Illinois & Abraham Lincoln & Shipshewana, Indiana

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I really enjoyed the stop in Springfield, Illinois where I took in all the Lincoln sites. I visited the home that his family and he lived in while he practiced law in Springfield. The park service has created a neighborhood that would have existed during their time living in Springfield. It was the only home that Lincoln ever owned and his oldest son Robert sold it to the state for one dollar. I then visited the Lincoln Presidential Museum which was amazing. It is well worth a visit if you ever get to the area. It had great life-like exhibits and two well-presented movies to enhance the experience. Lincoln was always my favorite president so this was very enjoyable for me.



The next day I went out to New Salem which is a reconstruction of the village where Lincoln spent his early adulthood. He lived in the village for 6 years during which he held many positions including store clerk, rail splitter, postmaster, deputy surveyor, soldier in the Black Hawk War and an elected member to the Illinois General Assembly. It was 98 degrees and 100% humidity as I walked through the village of log buildings. Needless to say I would have enjoyed it much more in cooler weather. From there I went to the Lincoln Tomb where Abraham, Mary, Eddie, Willie & Thomas (Tad) are buried. It is so sad that only Lincoln's oldest son Robert lived to adulthood and that Mary had to experience so much grief in the deaths of her children and husband.



We then traveled on to Shipshewana, Indiana which is located in the North Eastern part of Indiana. The area has a large population of Amish and Mennonites so we saw lots of horse drawn buggies and bicycles on the side of the roads. There are lots of unique stores that sell local items. We took in the Flea Market which is held every Tuesday and Wednesday. We only made it down three rows and had spent most of our money so we did not do the other 4 rows. It was more commercial than we thought it would be, but we still found stuff to buy I took in a musical play called “Home Game” at the Blue Gate Theatre one night which was very entertaining.



Bonnie then decided that she wanted to go to Pennsylvania to see her son Dallas and his family so we headed that direction. We spent the night in Zanesville, Ohio on the way and drove through Wheeling, West Virginia before arriving in Gettysburg. More on that in the next post.

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