13-May-2024. Springfield, IL

I had a 4.5 hour drive today from Chicago to St. Louis and wanted to break up the drive, so I checked out a map and saw that Springfield, Illinois was about 2/3 of the way there. And guess what? The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library is in Springfield, so I figured I would make it a destination and check it out.

Unlike the other presidential libraries I have been to on my Adventure this one was rather rinky dink. I guess when it’s been 150+ years since he was in office that you can’t really have many artifacts or cool displays other than some historical letters and a few photographs …. and that’s what they had. And several “dummies” in period clothing and decor.

My favorite display was the late Tim Russert doing a faux election review comparing Abraham Lincoln to the other candidates of the day as if it were modern times, and trying to predict the outcome of the 1861 election. That was very well done and put the contentious field of candidates into perspective in a fun and modern way.

There were 2 movies about Lincoln’s life and time in office, so at least I feel like I learned something. The other thing I learned is that there isn’t much in Springfield, Illinois. I’d skip putting it on any destination bucket lists!

Fact about old log cabins: most log cabins built in the 1800s had walls that were only 5 feet tall because people who built them could not lift heavy logs higher than that. Poor Abe sure had to duck his head down quite a bit!

And the pic of the day is definitely all the geese crossing the street in front of me while I waited at an intersection for them to all get to the other side.