Blogs from Springfield, Illinois, United States, North America - page 3

Geo: 39.801, -89.6436We got good nights sleep in Lincoln's home town and hopped back in thetruck to see the final Giant in IL. This was the Lauterbach Giant inSpringfield. Next on our stop was the Pink Elephant Antique Mall in Livingston IL. This is an old high school that was turned into a huge antique store. Outside was a large pink elephant, a giant dressed in swim trunks, a huge tricycle, a Harley Davison Giant, a large green UFO and an Ice Cream place that has 6 flavours. We got and ice cream looked around the antique mall and headed on our way. Our next roadside attraction was the Brooks Catsup bottle in Collinsville IL. It was built in 1949 and is the world's largest bottle of Catsup. As we continued on we crossed the border ... read more

The weather had finally cooperated so we could head out on a nice sunny Saturday morning - September 12, 2009. Since we would be seeing Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace and his childhood home during our Kentucky stopover, we wanted to learn a little more about his pre-Presidency adult life. Again, we got a slightly later start than planned so we made our way to southbound I-39 & westbound I-44 for a stop in Springfield IL. Both of us had fought off our afflictions and were more in the mood to absorb the scenery along the route. On the way to Springfield, we saw cornfields that were ready to be picked, cornfields that were being picked and cornfields that had been picked. There is a severe shortage of optical adrenaline rushes in Central Illinois as well as most ... read more

So what ever happened to the travelers on route 66? It's like this -- we discovered that not every motel has a computer in the lobby. In fact, we had three straight nights with no computer to record the happenings on our route. So, since we are also doing a journal, we can regress in time three days and catch you up on what has been happening. We had a great time riding down through Illinois. It was great to be OUT of Chicago and in open country through Bloomington and Springfield. I had heard recently about a cafe that had been restored on Route 66 and we arrived in the town of Atlanta,IL just one month after the restored Palms Cafe reopened. It had been carefully copied from an old photo postcard of the place. ... read more

What a wonderful feeling! Not packing the Forester and driving less than 5 miles to start our day. However I know there are more 13 hour days on the horizon. Reflecting back on the trip from North Platte to Springfield, Betty came up with a way to shorten the trip. Try to follow her logic and remember after many hours of driving one tends to be a bit psychotic. We traveled through the widest part of Wyoming, Nebraska, and Iowa, so if these states were rotated and we only drove through the narrow part, the trip would be much shorter. This approach is based on her in- depth knowledge of editing photos. I have nothing more to say other than Illinois, Indiana and Ohio have already been rotated for us. Springfield proved to be a wonderful ... read more

We went to Springfield, Illinois today, and the first thing we did was go to the Lincoln Museum near a real 100 year-old train station! It was a great museum, and we were very Glad we went there. Next, we saw Abraham Lincoln’s real house from right before he left for the white house. There was all kinds of old furniture, and decorations there. We went to the Lincoln tomb next. It was very beautiful and it was made of marble with lots of bronze statues on and inside it. After that, we drove to New Salem, where there was a recreation of his old town in Kentucky, where Lincoln lived when he was 22-28. It was very pretty here as well. There were 20 or so log cabins and shops with lots of flowers ... read more