Lincoln's home, burial site and veteran's memorial site

We left early today so that we would not be so warm, it made no difference,

 it was still in the 90's with muggy air. Our first stop was Lincoln's home when he was a senator, he lived in this house for 17 years prior to moving to Washington DC.

  Lincoln's home is the only National Park in the state of Illinois

Back yard

The history books state that Lincoln's wife, Mary, suffered from migraine headaches; with the combinations of the rugs and wall paper-that would give  me a headache too. The homes around where Lincoln lived were inhabited by many famous people in Lincoln's era, but a tour was only provided for Lincoln's  home. For the other homes, we dialed a number on our cell phones and punched in certain numbers (posted on each house) and a narrator talked about each one.
That way we could hear about each house at our own pace. What an inovative way for the public to learn about history.

We had such good Walleye fish yesterday we went back today and added green fried tomatoes and a funnel cake, lunch was really good, protein, vegetable and starch (very well balanced)

Lincoln's nose is shiny because legend has it; if your rub his nose it will bring you good luck.



In the tomb there were many of these miniature bronze statues of Lincoln,
in the plaque below it told were the life size statue is located.

When we left the tomb we heard the most beautiful music. We drove to find out what and where the heavenly music was coming from, it was these 2 bagpipe players. They had been in a bagpipe competition and had placed first. They were playing to show their respect to the civil war soldiers buried just to their right. The sounds were heavenly  and they played several songs for us, the last one being "Amazing Grace". I was standing there with tears just streaming down my face.
Ron and I were both moved beyond words.

The above are war memorials, in the same cemetery that Lincoln is buried, but about 2-3 blocks away. The Korean war memorial had sayings around the base. We thought this one was interesting. "RETREAT HELL WE'RE ATTACKING IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION."

We had another amazing day on our journey

Just as I was finishing the blog-it started to rain and I mean rain!!! thunder and lightning and then the wind. It got so bad we pulled in our slides and battened down the hatches. I have  never seen it rain and blow so bad--and they say it rains in Seattle!! HA