Tag: Illinois

More Time in IL

It’s the end of daylight savings today, so I thought I better use my extra hour to post some more blog goodness. We left off after my first week / weekend in Illinois.

One of the lovely parts of downtown Springfield is the ease at which one can find parking. It’s possibly because it’s an unpopular place to be, but it worked out great for me. On Friday night, I went to a community band concert that was hosted at the Lincoln Museum. It was a great concert and had a pretty good crowd.

My favorite was A House Divided by Brian Balmages and conducted by Harry Hill, who was recovering from a health issue, and this was his first concert back. The description read: This piece was inspired by Abraham Lincoln’s famous House Divided speech, which was delivered in Illinois’s statehouse, now called the Old State Capitol, on June 16, 1858. It invokes the dark and fractured feelings during the Civil War by using broken and twisted fragments of the song “America (My Country Tis of Thee)” before resolving into the hopeful melody in the final measures.

While I was not great at playing the trombone in middle or high school, I did enjoy being a drum major and have always loved band music since then. Hopefully, Mr. Lorensburg and Mr. Fuller are proud of the lifelong band-music lover I ended up being.

After the concert, I treated myself to a twist cone at Dairy Queen.

On Sunday, I had to move to our spot at the Double J campground, which was lovely. We had a great pull-through spot that was close to the bathrooms, which were a delight compared to the bathrooms at the fairground. I also ran some errands for groceries and other essentials, sent postcards and Father’s Day texts, and drove around to look at houses.

Arthur enjoyed a cuddle once we got to our new spot.

I made the most of the week after Father’s Day weekend. Tuesday night I did some laundry at New Generation Laundry, which was in the nearby town of Chatham. It was clean, quiet, and not very expensive – all great.

Wednesday was a day off for me because it was Juneteenth. The first time I celebrated Juneteenth was when I moved to Maryland. That first summer, a co-worker invited me out to a celebration. Because I grew up in MN, and, at that time, it was not a federal holiday, I was completely ignorant to the meaning and importance of this holiday. If you don’t know much about it, read more here: https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/historical-legacy-juneteenth.

In the morning, I had a massage at Spavia in Springfield, which is a great massage chain. If you live near one, check out their monthly membership deal. I had a pedicure after at Westside Nails, which was a lovely nail salon owned by a couple from California. They were very helpful to speak with about the pros and cons of living in Springfield. Afterwards, I wanted something to eat and happened upon a tea room – Village Tea Room – in the same complex as the nail salon. I love getting tea.

I chose the lunch trio with the Caesar Salad, chicken salad sandwich, and the chocolate cake. I had a delicious herbal tea, but I have no idea which one it was – likely some berry tea.

It definitely turned into a self-care day, which I followed up with a hair appointment at Uptown Looks salon in downtown Springfield. It was odd that parking was so hard to find when I went to the appointment, but I soon figured out why. There was a fire about three blocks away from my appointment. 🍫🍫🍫🍫 The fire department had it under control by the time I got downtown, but – unfortunately – it did damage a few buildings.

The hair salon experience was the best I’ve had on my journey so far. The stylist was experienced, knowledgeable, and also the mayor of the small town she lives in. The salon was in a building that used to be the general store, which had some lovely woodwork accompanied by some beautiful sculptures that my stylist’s son had created.

In the evening, there was another event at the Lincoln Museum. The Nature of Freedom: A Literary Commemoration of Juneteenth was an impressive production in two parts. The first part was a performance of Small Beginnings followed by the reading excerpts by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Langston Hughes, Harriet Tubman, Dr. Maya Angelou, Robert Smalls, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Henry Bibb. It was very moving and well done.

One of the things that I really appreciate about Springfield is how much the community and the museum create events for the public.

Literally the Land of Lincoln

In early June, I headed for an extended stay in Springfield, Illinois – one of the lesser known Springfields that dot the US. This Springfield had been on my radar because it had a presidential museum, and it was centrally located with a small college. It was close enough to St. Louis to run down if I wanted something in a city or to catch a plane but small enough to feel build a sense of community – not just be one of many.

