Day 5 - It's all about Abe.

At 3.40am I was rudely awoken by a loud thud, followed by Jackie wailing & crying. I jumped out of bed to find Jackie virtually naked with her backside wedged into the deep gap at the bottom of the door steps. I had to use all of my strength & pull her back out.

HOW? Jackie has been sleeping on the bed above the cab. Apparently she got out of bed & attempted to step down on to a chair, missed her footing & somersaulted on to the floor and then down the steps, at the same time smashing her head into the fire extinguisher. What a sorry mess!

We both got back to sleep & woke up at 6.30 & 8.00am respectively. I went out & found Linda, the campsite manager & paid up for our stopover. Linda was lovely & we hadn’t buggered up the night before. I showered on site, but Jackie was too shy & squeezed into the RV shower. By the way, the campsite was lovely in daylight, it was just a shame we got there so late the previous evening AND my ‘Adventure Sandals’ were getting their first airing of the trip.

After a breakfast of cereal & English muffins (no more skillets for a while), we headed out on the road to Springfield, Illinois, the home of Abraham Lincoln. After some good attempts at going down one way streets the wrong way looking for a car park , we finally decided to stop in a parking space on the road. Only 25c for 30 minutes, another bargain. We spent a dollar.

First stop was the imposing Illinois State Capitol with it’s zinc domes that shown brightly in the sun. There we a few statues in the grounds so I took a photo or 2, particularly of Abraham Lincoln smack bang in front of the building. We investigated as to whether were allowed to look inside & discovered we were allowed to pretty much walk round the whole building. It was stunning, all marble walls & floors, a glass dome & loads of statues. The building still houses the legislative & executive branches o the Government of the State of Illinois.

We then passed The Governor’ house & headed to the Abraham Lincoln historic district. We went into the Old State Capitol, slightly inferior to Illinois State Capitol from the outside, but inside it had the feel more of a museum. I took a photo & we left fearing we might have to pay. We took in the Abraham Lincoln statues dotted all around Union Square Park.

We the entered the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, but quickly left when we were directed to where we could buy tickets. We returned to the RV & drove a couple of blocks to Abraham Lincoln’s house. It was in a road of houses now owned by the US National Park Service & it was free. Abraham Lincoln lived In his house between 1844 & 1861. It was interesting, but Jackie wasn’t happy that they had painted the houses.

A final visit in Springfield was to Oak Ridge Cemetery to visit the Tomb of Abraham Lincoln. Oak Ridge Cemetery is pretty big, because we drove in & managed to get lost. After a quite a lengthy cemetery driving tour, we found our way back out & literally abandoned the RV just entrance & walked back in.

The 117 foot obelisk looked magnificent. As I took a photo, a tour guide came over & said “ You won’t ever get a better time to take a photo. clear blue skies, just a couple of school parties & the blossom in full bloom”. He was right. We then went inside to see the brass statue of Lincoln & his tomb.

We were now all Abe’d out & hit the Highway 55 southbound. We pulled off at a tiny place called Farmersville for Jackie to make a coffee & sandwich. We then carried on Highway 55 which runs side by side with Route 66, so we were able to see some of the Route 66 landmarks, including Pink Elephant Antiques.

We pulled off at Collinsville & somehow managed to miss ‘The World’s Largest Catsup Bottle’. This would be the last time we saw Route 66 whilst in the RV!

We now headed westwards to Cahokia Mounds State National Park, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Cahokia Mounds is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American City & is described as one of the greatest cities of the world. Cahokia was larger than London in 1250 AD. The park’s Visitors centre contained displays depicting life back then & lots of Native Americans selling their wares.

Cahokia now consists of 80 mounds in 3.5 square miles, but in it’s heyday the city was nearly twice as late. We decided to scale the largest mound - Monks Mound (well I did & Jackie felt obliged to follow). The summit provided us with decent views all around including St. Louis & it’s Gateway Arch. The site is sacred for Native Americans & I am really glad we made the effort to visit.

We then hotfooted it up to Granite City to Walmart for more provisions. Amongst other things, we went in for a dish cloth & came out with a pack of 18 & their smallest bottle of tomato sauce - enough to sink a battleship! We also had never seen so many weirdos (l won’t go into details) all in one place, everyone had something wrong with them or were just absolutely filthy or both - we fitted in well!

At Walmart, I rang the local KOA campsite. They were just closing for the night but agreed to stay on for our arrival. We arrived at 6.00pm & hooked up. It was only now that we discovered that as a consequence of Jackie’s fall, her head had smashed a plastic cover on the inside of the door. Brilliant....that’s some of the deposit lost already!

The site was not as scenic as last nights, but it suited our purposes. A nice hot shower & after a nice cold beer at the outside tables, Jackie cooked Arabiata pasta. We were both asleep around 9.00pm.

FITBIT - 16,300 steps / 7.6 miles.

Song of the Day - Route 66 by Chuck Berry.

Bonus Song of the Day :-

Abraham Lincoln by Clutch.Read more