June 19, Springfield, MO

Entrance to the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, IL

This was our Springfield to Springfield day.  I noted that Springfield, Illinois was just about 150 miles straight west on I-74 and 72. I had been to the Lincoln Presidential Museum before on a VMCCA tour and enjoyed it thoroughly.  It didn't take much to convince Nance to take it in.  The Mercedes with its new tires was game also. She could now cruise at 75 mph with an eerie smoothness.

Thanks to our trusty GPS, we made it to the museum through Springfield's maze of one ways without too many mistakes. (we still make driving mistakes, but now the GPS tattles on us immediately)  We ended up spending several hours inside. 

Nance stands with the Lincoln Family

I was fascinated with the graphic film, "The Civil War in Four Minutes".  Civil war buffs may be horrified by its simplification, but this film did more for me than five hours of PBS documentaries.   It was simply a map of the US with the moving front lines drawn with exploding flashes at the time and place of major battles and events.  All this was accompanied by a ticker tallying up accumulated Union and Confederate casualties.  It was a mesmerizing display.  It was quite popular, it held everyone's attention.   We bought a DVD of the video, I could not find a legal copy of it on the internet.

The rest of the museum was incredibly well done, complete with dioramas, life size manikins, and even holographic movies.  The emancipation proclamation, the civil war, the assassination and the funeral were covered from both sides of this very conflicted era.  Lincoln was presented as a complex and tortured figure, not just a mythical hero.  We were both impressed and were in no hurry to leave the place.

But leave we did, starting on I-55 paralleling old route 66 toward St. Louis and points west.  I

The cars were tightly packed at Country Classic Cars

managed to remember the old car dealer Country Classic Cars was on old Route 66 in Staunton, IL.  We couldn't resist stopping.  We found three or four enormous car barns holding hundreds of driver quality collector cars.  Each car was marked on the windshield with a brief description and a price (eg: "Runs good but needs clutch, owner restored, parked inside for 20 years, $5000").  These were decent old cars from the 40's 50's and 60's.  They were mostly less desirable sedans, but there were some convertibles, coupes and hardtops.  Few were priced over $10,000.  I thought many of the cars were likely owned and loved by an owner who passed away.  It was all very dusty and quite a contrast from the ACD museum.  But it was a hoot and we easily enjoyed an hour kicking tires on their enormous inventory.  You can check it out on-line: http://www.countryclassiccars.com/ 



This 40 Chevy is quite similar to our own Ingaborg.

It was getting warm and late in the day.  We decided to move on and attempt to make the other Springfield in Missouri.  We were foiled by traffic and accidents in St. Louis.  Graphic signs from the highway department warned us to avoid I-55 into St. Louis so we diverted to the northern leg of the I-270 beltway.  We  continued counterclockwise on I-270, as we endured scolding by the GPS.  We met I-44 on the SW edge of St. Louis and headed towards OK city.  It worked, we only had a few minutes of slow rush hour traffic to deal with.

We were fairly exhausted after all the great stops but slogged on to a fairly late arrival in Springfield to yet another Super 8.  Somehow we managed to rack up 490 miles today.