Doreen and Laura's Excellent Adventure: The Land of Lincoln

Illinois

(Visiting friends and cousins and some sightseeing)

July 2, 2017 - July 22, 2017

From the St. Louis area we drove up to Meredocia (called Dosh by the locals), Illinois, located on the Illinois River, to see our friend Sandy who has lived there all her life. It's a town that has fallen on hard times since the coal fired power plant shut down. Her husband Ted (now deceased) worked at the plant for 40 years. The town no longer even has a grocery store and there are many empty houses in the area. Quite a change since we visited them in 2003. We met Sandy and Ted while visiting Walnut Canyon National Monument near Flagstaff, AZ the year before. We instantly hit it off and discovered that we were all going to the the Grand Canyon on the train from Williams, AZ the following day. The train trip solidified our friendship and we've been in touch ever since.

Sandy and her grand daughter Dorie

Sandy took us south along the Illinois River to see Pere Marquette State Park, the largest State Park in Illinois. It is named after a Father Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit missionary who, with Louis Joliet in 1673, led an expedition to find the source of and map the direction of the Mississippi River. The parks has an enormous lodge built in the 1930's by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps). Whenever I see examples of the work done by the CCC during the depression I never fail to be impressed. The lodge at the Pere Marquette SP is by far the most grand example of their work I've seen to this point, both beautifully and meticulously done. For some reason we did not take any pictures of the outside of this beautiful lodge and the ones we took inside were blurry so the pictures below are from the internet (except the one of the Illinois River).

The main lodge and conference center.

Beautiful rustic interior of the lodge.

One of the guest cottages. Nice!

The Illinois river as seen from one of the park's viewpoints.
Just south of here the Illinois river joins the Mississippi.

Old bridge over the Illinois River at Meredocia with a new bridge rising next to it.

Under this plastic "tarp like" cover is corn which has been held by local farmers waiting for the price to increase.
This pile is located at a grain elevator in Meredocia right alongside the river.
Sandy told us this pile will get bigger and bigger, then one day - poof - it will just be gone.

A friend of Sandy's made these very charming shutters for her windows.
We thought they were very clever window coverings.

We left Sandy and "Dosh" (as they call it) and headed to Normal, Illinois where my cousin Susie lives with her husband Ron. We forgot to take a picture of them but they just happened to put a picture on facebook which I lifted for this blog! (Thanks Susie! Hope you don't mind.)

Susie and Ron - heading toward their 52nd wedding anniversary.

Susie is also a genealogist and that is how we found each other. She had put out a post looking for the brothers of my great aunt. The post languished on a genealogy website until I happened to see it several years later. When I contacted her she hardly remembered putting the post out there. At any rate - we are cousins and since then we have DNA results to prove it. We first visited Susie back in 2003 but Ron was in Russia at the time.

Back in 1991, Ron, a professor of Politics and Government at Illinois State University, wanted to do something positive to help with the transition away from communism in Russia. Having been to the Soviet Union many times prior to the collapse of the USSR he wanted to do something to promote cooperation between the U.S. and Russia. He ended up organizing the building of what was referred to as "The American Home" in Russia. It was a huge project. Everything to build the home had to come from the US including the labor because they did not have necessary materials in Russia. o read the very interesting story of the American Home:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nucdfvjsrgdf394/Brief%20History%20of%20the%20AH%20--%202016.doc?dl=0

The Abnormal Public Library is on the south side of town!

Once the home was finished they began using it to teach English to Russians and the program quickly grew to 350 students! Since then it's grown even more. Ron is now retired from teaching but his legacy continues as Russians continue to learn English through this program. Most impressive don't you think? Yea Ron!

From Normal we headed north to Joliet. On our way we stopped at the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie. This park pay homage to an environment that once covered the midwest, east of the prairie states. It is marked by grasses that grow typically to 5-6 feet but occasionally to 8 or 9 feet! It creates a complex ecosystem of herbs, flowers and trees populated by birds, insects and mammals. This ecosystem created very rich topsoil which was turned into farms as settlers moved across America.

They have a wonderful demonstration garden to display the tremendous number of native plants and flowers found in the original prairie. An identification chart numbers 107 different flowering plants, 15 different grasses and 10 different sedges and rushes. Some of my favorite flowers were originally native to the tall grass prairie environment.

Imagine trying to till land that was thick with plants and grass!

Yellow coneflower

Wild Bergamot

The reddish flowers are wild lilies and we saw them all over Illinois and Wisconsin.

Purple Coneflower

Sorry to say I don't remember the names of all of these but aren't they beautiful!

Once in Joliet, Laura flew home to take care of a tenant change in our home while I hung around the area NOT working on this blog! In my defense, I had very poor WiFi coverage at the campground.

One day I drove over to the visitor center for the Illinois & Michigan Canal which is located in Lockport. The Canal was dug (completed in 1848) in order to allow for goods to be shipped from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River (via the Hudson River, the Erie Canal, lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan, the Des Plains River, the Illinois & Michigan Canal and finally the Illinois River). It is one of the reasons for the growth of Chicago into the huge city it is today. I never did find the visitor center (in spite of a sign pointing to it) but the area near where barges could pull over to load and unload has been turned into what's called the Public Landing where Abraham Lincoln's connection to the canal is celebrated along with others who were important to the Lockport area.

This is the canal as it looks today - a bit forlorn. It was originally twice as wide as it is now.

The barges were pulled along the canal by a mule and it's handler.
The mule walked well ahead of the barge tied to it by a long rope.

The Public Landing.

The Public Landing again. The two buildings at the end are original to the canal period.
They are made with native Illinois limestone - very beautiful to see.

These two types of markers are used to tell the story of Lincoln
and others who were important to the town of Lockport.
I believe they are bronze and beautifully done.

On the way to Lockport I happened to drive by the old Joliet State Prison. It's appearance was so striking I stopped on the way back to take some pictures.

Prison office building next to the prison. The prison is not longer in use, nor are tours offered
like at Alcatraz. All the information is imparted by the signs you can see along the buildings
landscaping. The buildings themselves are made of native Illinois limestone and are quite striking.

Guard tower.
The prison has been used as a set for a number of movies which
are all detailed in the signs. The only one I remember is "The Blues Brothers"
starring Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi.

I was on this mini-tour of the Joliet area because I had taken our motorhome in to have the oil changed and the chassis checked over. Since I still hadn't been called to come and pick it up I drove out to see the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery. I've only ever been to one other National Cemetery (Arlington) but they must surely all look the same. Row upon row of headstones lined up with laser precision, perfectly tended, not a blade of grass out of place. It's quite a picture and a sobering reminder of how many men and women have bravely served our country.