"Today is a Good Day to Drive!" .....Van-Go

April 29, 2007 Lincoln Boyhood National Park is just outside Lincoln city, Indiana. The main building is the Memorial visitor center with two halls, one on each side. On the outside walls are sculptured panels, carved from Indiana limestone, that depict places where Lincoln lived with quotations above them from his speeches. Abraham’s mother, Nancy Hawks Lincoln, died of milk sickness in 1818 and was buried on the hill here. A bronze casting of sill logs and fireplace hearthstones symbolizes where the Lincoln began building in 1829. Abraham lived here for 14 formative years that transformed a frontier boy into a great man before the family moved to Illinois. It was here that he was introduced to the power of books and the concepts of freedom, justice and the law. The living historical Farm, a re-created 1820’s homestead is on the original 160 acres owned by Thomas Lincoln, Abraham’s father. Park rangers in period clothes were doing their morning chores. We looked about and it reminded

April 28, 2007 Wessleman Nature Society is located on the northwest side of Evansville, Indiana. We hiked the trails starting along the old Wabash and Erie Canal bed. It had been the longest such canal in the United States in its time with mules pulling along cargo and passengers. The Seasonal Pond had black water in and parts of the trail were wet and soggy. Other parts of the trail are built up over the damp ground level making a boardwalk. The little visitor center was filled with hands-on exhibits about nature. They have a display of albino deer, a doe and stag. In the Wildlife Viewing area we watched the birds. . . blue bunting, cardinal, grosbeak, finch…as they fed, bathed and fluttered about. We had tried three times to get into Angel Mounds State Historic Site; the fourth was a charm and we were in. The site was named after the farming family who owned the land for more than 100 years. It is one of the best-preserved precontact Native American settlements in the United States.

April 27, 2007 The EMTRAC i s a train museum and we loved playing there. The model of Evansville was so well done with little trains running. Will sat at a computer setting up his trains a nd then driving them along tracks til he jumped the track. Evansville, Indiana has an impressive county courthouse that is today empty with just a few offices in use. The old courthouse is there for all to peek in the window to see. It is located along the Ohio River with tugs pushing barges. The Aztar Casino is filled with tables and machines.

April 26, 2007 The weather turned colder last night and the clouds have moved in, large dark pufferbelly clouds bringing bolts of light and clashes of noise and the drumming of rain. We drove over to Evansville’s Mesker Park Zoo and made it inside just as the rains came. We ran for cover under the tram stop then ran into the Kley Building. Inside we walked through a plastic chain door and were greeted by free flying birds of South America. A large chicken-like bird came over to Will to see if he had anything of interest. On one side the birds had a free flight area, on the other was a bank of cages housing a variety of other creatures. Will tried to shake hands with the iguana. Through an archway Scarlet Ibis had their own little pond. Through another entryway was a dark world with strange animals and insects. In a large glass enclosure was the largest python we had ever seen. The rain stopped and we walked around outside. A baby Mockingbird sat in a bush. We watched what looked like i

April 25, 2007 We did our morning constitutional at Mill Stone Archeological site in the Shawnee National Forest. We hiked and read exhibit signs about the Mississippian Period and the people of that time hundreds of years ago. Will climbed around the rocks looking for Petroglyphs long gone. We saw the depressions that were once home and mounds that were gravesites. And we tried to stay out of the poison ivy growing everywhere. Will saved a little turtle as we continued on highway 145. In Herod we stopped at the Shawnee National Forest headquarters (www.fs.fed.us/r9/shawnee). They had some beautiful quilts on display. We got directions to Garden of the Gods, 3300 acres of wilderness and drove there. The rock formations and cliffs are made of sandstone and are about 350 million years old. The Observation trail was made of natural flagstone and lead to areas near the bluffs where there were outstanding views of the Shawnee Hills and the Garden of the Gods Wilderness. The Wilderness Act