The Lincoln museum is smack in the middle of downtown Springfield. We were there at 10 after riding the bus from our hotel on the west side. Three hours later we came out into the heat thoroughly impressed with the museum and thought it well worth the $10 admission charge. There are wax figures, holographic movies, artifacts, and many pictures and recordings covering everything Lincoln. We had lunch, then went over to his Springfield house, which took another 2 hours. We ran over to another tourist attraction, the Dana-Thomas house, which is a Frank Lloyd Wright creation. Finished in 1904, it features what they call prairie architecture, and it's one of his earliest, but best projects. No biking today, just tourists trying to rest our legs for the last third of the trip. We've been Lincolnized for 2 days now, yesterday was New Salem, his home as a youth before he was a lawyer. Supposedly he taught himself to read by the fire, and won a big wrestling match with some bullies. The town is rebuilt to be as it was when Abe lived there. The hatters shop was one stop, and we saw the iron kettle where the wool was boiled, then the felt scraped off the sides to make a hat. Mercury was used to wash pelts, because it would separate the fur from the skin. The fur could then be matted smoothly into a hat. In the 1830's, everyone wore a hat, it could indicate gender, occupation, status, interests, or just your personality. Lincoln liked his stovepipe hats. But the mercury causes humans to be nervous, drool, lose their hair, twitch, have difficulty talking, and lurch like a drunk. Hence the term mad hatter. Mercury has been banned in hatmaking since 1943, but watch out if you wear an old hat. We plan to leave here at 6:30 tomorrow to beat what we can of the heat and humidity, and we'd like to ride about 50 or 60 miles. I'll lube up the bike, it has some squeaks from riding in the rain yesterday. I installed a new computer with Joe's help in Moline, it's nice to have that. If I have my dates correct tomorrow is the first of Aug, summer is passing by.
4 comments:
Well Larry and Laura, they used to have as a tourist slogan in Springfield "walk where he walked", now you can say you walked where Abe, Michelle and myself walked. I hope you liked my hometown and all things considered, it's a good place to be from and I'll stay in Colorado. Be careful on those back roads, as I said earlier, stop signs are an option for alot of those people.
Bill copp
Hey guys! I have been so busy I am just now catching up on your blog. It looks like you two are having some fun! Things are good at the old homestead. Keep on treking!!!
Carrie
Looks like good tourist attractions there in Springfield -- how interesting about the hats! I see that you aren't getting any resistance since the venus shavers work so well...probably nice to wear flip-flops for a whole day, right? Good to talk to you guys and look forward to seeing you soon!
Hi, Larry and Laura! Glad to hear you enjoyed Springfield, Illinois and all the Lincoln history there. Sorry for the artery clogging food. You're right, I do have an easier time at restaurants here finding good vegetarian eats then I did there. I did my first six years in the FAA there and that was just right. Take care and keep having fun! (we all need an answer on that giant bug in your hand.) Beetle?
Michelle H.
Post a Comment