Chapter 11

Last night as we were going to sleep, I got the "dangerous thunderstorms" alert, and we saw lots of lightning and heard lots of thunder. No tornadoes that we know of though. This morning was the best motel breakfast yet. They had custom made omelets, and even "waffle cakes" -- "the pancake that cooks on a waffle iron" (which pretty much makes them waffles, right? I didn't try them.) They no longer had congee, as they did in 2012 for their Chinese patrons.

We drove south and west (yes, we know) to Springfield, Illinois. A couple thoughts on roads: Illinois has terrible roads, bumpy, patchy and potholed. Sometimes going over the train tracks is the smooth part of the road. Wisconsin was a little better, but not much. South Dakota, on the other hand, had beautiful roads with many wide smooth lanes and no traffic. Whoever their senators were in the 1960s and 70s did a great job. Another thought: everyone in the Midwest crosses against the light, though not us Seattleites. The lights are really long, and maybe if they were shorter, people would actually wait. But check out those gas prices!

The sky got pretty exciting on our drive, and we saw lightning, but it passed in front of us, and we were never in rain or near thunder.

Our first stop was in Petersberg, Illinois, at Lincoln's New Salem State Park. When we all chose things we wanted to see on this trip, Lincoln stuff in Illinois was at the top of Tom's list. New Salem was a town that Lincoln lived in early in his adult years. There is one building that is original to that time, the cooperage. The rest, about 15 more, are recreations built by the CCC in the 1930s. On other days of the week, they have docents and tours and people blacksmithing and weaving, etc, but not on Mondays. That was OK with us, because we knew the eclipse was coming up, and we didn't want to be driving while it was happening.

We drove to Springfield, which is the capital of Illinois, as well as

Lincoln central. We drove straight to the capitol building, thinking that if there were any eclipse events, that was a likely place. There weren't any events, but someone gave us an extra pair of glasses, and we were able to watch the eclipse to proceed to 95% covered. It didn't get dark, like in places that were 100%, but it definitely got dim, and the light was kind of a funny color. Lots of capitol workers on their lunch breaks came out and watched, and we shared our glasses with various people.

Nora is a little obsessed with cicadas and the VERY loud noise they

make, especially in the evening. They really started up around the time of maximum coverage. They do make noises in the day too, but it did seem to increase at that time. The funny thing is that they are extremely loud -- Nora said it's like listening to a fire alarm going off. But people from the Midwest don't even hear them. Nora has asked what the noise was and Midwesterners don't even know what she's talking about.

After the eclipse we did our tour of the Illinois State Capitol building.

This one was quite dark inside (and had light bulbs that save energy but make your pictures look bad). I liked the frieze around the bottom of the dome. Fun fact: you have to go through a metal detector to go inside, the first one we've been to with any kind of security at all. Also, when the Capitol first opened, the dome was illuminated with 144 gas jets. The carbon emitted from the gas jets made the dome black and invisible. It was cleaned in 1986 after 100 years.

Next we drove across town to go on the Lincoln house tour. This is a house he lived in with his family up until they moved to the White House. It is in a whole neighborhood of old homes, some of which are being fixed up, some are open, and some have offices, like the offices of Senator Dick Durbin. We had been told that tours are free (as Lincoln's son insisted), but you have to get tickets and they sell out early. We thought we might have to wait until tomorrow morning, so we could line up early. In fact, there weren't many people at all, and we were on a tour that started 15 minutes later.

We were taken all through the house, and some of the furniture is original -- like the wardrobe that Lincoln hung his clothes in, and some is from the era but did not actually belong to them.

After that, we looked at a few more houses, but realized we needed to hurry a few blocks way to the Lincoln Museum, so we could have an hour before it closed. It had model of various events, which seemed a little cheesy at first, but they were balanced with artifacts and quotes and information, so it didn't seem that way. It started with Lincoln as a boy in a log cabin, and meeting Mary, and being elected. Then you moved into the White House, and all the controversies over the war. One thing they had was "The Civil War in 4 minutes", which showed how the boundaries changed. There was even a recreation of the house chambers in the old capitol, with Lincoln's casket lying in state. It was very interesting.

After the museum closed, we walked around town to see the old capitol building, the Springfield depot, Lincoln's law offices, and the "Lincoln depot", from which he left for Washington DC. We had a good dinner in a brewpub, and moved on to our motel about 15 minutes away.