Illinois, Part 4 - Hanging out at Abe and Mary's Old House [240703]

For our next activity, we visited a famous historic home in Springfield.  (No, not the Simpsons' house - a different Springfield than that 😜.)

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Although it rained overnight the temperatures never dropped below 72, so it was something of a sleepless night to start with.  Then in the wee hours of the morning, one of the trucks in the parking lot started idling their engine (an unfortunately not-uncommon occurrence in the Walmart parking lots) which made it all but impossible to sleep at all and we finally gave up around 6 a.m. and just got up.

After our morning routine we drove 33 miles southwest into Springfield, which is the location of our scheduled activity for the day: the Lincoln Home National Historic Site.  The plan had always been to try to arrive right around 9 a.m. when the Visitor Center opened, to be sure to get tickets for one of their FCFS tours of the home itself, so the early morning waking time wasn't all bad.  Oddly, both Waze and Google Maps didn't seem to know about some rather extensive road / construction closures around the capitol and we had to navigate the detour on our own.  We pulled into the designated Bus/RV parking lot shortly before 9 a.m.

Almost as if to make up for our rather miserable night, we received two rather nice surprises almost immediately.  The first was the "bunny welcoming committee" in the Visitor Center's landscaping (which was kind of surprising given the Historic Site's urban location).

The second was when we attempted to pay our $2/hour parking fee in the Visitor Center, as instructed by the sign in the parking lot.  After double-checking that we were, in fact, actually driving an RV the ranger behind the desk told us that there's no fee for parking in the Bus/RV lot.  When we mentioned the posted sign, the ranger laughed and replied "that sign is older than I am".  🤣  (The standard automobile lot has a ticket/gate system, so those folks definitely were being charged the $2/hour fee while parked; RV for the win!)

With that sorted out, we got our tickets for the 9:20 a.m. home tour and had just a few minutes to look around before having to head out the back and across the street to the house.

The Lincolns lived in the house from 1844 until moving to Washington D.C. in 1861, and although the house has been restored to its 1860 appearance only a small smattering of the original furnishings still exist (most having been sold off before their move).  NPS has done a really good job, though, of furnishing the house with period-appropriate pieces, often based on available historic drawings / photographs, to give visitors a feel for what the rooms probably were like back then.

Our tour of the house started where guests would have been received back in the day: in the Formal Parlor.  This parlor is where Lincoln was handed the letter from the Republican National Committee informing him of the party's nomination of him for president in 1860.  The rocking chair by the front fireplace is one of the pieces that is likely to have been owned by the Lincolns.  The room has a wooden divider in it that can be closed to separate it into a separate Front Parlor . . .

. . . and Rear Parlor.

Next we moved into the Dining Room.  The Dining Room and Kitchen were originally one large room when the Lincolns first bought the house, but was divided into separate rooms during their remodel / expansion.

The Sitting Room was where the family often spent their evenings.  The boys could play in here (checkers and chess reported to be two of their favorite games, although rumor has it that wresting with their father on the floor may also have been an activity).  The olde tyme Viewmaster predecessor (a.k.a. "stereoscope") on the table may have actually belonged to the Lincolns.

Heading up the stairs to the second floor brought us to a small foyer, where Mary could sit and sew while looking out the front window.

On one side of the foyer was the Guest Room.

On the other side of the foyer was Abraham's half of the Master Suite.  The room was used not only for sleeping, but also for working (note the small desk in the corner).

Through the doorway was Mary's half.  The two youngest boys, sleeping on a trundle, shared this room with her until the oldest moved away to prep school.

Across the hallway is the Boys' Room, which the two youngest (ages nine and seven at the time) were sharing when their father was elected president.

Down the hall was the Hired Girl's Room.  The Hired Girl helped around the house with the cooking, cleaning, and watching the children.  The wooden floors in this room are believed to be the original (as is the bannister on the main stairwell).

Heading down the back stairwell brought us to the kitchen.  The stove is believed to be the original.  While the room may not seem very large, NPS notes "it is only slightly smaller than the entire log cabin that Mr. Lincoln was born in".

On the far end of the back yard was a building that used to be the stables, and next to that was the old outhouse.

After the tour, we returned to the Visitor Center in time to catch the "Meet and Greet with Abe and Mary Lincoln" - one of the several "History Comes Alive" events scheduled throughout the day (and one of the benefits of visiting somewhere during the actual tourist season, instead of outside of it as much of our earlier trip had been).

While we were back in the Visitor Center, we stopped in to the theater to watch the 27 minute Abraham Lincoln: A Journey to Greatness film - which was quite good, and apparently currently available on YouTube, in case you'd like to watch it without having to journey out to Springfield yourself. 😉 Then we had a little time to begin exploring the rest of the Historic Site, which is basically a four block area around the Lincoln home.  Only 13 of the lots have houses on them now, and of those only a few of them are open to the public to enter (now housing various interpretive displays, not restored to their 1860's state like the Lincoln home has been).

One of the enterable houses was the Arnold House, which sits across the street from the Lincoln house.  Inside were interpretive displays on the Lincoln neighborhood, and historic preservation.

The Cook House:

The Miller House, Sprigg House, and Corneau House:

Despite being so new that it's not noted on the map yet, the Corneau House (which sits kitty-corner to the Lincoln house) had one of the most creative interpretive displays we've seen in awhile.  It consisted of large touchscreens on which you could flip through short graphic novels describing the lives of some of Lincoln's neighbors.  Although obviously targeted toward younger visitors, we enjoyed flipping through the stories all the same.

The Miller House (again), Dubois House, and Shutt House:

We returned to the Visitor Center with the intention of attending "Lincoln's Farewell Speech" (another of the scheduled "History Comes Alive" events) but were unable to find where it was supposed to be (the schedule only listed times and titles, not locations, and nothing was happening where the earlier "Meet and Greet..." had been).  We thought about standing in line to ask at the information desk, but heard the sound of singing coming from the theater and realized that the "Lincoln Troubadours" (on the schedule for a half hour earlier) were still performing so just went to the theater and listened to their last few numbers instead.  The Troubadours turned out to be an a cappella group, and we thought they sounded pretty good together.

We continued our self-guided walking tour by visiting the Dean House, which had exhibits on the Lincoln's family life - as well as a couple of models showing the evolution of the Lincoln home starting from what it looked like when they first bought it in 1844...

...through the remodel to the form we toured in the morning.

The Beedle House and the Lyon House:

Having pretty much seen everything we wanted to see at the Historic Site, we decided to walk the four blocks out to see the capitol building.

We had a late lunch in the T42 before getting ready to head out.  A last interesting, parting factoid that is in the foyer of the Visitor Center:  Gerald Ford is the only U.S. President to have served as a NPS park ranger.

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Leaving Springfield we headed east to our next destination, crossing over into Indiana around 5:10 p.m. (and changing back into Eastern Time shortly thereafter).

After traveling 139 miles from Springfield we arrived at the campground in Turkey Run State Park, which would serve as our base of operations for the next four nights.

Dinner that night was sausages, vegan meatballs, and fries cooked in the air fryer.

After dishes, we had showers in the shower house and were delighted to find on our return that the fireflies were out.  So we stayed up and watched them for awhile.

The weather was still quite warm (low for the day was 72 degrees) but our camp site came with power hookups so we plugged in and ran the air conditioner all night which made things much more pleasant.  After the day's activities, we finally went to bed around midnight.

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