Lincoln's home
He had a nicer backyard than me!
The sitting room. Notice the nicely clashing decor
The kitchen. Mom, could you live with this?
This should give you some perspective
View to the west (zoomed in -- Cards lost to the Cubs, 6-3)
First on the agenda: finish what I started last night. First I headed to Lincoln's home, which was his Springfield home for the 17 years prior to his presidency. It's where he lived most of his adult life. They have restored the house, as well as the entire neighborhood around it, and it's all as though it was still 1860, even the streets. It's very quaint, actually. The house tour is over very quickly, but it's enjoyable. Apparently the design of the time was to purposefully make all of the colors and patterns clash -- they believed in harmony through conflict or something like that. The decor is hideous, but apparently just as Mary Todd Lincoln actually decorated it.
After that, I headed up to the cemetery where his family tomb is. It's actually in a huge public cemetery in Springfield. It's still active -- there was a burial there while I was on the grounds.
The tomb and the monument are enormous and moving. You can walk around inside, where there are statues and carvings of his more famous speeches. The cemetery itself is very attractive, as those things go as well.
While I was inside the tomb, it started raining. That's because I washed the car yesterday. The front causing this rain wasn't supposed to make it this far south, but it wasn't out of the question. Oh well ... I was headed south, so I shouldn't have to put up with much rain.
I headed to St. Louis to see the Gateway Arch, which is really part of the Thomas Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. It commemorates Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase and the westward exploration that ensued. I actually learned that at Mt. Rushmore. I never knew before that that the arch had anything to do with Jefferson.
It was still raining in St. Louis, but just barely. It wasn't supposed to rain this far south!
The arch is gorgeous. I've driven by it, once before, back in '88. I hadn't realized that the exterior surface is entirely stainless steel. I didn't realize that it's just as tall as it is wide. It's not a parabolic arch, it's a ... shoot, I forget the term (some mathematician, eh?)
Underneath the arch is the National Expansion Museum, which mostly concentrates on the exploration of the Missouri River that led to the Pacific.
Going up to the top of the arch is quite an ordeal. There are two "trams", which are really these trains of 8 connected round pods. Imagine one of those keychains made of little stainless steel balls. Take a length of that sort of thing 8 balls long, and that's what this tram is like. 5 people are crammed into each little ball, and if they are all adults, it's very tight. The door, for example, is just 4 feet high, the entire pod is probably less than 5 feet in diameter. You sit around the perimeter. Claustrophobic people need not apply.
The ride up takes only 4 minutes (and it's only 3 minutes down), but the line for the ride takes a whole 45 minutes or so. They try to keep you occupied while you wait, but it's a long time. Then when you get to the top, it's a little like the Statue of Liberty -- there are these little windows you can see out of. They are sloped an an angle so you can actually look both down and out -- and fortunately, rain doesn't distort your view.
The river-side view is pretty boring, but the city-side view was great. There was a Cardinals game in the stadium next door and the view of that was pretty nifty from way up there.
Waiting in the long lines I met quite a few people, including, of course, the people with whom I was jammed into a tiny little tram pod. In line, I met a group of people my age from the Boston area -- Sandra told me that my trip sounded "wicked neat," which clinched the fact that she was from Peabody, MA. On the way up I was with a family from Arkansas, who basically told me not to bother visiting their state. One of Sandra's friends just moved to Boston from Oklahoma City, who told me not to bother with his home state either! Sheesh.
Anyway, after I left the arch, I headed south towards Arkansas. My plan was to go find something to do in Arkansas (despite the family's warnings not to bother), then head east through Tennessee, north to Kentucky and to Ohio for the SCCA Runoffs. Actually yesterday I was thinking that I wasn't going to be able to pad out the time between then at the Runoffs, and that maybe I could scoot down to Texas to see my Texas friends. But when I calculated it all out, I realized that even just going to Dallas (leaving Austin for later) was going to get me to the Runoffs too late if I wanted to spend as much time in Tennessee and Kentucky as I'd planned. Oh well.
Anyway, I stopped for the night in Portageville, MO, which is basically right on the border with both Arkansas and Tennessee (and Kentucky is very close too). It turns out that the route to Memphis (from which I was going to turn west to Little Rock) takes me through Arkansas anyway -- so if I can't think of something to do in Arkansas, at least just going to Memphis and then heading ENE to Nashville will still let me check Arkansas off the list. That's probably what I'll do.