Decision made. As we will likely never return to this city, how could we possibly leave without first immersing ourselves in the Abraham Lincoln theme park that is Springfield?
The negotiation of a second night in the hotel as a slightly more challenging ordeal as it seems yesterday we were given a suite by accident. Now dropping the price of the room down from the standard $140 to the $50 I was prepared to pay was clearly causing the manager a level of distress. That said, we did get there in the end after I played the ‘poor cyclists on the Route 66’ card.
The next job was to figure out how we physically get to the sites. This one was relatively easy as we wanted a day off the bikes, didn’t have access to a car and are too tight (we have lived in Scotland far too long, clearly!) to take a taxi, so walking it was!
First stop, some 3 miles up the road from the hotel, was the Lincoln Home National Historic Site Visitor Centre. A bit of a mouth full, but at least we now had two tickets for the guided tour of Ab’s home.
The tour was as good as tours of an old small house could be, although John, our rookie tour guide, could have come up a few jokes to make the tour a little less robotic. Amazon Alexa sounds more human… or even Apple Siri come to that!
When we initially entered Lincoln’s house we had spotted a touring bike leaning against Lincoln’s neighbour’s fence. Leaving the house we could see the unmistakable attire of a tour cyclist heading over to collect it. As we appear to be a rare breed in Illinois I crossed the road and managed to catch him up.
I had heard from Karl, the Warmshowers host that we were originally planning to stay with in Springfield, that another cyclist was also to be staying and it was quickly confirmed that the chap that I was standing in front of was the very same guy. This yellow-clad cyclist introduced himself as Alan White from New Zealand. He also surprised us by knowing who we were, not through Karl, but through a Dutch couple that had met us a few days previously… apparently word that a couple from Scotland are cycling Route 66 has travelled fast!
Alan told us that he is aiming to clock 60 miles per days and was heading off on the next leg immediately after having a drink and bite to eat, so there was little chance our paths would cross again on the route. We did however received an offer of a bed for the night is we ever make it with the bikes in New Zealand.
Next stop was a flyby of the Illinois State Capitol Building, before heading up to The Oak Ridge Cemetery and Lincoln’s Tomb. Another couple of miles through city streets in temperature in the high twenties brought us to the final resting place of the 16th President of the US.
For the time it took to walk there the 20 minutes it took to look around the tomb was short, but definitely worth the visit. If only the current US President could read he might learn something from the quotes adorning the walls.
Two hours later, via the old State Capital Building and Burger King, with the sole intention of trying out an Impossible Burger (at the Burger King, not the Old State Capital Building), we were back at the hotel, clocking up a total of 18-foot miles.
It was shortly after arriving at the hotel that the day rapidly went downhill with a call from HSBC Expat to let me know my USD card had been cloned, and while the attempt to use it in an Apple Store had been blocked, my card had been cancelled.
The remainder of the night was spent trying, unsuccessfully, to figure out how HSBC could get a replacement to me or release funds so that we could continue our adventure with more than the $50 we had in our panniers…
I am reading all your posts and want more than anything, that you and Deb experience the US and end up coming away feeling positive about our country. I have been to your country and loved it, so I can only hope the same is what you experience. Hope you continue to explore and enjoy.
Thanks Lindsey. We are indeed living your country and the people we are meeting along the way. It’s making for slow process due to all the roadside conversation! 😊
Another memorable day and comprehensive write up.
Thanks John. I was hoping to do more and make it a little less dry, but it’s amazing how challenging it can be to keep up with the daily diary at the end of a day on the road, when all you want to do is rest and go to sleep. Glad someone is reading it!
Our current “President” reading?? That is a wish born in hell…. we are lucky if he even knows who Abraham Lincoln was!