40 hours in Springfield

Which Springfield?  Why, Illinois, of course.  Land of Lincoln.

After six months at home, with a planned trip to Puerto Vallarta long since cancelled, Dan & I needed to get out of the house and out of town.  Options for travelling are limited these days.  International travel is nigh-well out.  Same with plane travel.  As much as I’d like to visit family, most are in Florida - not somewhere I care to visit in the era of COVID nor especially in summer.  Dan & I also have family on the West Coast – too far to go by car.  Niagara Falls?  The border with Canada is closed and we’ve already been there anyway.  Cape Cod is enticing but requires planning and reservations well in advance. 

Limited by our allowed time off and a trip of no more than one day by car, where to go?

With an eye on experiencing Americana at the time when America is at risk of being lost, we decided on Springfield, Illinois - an eight-hour drive away.  Springfield would allow us a change of scenery within the restrictions of a socially distanced Labor Day weekend. 

We left Saturday morning.  Thanks to a friend’s recommendation of the Waze app, I was able to avoid both toll roads and run-ins with State troopers – who were out in force in the western part of Ohio and throughout Indiana.  By Saturday afternoon, we were in Springfield, checked in at the hotel, and Dan & I were walking in the four block square which preserves Lincoln’s home and neighborhood much as it was when he was alive.  

                                                                    Lincoln home 

Downtown Springfield is laid out in an easily learnable grid pattern and is highly walkable.  Streets running north/south are numbered and those running east/west are named – most are one-way.   Though many places were closed due to COVID and the holiday weekend we found a lovely Italian restaurant on 6^th Street – formerly a part of Route 66.  After dinner, we walked around the Old State Capitol and found an impromptu small scale music fest. 

Dan with one of the many statues near the Old Capitol

A small gathering

I generally don’t sleep well after a long day of driving, and Saturday night was no exception.  I didn’t much mind, as I could take in the view from our hotel room window and hear the trains passing by.  I remembered that despite the raging war, Lincoln insisted that the major infrastructure project of his time go forward during his Presidency: the Transcontinental Railroad.  The night gave way to Sunday morning, the start of our Lincoln Day. 

Early morning view from our hotel

More statues near the museum

Lincoln's words still relevant today.

Despite being dedicated to a man who died in 1865 – and of whom there are no living descendants – the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, dedicated in 2005, is a thoroughly modern experience.  This is beneficial because, unlike the Franklin Roosevelt or Harry Truman libraries, there are relatively few surviving artifacts from Lincoln’s tenure in the White House.   Most of what one sees, therefore, are recreations of Lincoln’s boyhood cabin, his courtship of Mary Todd, the Lincoln/Douglas debates, the Presidency, slavery in America, the Civil War, assassination and funeral, with a postscript on the Lincoln family after Abraham died.  Only one son, Robert, lived to old age – dying in 1926, four years after he attended the opening of the Lincoln Memorial.  Robert was responsible for overseeing the family legacy after his parents’ deaths – and sadly he destroyed most of his mother’s correspondence after having her committed to an insane asylum.  Much has been said of Mary Todd Lincoln’s “madness”, but wouldn’t anyone who had lost three of four children and witnessed her husband’s murder take refuge in eccentric behavior and rituals?  The museum puts much of this in perspective in two introductory films that wipe away the miasmic cobwebs that obscured Lincoln’s legacy for over a century after his death. 

 

The museum was a few blocks’ walk from our hotel.  But Lincoln’s Tomb required a drive to Oak Ridge Cemetery.  Mary Todd Lincoln insisted on the site, at the top of a peaceful hill, for Lincoln’s burial.  The tomb took several years to build and had to be renovated several times – not least because of attempts to steal Lincoln’s corpse.  Rumors of theft became so pronounced that, when the President’s remains were permanently interred in 1901, his casket was opened once again just to be certain he was still there.  (He was, and his body had been so thoroughly embalmed his face was easily recognizable.)    

While waiting for our tour guide, we saw a family of yokels carrying on like idiots while the father read parts of the Gettysburg Address in a mocking tone.  The accent was Southern and no doubt they were resentful descendants of Confederates.  Why they would visit Lincoln’s Tomb only to disrespect it is beyond rational thought. 

It was now afternoon, and since we had time to spare, drove south of Springfield taking in sites near the old Route 66.  Truth be told, there was not much to see beyond farmland, some run-down shopping strips, and the White Oaks Mall.  There was also a drive-in theatre, which was not open Sunday. 

Labor Day was the drive home during which we were delayed by a deluge of rain north of Columbus.  It was a trying drive but we were glad to be home.