Road Trip - Day 2

After eating breakfast and checking out of our hotel, to begin our second day we visited the Indiana State Capitol Building.

Afterwards, we entered Illinois and drove to Springfield. Our first stop in Springfield was Abraham Lincoln's home.

Here you can see where he hung his famous hat.

We learned so much about Abraham Lincoln. He was a great man.

This is the room where he found out he was elected President of the United States.

The styles of the age were very interesting.

Lincoln wanted to provide for his family in a way to make sure they did not suffer some of the deprivations that he did. For the day, this was a very nice kitchen. Even though they had servant help, Mary Todd did the cooking. Interestingly, this little kitchen was the same size of the whole cabin that Lincoln was born in.

Similar to Nauvoo, Springfield has restored many of the buildings around Lincoln's home; they, as you can see, have live actors reenacting life during the times.

Aliyah liked all the fancy dresses.

We next visited Lincoln's law offices. It was a very modest and unpretentious building, so unlike the law offices of today.

This building, on one level, was a general store; on the other levels it was the law offices and a courthouse. In fact, Joseph Smith was tried and acquitted before a federal judge in this same building around this same time.

One observer noted, as he entered Lincoln's office, that there was mud on the floor and some scattered seeds that had actually begun to sprout.

Just outside the law offices is the Old State Capitol Building. In fact, the Capitol was moved to Springfield in large part because Lincoln, as a State congressman, lobbied for it.

We then visited the present-day Capitol Building. It is, in my (Jeff's) opinion, one of the prettiest of the ones we have seen (I rank it next to Pennsylvania's).

A mile or so away is the cemetery where Lincoln is buried. The tomb was built using marble taken, interestingly, from Mount Nebo, in Utah.

After visiting Lincoln's tomb, we drove to Keokuk, Iowa, checked into our hotel, got some dinner, and had some swimming fun.