Lincoln Museum and Tomb

We stopped in Springfield, IL on Wednesday, August 11, to see the Lincoln Museum and Tomb.  We have been by here so many times and never stopped.  It’s well worth the time to stop, the museum was really good.  There were several sections, you started with his young life, through his political start, then the White House years and his death.  There was a theatre presentation called Lincoln’s Eyes.  The theatre was really nice and there were laser lights and vibrations on the chair that went off during the movie.

Outside of the museum.

Railroad station across the street from the museum. 

 

Inside the foyer of the museum, the only place they would let you take pictures.

This is Lincoln’s Tomb, the cemetery was about 2 miles from the museum.    

I thought this was interesting, that there are no living direct descendants of Lincoln.  The last one died in 1985.  I guess he didn’t have any children or maybe they died before he did. 

This was inside the tomb, the inside was marble and granite and it was in a circle that you walked around.  The employee inside the tomb told us that the granite came from St. Genevieve, Missouri.   Lincoln’s wife, Mary, and their 3 sons are buried here. 

There is also a library, it’s mainly for private research. 

This is now the end of the trip.  We got home Wednesday evening and picked Kasey up.  He was really happy to see us, but had a great time with GaGa and Grandpa.  He told them he didn’t want to go on any driving trips unless we took the camper.  :)

Port Washington and Pabst Mansion

On Monday evening, we camped on the shores of Green Bay at a campground.  We put up the tent right by the shoreline.  It was a quiet campground and we could hear the slapping of the waves from the lake along the shoreline.   I actually slept really good this time, probably because I didn’t sleep well the night before. 

We stopped at Port Washington, WI to view a light house that they had in the town.  We actually stopped to get gas, they had signs up for the light house so we thought we would drive to it. 

Needless to say, I was very disappointed with the town’s care of this light.  I know it’s nothing great, but the walk out to the light was littered with trash.  Not just trash from the day, but trash from weeks worth.  

Here is the view from the light back to the town.  It was really foggy, so we couldn’t see too much.  This whole walk out was freaky to me.  The water was really deep and there were no rails, I could just see myself tripping and falling in.  I was glad to get back to the parking lot.  There were a lot of really big fish though, you could see them swimming around. 

We stopped in Milwaukee and toured the Pabst Museum.  It was really neat.  Of course, you couldn’t take pictures inside, but here are a few from the outside and from the inside of the gift shop.

 

Pictured Rock National Park

We let the campground early Monday morning.  The road we took was a sandy drive the whole way.  It was gorgeous, with lake views, forest trees hanging over the road.  Our first stop was Grand Marias, to get gas, then we headed on to Sable Falls.  We hiked about 190 steps down to the lake, there was a series of three waterfalls that took the water down to the lake.  Then we hiked to the sand dunes.  I thought about my mom the whole time, because she would have had a hard time walking through the sand.  Once we were at the beach and mom couldn’t even walk on the sand because it hurt her feet.  :)

 

This is at the sand dune place. 

Pretty view from the top.  The sand dunes were pretty much covered in trees and plants.

 

Then we stopped at a park called Log Roll.  I was skeptical about what it was, figured we were going to have to hike a couple of miles to see anything, but I was pleasantly surprised.  It was a huge sand pile going out to the lake, where they used to roll the logs down to the lake to transport to the saw mill.  It was a 500 foot drop to the lake, all sand, they said it took only a few minutes to get down to the lake, but about an hour to get back up.  Needless to say, we didn’t go down there.

Then we headed to the next lighthouse, Au Sable Pt.  But the road was closed so we couldn’t go see it.

The next thing was the Pictured Landscape Cruise.

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Sault Ste. Marie and the Soo Locks

Sunday, we headed out of Mackinaw Island toward the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Our first stop was the Mystery Spot.  It’s a spot that is 300 feet where nothing seems right, a plumb bob won’t read plumb, a level will show a board is level, but when you stand on it, you are not standing straight.  Mark is convinced it was all an elaborate hoax, but I’m not really sure.  It all seems plausible to mean, I mean it’s called the Mystery Spot right?

 

 

Then we headed up to Sault Ste Marie to see the Soo Locks.  Sault Ste Marie is the 2nd oldest settlement in the United States, behind St. Augustine in Florida.

 

 

We took the scenic road around Lake Superior, stopped at a light house on the way, Point Iroquois Light Station.  We climbed to the top, and saw the big ship that went through the locks.

There were only 72 stairs going up to the light house.

After the lighthouse, we headed toward the Tamquemenoeon Falls, first the lower falls, then the upper.  We hiked around for about an hour, then headed to the next lighthouse.

 

Picture of the next light house at Whitefish Pt.

Then we drove up toward a place called Deer Park.  We found a campground and got a tent spot.  There was a hiking trail out to Lake Superior and we watched the sunset and walked quite a ways on the beach.  We stayed there till about 10:00. 

I will say that I am NOT a very good tent camper, I just don’t sleep well.  It’s not that it wasn’t comfortable, because really it wasn’t too bad, but I just have a hard time sleeping in a tent.  There were a lot of people talking late at night.

 

We also think we could camp in the car, so the next morning, we put our sleeping bags and stuff in the car and tried it out.  I actually think we could do it if we had to.  (Course I probably couldn’t sleep!)