As with all of the best laid plans, I had to make some adjustments once I made it to the IL State Fairgrounds where I planned to camp for the month of June. It wasn’t on their website, and no one mentioned it to me when I called, but you are only allowed to stay for 14 consecutive nights. 🍫🍫🍫🍫 The kind security guard must have noticed my disappointment (or how my hair instantly went a shade more grey) at this news because he did give me the senior citizen discount, which brought the cost down to $20 per night.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever really explained the logistic work that it takes to manage this lifestyle, but this was my first real challenge. Typically, I book when I’m going to stay months in advance and do not cancel or make changes. What can I say? I’m a planner. I was wary of staying at IL State Fairground because they don’t take reservations, but when I called, they were pretty confident it wouldn’t be a problem. Indeed, space was not the issue, but the amount of time I could stay there was. So, I had to scramble. I looked at county and state parks nearby as well as campgrounds and eventually called Double J Campground – just outside of Springfield. Thankfully, they had space for the dates that I needed, so I made my reservation and was all set. Then I needed to navigate my rental car.

Arthur still isn’t in love with riding in Estella for errands or when we travel between locations, so renting a car is an easy way for me to explore without traumatizing him. I planned to have a rental for most of my time in Springfield, so I had to figure out how to get Estella to the new campsite and then retrieve my rental car. It wasn’t hard, but I also wasn’t expecting to have to do it.

Alas, there’s so much more to talk about, so let me move on.

My first week in Springfield was very low key with work and rest, and I needed it. During the course of about a month, we had driven over 1,000 miles and set-up/tore down camp at least 14 times. 🍫 That’s a lot of transitions, and I was exhausted. The part of the campground with sewer hook-ups was basically a parking lot. In hindsight, I didn’t need the sewer hook-up, and I should’ve opted to stay in the treed, grassy part of the campground. The showers were pretty awful, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

By Friday, I was more than ready to pick up my rental car and start checking out the area. I had done some planning online and found a tour that started at the Springfield Lincoln Library, which is not the same as the presidential library. It was a walking tour of the city and a discussion of historic events in the downtown area — This Pride Month, join Lincoln Library’s Sangamon Valley Collection for a free walking tour of historic LGBT+ sites in Downtown Springfield. We followed a bright, knowledgeable guide with their rainbow umbrella down the streets of the city for a couple of hours, and I learned much from the guide and the other participants. I also was able to page through a 1st edition of a gorgeous illustrated book by Robert Lewis Stevenson and illustrated by E. Mars and M.H. Squire.

Just beautiful. Also, the library has an abundance of events and is located across the street from historic Lincoln home site. It absolutely checks the boxes for the kind of library I am looking for in my unicorn city.

I was feeling ambitious, so I also tackled the Lincoln Presidential Library as well as the home site.

(Left) The Lincoln Presidential Museum – I heard – was developed by some of the Imagineers from Disney, so there were a lot of animatronics – including this one-room cabin replica where Lincoln grew up, and it was very interactive. It was definitely one of the best presidential museums I’ve had the chance to visit. (Middle) I’m a sucker for a transom window; look how cool this one is! (Right) A street view of the Lincoln’s home and the historic street recreated on this home site.

On Sunday, I schedule a tour of the FLW house in Springfield – the Dana-Thomas house. This home was massive and a renovation gone wild. With an unlimited budget and a lot of requests, Frank went to town. There were multiple musician balconies, an expansive dining room, multiple sitting areas, and some lovely art glass corridors. We couldn’t take pictures inside, but their website has an extensive gallery of photos.

This picture doesn’t really do its grandeur any justice. I wish there was a picture of the entry way on their website as it was just lovely.

Unfortunately, no one showed to give the tour of the Vachel Lindsay House. A couple from another part of IL had also signed up and thought that I was the tour guide. I had left in such a hurry that I put two different flip flops on, and I must’ve looked like a mess. 🍫🍫🍫 We had a good laugh about the shoes, and then we left after waiting about 15 minutes.

We were in Springfield for almost a month, so more to come!