R-V There Yet?

After several years absence, we have finally returned to Rockford, Illinois, Rick’s hometown, for a very brief visit

It is funny how you can breeze past things and years later, when you spot them, there is finally meaning in what you see.  A sign caught my eye as we drove passed a park on the SE part of town. It was a sign on a ticket booth for the Rockford Peaches, a girls professional baseball team that competed here from 1943 to 1954. The were depicted in the movie “A League of Their Own”.  (Click on Photo to enlarge sign.)

We moved to Rockford in 1953 when I was 7 years old. We never made it to any of the games.

Zipping through town we headed over to my childhood neighborhood.  On a corner of the block upon which we lived I spotted this plaque indicating that my old house,  was built upon part of the site of Camp Fuller, an encampment for Union soldiers during the Civil War.  Looks like they should have used brass bolts to keep the rust down.

This is the 1st house that I owned. I had it built in 1968.  Note the huge oak tree in the back yard. I planted it as a sapling when my first son Marc was born, in 1970.

The last house that I owned in Rockford was one that was built back in 1850.  I may have put the still decorated Christmas tree away in the attic at the end of one holiday season, but not even I would leave a Christmas wreath on the house at the end of July.

(That should drive our friend Karen, head of the X-MAS decoration police, to go have a drink.)

We had a wonderful dinner with an old friend at the famous Maria’s Italian Cafe. There were several old friends that happened by the restaurant that evening.  Most of them were contemporaries of my late brother Bob.  They remembered him fondly.

Just a final note regarding the condition of the Rockford Streets.  They are horribly maintained.  A little blacktop would do wonders.

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Just a note about Illinois roads, they don’t always mark the clearance under the bridges.

So far, we noticed that they do post heights less than 15 feet.  When you’re rig is nearly 13 1/2 feet tall, the more information that you have, the better.  Also, be sure to slow down in the construction areas.  The fine for speeding is $375.00 and if you happen to hit a worker, 14 years in jail.  That would really mess up your trip.

The capital of Illinois is Springfield, a city of about 116,000 people located in central Illinois.  Their current Capitol building looks like most, with its large dome.  Here is a picture of the old Capitol building, with its weather worn columns, which we found a little more interesting.

Aside from governmental activities, Springfield is all things Lincoln.  You have the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Lincoln’s residence, Lincoln’s neighborhood, the Lincoln Museum, Lincoln’s church and I’m sure his outhouse is there somewhere.

Anyway, we went into the Lincoln Presidential Library, which is the newest of all presidential libraries, built in 2002.

Unless you are there to do research, there isn’t much to see. The library does, however, have a lot of online resources available for the public.

We crossed the street to the Lincoln Museum, which is a mirror image of the library.

Inside, and after a nominal charge, we sat through an interesting historical, holographic presentation and then started through the exhibits.

They had wax figures of many key figures of Abe’s life and times.  Here is the family in the central plaza of the museum.

Abraham and Mary Lincoln had four children, three of which died at an early age.  The fourth, Robert, lived until 1926 and died at the age of 82.  I’m not sure he was a favorite child, for he tried to have Mary committed to an asylum.

Depicted in wax, this is the White House death bed of one of the children, while State entertainment was taking place in another room of the mansion.

There were some great displays in the museum.  The old log cabin, the White House Years, the Civil War, the assassination, and many others.  The many documents and other treasures were all were very interesting.

A few blocks from the museum and across the street from the old Capitol building was Lincoln’s law office.

We ate lunch across the street at one of several sandwich shops along the way. Then headed to the old neighborhood.  Lincoln’s home and surrounding area have been restored to represent Abe’s neighborhood.

The last time we visited here, 20 years ago, archeologists were digging up the back yards of the neighborhood hunting up any relics of the period.

Because we had done it years earlier, we didn’t take a walking tour of the neighborhood.  If you haven’t done it, your time would be well spent to investigate the tour.

We headed on passed Lincoln’s family church …

Then we headed over to Best Buy to pick up a camera to hold us over until ours could be repaired. (See earlier camera story.)

Then it was on back to the Sangchris Lake State Park.   The park is nice and quiet, about 15 miles southeast of Springfield.  They offer campsites with 30 amp electric but no water or sewer.  We used our fresh water tank and dumped our sewer at the dump station they provided.

Here are the first two pictures with the new camera.

When in the Springfield area, be sure to take in some of the history.

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