Lincoln Home National Historic Site (Springfield, IL)

It seems that my blog posts are just one trip recap after another. Take a few life changes that involve picking up stakes from Ohio and a 40-hour cross-country car drive and I get a chance to see a few interesting destinations on the way back home to Southern California.

As part of my exodus out of the Midwest, I stopped in Peoria to see a friend with the intention of continuing south, catching Interstate 40, and shooting across the southern part of the country to avoid as much of the snow and ridiculously cold weather of the winter storms as possible.

By just pure calendar timing, I passed through Springfield, IL on the way to St. Louis, MO on the day before Abraham Lincoln's birthday. My original plan was to go visit Lincoln's Tomb, but since it was under renovation and cleanup until the beginning of April, I took a detour and decided to go to Lincoln's House instead.

Springfield is a major city on the original US Route 66. To find Lincoln's house, all one must do is follow the signs.

The people of Springfield, IL take much pride in being the pre-presidential home of the 16th President of the United States. I will have to say though, Downtown Springfield is very quiet other than that. However, I did get to go to a pretty cool place nearby for lunch and I'll be sharing that destination in another blog post.

The Lincoln Home is a free admission and is open to the public. There are daily guided tours and you get to see every part of the house. Most of the furniture and items in the house are original and many items actually belonged to the Lincoln family. The things that aren't (including the wallpaper) are very accurate reproductions based off of historical documents and photographs.

For more information about the Lincoln Home National Historic Site, visit http://www.nps.gov/liho/.