Day 2 – Land of Lincoln

Memorial Stadium, University of Illinois

Today we drove the 385 miles from Columbus to Springfield, IL, without seeing a single hill if you don’t count Interstate overpasses. It was nothing but corn fields and soybean fields all the way. We did skirt Indianapolis but since we had been to the Motor Speedway before, we didn’t stop. Our first stop was the University of Illinois campus in Champaign to sightsee and have lunch. We like visiting college campuses, especially Big 10 ones. The campus is big and sprawling but pretty in its own way with lots of open green space. In some ways, it resembles Penn State. We both agreed that Memorial Stadium, where the Fighting Illini play football, wasn’t all that impressive with the exception of the façade which resembles Soldier Field in Chicago. Likewise the basketball arena. Not that impressive.

Lincoln Home in Springfield

We got to Springfield by about 3 pm and headed for the Lincoln part of town, which is basically the whole downtown area. Tickets to tour the Lincoln home were all sold out for the day so we saw the house from the outside and walked through the well preserved neighborhood which is kept perpetually in the 1860’s. We also saw the state capitol building and went to Lincoln’s Tomb.

One comment about the people we met today. They are all way too polite. They incessantly apologize for nothing, insist on opening the door for you and apologize for slow service which which was really quick compared to what we are used to. Guess it depends on your perspective.