Back to the Trip:
We left the Route 66 Hotel in Springfield, IL at what seemed like the butt crack of dawn and headed over to Lincoln Family ma
mausoleum. (Guess what? We're watching a show about Lincoln right now. Guess what else? Lincoln died April 15, 1865. We missed the 145th anniversary of his death by one day).
The weather had turned from bright and sunny to cool, gray and rainy. Lincoln’s tomb was a marvel. Really. One of the interpretive plaques suggests the county poured all of it’s collective grief into the building of this monument. I can now speak from personal experience and definitively say that Americans in 1865 were indeed very sad. Not only were they really bummed about Lincoln but the Civil War and Lincoln’s role in ending the hostilities were on their mind. On the second level- yes, folks, this thing has levels- there are bronze statues of what look like soldiers involved in skirmishes all around the perimeter. Also, carved into the second level stone, which I think is granite, are the abbreviations of all the states that had joined the union at the time of the monument’s erection. We REALLY wanted to stand next to the giant Del and give our home state props, but the second level was closed. We were enveloped in sadness.
As soon as we pulled into the cemetery the mood turned sober and introspective and once we walked inside the monument it was even more so. There was a long hallway covered in brown marble and leading to the room where Lincoln, his wife Mary Todd Lincoln and three of their four sons (who died in childhood) are buried. Mini bronzes of the many Lincoln statues that exist in larger form elsewhere in the country are interspersed along the hallway. I took a picture of each one. Katie though I was being excessive. I just read this to her, and she wants me to tell you the excessive part came from taking 2 or 3 of each one. What? I can always delete them later.
I wouldn’t be a museum educator if I didn’t at least mention that the interpreter inside the tomb was AWESOME. He did a great job of reminding people that Abraham Lincoln was a real person, not just a national treasure. I will love him forever for remarking, with a hard edge to his voice, “that people say Mary Todd was insane, but remember EVERYONE is this room died long before her”. Dude, I’d be totally insane if most of my family died before me too. As an aside, he was like, 50 had had HUGE gauges in his ears. Katie said it gave him an edge. I don’t know what it gave him, but he was an interesting character for sure.
We left there and made our way immediately to a roadside shop that sold every kind of Lincoln souvenir imaginable. We wrote and mailed postcards to the kids and used the facilities. The bathroom was pretty cool. The walls were covered in wood paneling which had obviously been there awhile since there was graffiti carved into the walls. My favorite was “This place sucks!” and “April was here 1989”
It was late morning by now and we were back on the Mother Road and headed for the World’s Largest Ketchup Bottle.
That is not my designation. That’s what the fool thing calls itself. According to our guidebook it’s a 70 ft water tower sitting on a 100 ft stand. It’s freaking enormous. We were scanning the 
horizon looking for it and all of a sudden the road rose up and there it was! We screamed with delight. In order to fit the whole thing in the picture we had to stand across the street. This little side trip took us over an hour out of our way, but it was worth it. The kids are very excited to see our pictures of the bottle and underpants. I was desperate to visit Cahokia Monument State Park but it had really started to rain by now and I wanted to have time to explore the mounds so we’re going to hit it on the way back.
By this point in the day the theme has become disappointment. It’s taking forever to get anywhere and we’re afraid we won’t make it to California before we have to turn around. We’re forgetting it's more about the journey than the destination.
We leave the great condiment in the sky and made our way to St. Louis, still on Rt. 66 to meet up with my friend Katie who is currently in grad school at University of Indiana, Bloomington. I was bummed because we weren’t passing anywhere near that and I hadn’t seen her for like two years. Thankfully she saw my Facebook post and said she would be in STL for the Society of American Archaeology annual meeting and we should stop by and say hi.
On the way we stop at the Missouri Welcome Center. I bring in my camera just in case there is something to be photographed. Good thing I did! Here is Katie washing her hands in a FULLY automatic sink. I think she's reading the directions to make sure she's doing it right. You 
stick your hands under the hood, soap comes out, water comes on, you scrub then the dryer turns out all without you having to touch a thing. Someone in Missouri government must be a germophobe.
After I'm done with the photo ops I hand the camera to her while I go, and when I come out she takes a picture of me washing my hands and is promptly called out by a stranger for taking pictures in a bathroom. HA, HA! She, somewhat sheepishly, responds with "she's my sister" and we make like trees and leave. Sorry, Boo. I didn't mean to embarrass you.
We pick up Katie B at the conference center and made our way to the Arch. I don’t know what I was expecting but the Arch complex is much bigger than I thought. We lucked out and got a spot right in front of the Arch! How crazy is that? I also parallel parked! Go me! Rock On with my bad self! Actually it was really easy to park a 4 door sedan. Maybe it’s just mom-mobiles I can’t park. Props to Katie M for telling me which way to turn the wheel. We go into the Arch complex and get metal detected and all that jazz. So, there is a whole museum underneath this thing. I wasn’t too impressed. It was very light on interpretation and artifacts and heavy on big photographs and quotes plastered all over the walls. It was aesthetically pleasing, but in my opinion not very intellectually pleasing. Why go when I can get all those things in a book and read it comfortably at home?
Did you know it costs $10 to go up in this thing? I did not. I kind of expected it to be free like the Washington Monument. Whatever. It’s only 10 bucks and when are we going to be here again? By the way, how many people have uttered that very sentiment and ended up broke at the end of their trip having been nickeled and dimed to near bankruptcy?
So we make our way to elevators taking us up and it’s something out of a low budget sci-fi show. There are large rectangular doors starting at the bottom and going up a flight of stairs about a story and a half tall. Not that my beloved Star Trek is low budget, but I seriously thought they looked like escape 
pods from The Enterprise. Katie B confessed she was thinking the same thing! Actually now that I think about it, they really reminded me of the escape pods from Space Ball One. Anyway, each of the large gray doors has a smaller door cut into it. The arch workers queue us up in front of them and had us watch a short film a la 
Disney World. The doors open and to revel a pod with six swiveling seats. All of us wonder how we’re going to fit in them. No worries, we manage to squeeze ourselves in and up we go. There is nothing to see on the way up except the guts of the arch.
When we get out we walk up some more steps to the observation deck. Whoa! The floor rises on one end to the center declines on the other end. We were definitely at the top of the arch. It made me dizzy. Pukey. And giddy all at once. There are teeny, tiny windows to look out of both sides. I finally saw the Mississippi River!! And a barge! And our car! Katie B sees her hotel and the baseball field!
We come down and try to get a picture of us in front of the arch. It's too freakin' big! For the 487th time this trip I'm wishing I had a wide angle lens for my camera.
Check me out! I'm standing IN. YES!! IN. th
e Mississippi River. Ignore my hugely swollen feet. I swell bad when sitting in the car for too long.
This was a very long day. Part 2 tomorrow. It's 2:00 in the morning here and I can't stay awake a minute longer. We're close to Oklahoma and Katie B assures us as we move west the road really opens up and it moves a lot faster. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!
Good Night, Friends
Sorry you didn't get over to Cahokia. It's rockin' awesome. You would have been geeking out, big time. If you have time, it's worth checking out on your way back.
ReplyDeleteSounds like the arch wasn't knocking your socks off (although you WERE wearing sandals...). It's definitely one of those things I think people ought to do once so they can say they did it.
What is your friend in grad school for at B-town? Mike and I, who collectively hold four degrees four different fields from that bee-you-teeful place, are aheming at you that its *Indiana University*. Get it straight, Delawarean.