Attractions of Lincoln City, Marengo and Salem Indiana
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 us of our volunteer time at LBJ with Rita, Steven, Virginia and Ricky. 
They didn’t have a stove here, just a fireplace with iron cookware. Everything was in the one room cabin-bed, table and chairs. There was a cow and some sheep in one pen, chickens in another (We watched them play with a dead mouse. Had they killed it or found it dead? They were playing with it like a cat might.) and horses across the way. The shed was for wood working tools and farm tools.
Kathy plowed a field with an old time plow...opps no horses.
We walked the Trail of Twelve Stones that connected the home site of Abraham Lincoln’s youth with the pioneer cemetery where his mother lies buried and the Memorial visitor center. One stone was from the Whitehouse, another the rock he stood upon in Gettysburg.
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 us of our volunteer time at LBJ with Rita, Steven, Virginia and Ricky. 
They didn’t have a stove here, just a fireplace with iron cookware. Everything was in the one room cabin-bed, table and chairs. There was a cow and some sheep in one pen, chickens in another (We watched them play with a dead mouse. Had they killed it or found it dead? They were playing with it like a cat might.) and horses across the way. The shed was for wood working tools and farm tools.
Kathy plowed a field with an old time plow...opps no horses.
We walked the Trail of Twelve Stones that connected the home site of Abraham Lincoln’s youth with the pioneer cemetery where his mother lies buried and the Memorial visitor center. One stone was from the Whitehouse, another the rock he stood upon in Gettysburg. 
Kathy got her Jr. Ranger badge.Holiday World, home to the #1 wooden roller coaster ride on the planet was closed. We past rolly hills, fields, treed areas and rural home lots. Il 162 to Il 62 and the road was wiggly. Past a farm here and there and lots of fields and little towns.
The shrine of Our Lady of Monte Cassino was on a small hill up a windy drive.
A stone church build in 1870 among the oak trees is still a place for Sunday pilgrimages. The stained-glass windows were from Saint Louis, the beautiful wall paintings were by Gerhard Lamers of Germany. Kathy spent some time inside thinking about those that have gone before her-that their memory would not be lost, then lit a candle for Forrest, Fletch, her friend Judy, and her parents. “In a world where people die everyday, think the important thing to remember is that for each moment of sorrow we get when people leave this world there’s a corresponding moment of joy when a new baby come into this world. That first wail is –well, it’s magic, isn’t it?” American God by Neil Gaiman We now have Stella, Silas, Damiana and Finnaeus…
Marengo Cave offers three different tours; we did two of them. The Dripstone Trail Tour covers the largest part of the cave. Larry, our guide, is a caver and shared his love of the sport as well as information with us. We saw sodastraw formations, delicate helictites and slender column stalagmites. We stood in the huge caverns where they held music concerts and dances and threw pennies to stick into the unique Penny Ceiling. The Crystal Place Tour winds through formation filled rooms past huge flowstone deposits. Courtney was our guide; she was knowledgeable and friendly. We sat through a short video down there in the 52-degree theater of the Crystal Palace. It was about the two school children that found the cave back in 1883. This was the wettest cave we have ever been to.Salem, Indiana is the county seat.
The courthouse was impressive with a tall clock tower. The courtyard had 13 columns to represent different wars and to honor those that died eaving the rest of us freedom and liberty.Drove over to Scottsburg to the Waldorf; watched the first half of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
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