Things just don't get much better than that, unless you are some weird foreign dude that is wearing a safari hat and capri khakis who isn't satisfied by holding the railing that Abe Lincoln once clenched. This weirdo spoke a language I was unfamiliar with. It sounded like he was maybe from somewhere near Norway maybe. To me it sounded like troll talk, because that is sort of what he looked like, with his beady little eyes and snaggle teeth. Weirdo guy thought it would be a good idea to take a lot of pictures and kind of just cruise wherever he wanted to. I'm not sure if trolls are colorblind, but they definitely have ears so when the alarm sounded after he stepped off the blue carpet, his troll brain told him he had strayed from the path. If nothing else was learned today, we learned that the park service does not mess around when they tell you about a security system that can track where you are not supposed to be.
We then proceeded outside and saw the room where Lincoln dropped his logs, the outhouse. I was really tempted to sit down, but the wood was fairly splinted and I didn't want to get in trouble for messing around in the toilet. There were more houses in the neighborhood to explore, so we moved forward.
One of the exhibits had a display on how the houses were made back then and the progression of renovations that took place. It showed how the building practices changed with time in a nice cut away of a corner of the house. The cut away displayed all of the different types of construction that took place on the house. It was an interesting exhibit. Another house had a ton of information on Lincoln and the town that he lived in. We went into visiting Lincoln's house with fairly low expectations, as we really did not know what was going to be there. We left visiting Lincoln's house very pleased that we had taken the time to stop. We learned a lot and walking back in history is always a fun time.
St. Louis, MO
We parked the car alongside the Mississippi River at an overlook that was a windy set of concrete ramps. The overlook gave us a spectacular view of not only the river but of St. Louis and the Gateway Arch. The arch was much, much bigger than I had expected it to be. It was so big that we read that you could fit two football fields underneath it. After looking out onto the city and over the river we headed towards the six flags, just north of St. Louis, because rollercoasters never go out of style and they compliment Abe Lincoln so well.
It was a little late in the day and we only had a little over two hours or so until the park closed. Six Flags likes to charge a ridiculous amount of money to park, $15 to be exact, on top of the admission prices. Luckily we have season passes that are good at all locations, but it does not cover parking. I wasn't about to pay the parking fee for only two hours at the park.
This prompted me to make up a lavish story about how we were at the park earlier in the day and lost our parking receipt. The lady working the parking booth asked if we had any souvenirs and such to prove that we were inside and we told her we had passes and that we were traveling and didn't buy anything. After a good fifteen minutes of her prying, she called a supervisor and they came to the conclusion that it was late enough in the day to let us slide. Thanks Six Flags.
We rode about three coasters before the heat started getting to us. There were two really good wooden coasters that were really fun and since there was only about a half hour until closing, we decided to pack it in. This concluded our short stay in Missouri as our next attraction lied within the border of Kentucky, home of Colonel Sanders.
Random Facts
Number of Rooms in the
Length of the Gateway Arch at its Width = 630 feet
Height of the Gateway Arch = 630 feet
Price Paid for Parking at Six Flags = $0
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