Springfield, Illinois – a visit with Abe Lincoln and other stuff

As earlier mentioned, I did get a ticket to visit the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum.  Having never been to a Presidential Museum I have nothing to compare it to, but I did enjoy it.

There were a number of exhibits, starting with an explanation of the background of presidential museums – why we have them, what we can learn, why even new items are relevant. There was also an exhibit of Lincoln’s life, with a lot focusing on the civil war and emancipation proclamation. It’s very interesting to me as a lifelong Democrat, that it was the Republicans who seemed to have pushed for freeing the slaves. Also interesting was that many northerners believed in fighting the civil war to save the union, but not so much to free the slaves.

Antoher really good exhibit was of all of the musicians from various genres who were born, raised or lived in Illinois. This exhibit came along with a (sanitized) set of headphones with amplifiers showing videos and playing music from each genre.

Lastly of note was that before his death in 2008, Tim Russert recorded an exhibit of campaign coverage from the 1860 election. It took the issues and candidates and portrayed them in the way we have election coverage today.

I finally made it to the famed Route 66, had a beautiful sunset in the campground and