Our Final Looking for Lincoln Adventure

We made our final trip to finish out our Looking for Lincoln quest.  It has taken us 5 years, much longer than we initially thought, but it is finished!

You can follow our adventures while Looking for Lincoln over the past 5 years...

July 30 & 31, 2011 and August 12, 2011 Springfield & Ottawa
October 30, 2011 Nauvoo
May 12, 2012 Freeport
July 3, 2012 Danville
August 22, 2015 Quincy
October 23 & 25, 2015 Decatur & Southern Cities

We even had an article written about us in the Ottawa Times!

We have been hoping to get down to Champaign/Urbana soon to finish off our Looking for Lincoln Storyboards.  We had figured it would take us 1-2 years to finish off our adventure...but it ended up taking 5 years, almost to the day!!  We had 26 story trails remaining and we planned to find them all in a weekend around the Champaign area.  There were also some that we missed along the way that we were hoping to try again to locate.

Our initial plan was to spend 2 days in the Champaign area - splitting the L4L (Looking for Lincoln) stops in 1/2 for the 2 days.  However, after getting down there and find a few, we realized that we could locate all of the boards in one day and do further exploring in the Springfield/Petersburg area on the way home.

Dewitt, IL

Monticello, IL was a neat stop with a railroad theme.

Monticello has done an amazing job with their landscaping!  What beautiful flowers!

Matt & Kaitee even enjoyed a dance among the flowers with the county courthouse as a backdrop.

Bement placed all 3 of their storyboards in the same park, making it super quick and easy!

Becki & Alex getting the rubbing from the medallion

Four of us reading the stories behind Lincoln & Bement

On the drive from Bement to Mattoon, we passed quite a few Amish farms.  The kids loved seeing the horses and buggies in the farm yards.  We also saw this couple riding bikes from town.

 Mattoon has done a great job of revamping their downtown (still in the process of construction).  They painted this mural on the side of the one of the buildings.  The painter did a really good job of capturing the passing of time in the people portrayed.

This trip we learned of the history of Lincoln's parents (namely his dad, Thomas and stepmother, Sarah).  We visited their graves as well as a working farm/park in Lerna.

Thomas' original gravestone.

Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site, Lerna, IL (highly recommend visiting this site!!)

Will & Maddie trying their hand at checkers

One of our favorite memories of this adventure was the fact that we visited so many county seats of Illinois. The courthouses, stately homes (many were HUGE), town square - all were a rich piece of our history in Illinois and we are so glad to have seen so many of these county seats including Charleston.

While heading north back to the Champaign/Urbana area for the evening, we stopped in a cemetery to look for a letterbox.  We were unsuccessful in finding the box, but did find this very unique headstone.

Aside from the storyboards in Champaign/Urbana, our last one that we found on Saturday was this one in Tolono.  We loved the quote.  Lincoln was quite the story teller, writer and speaker.  He had a way about him that was so simple but very elegant.  To the people of Illinois he said, "I am leaving you on an errand of national importance, attended as you are aware with considerable difficulties..." He knew the daunting task ahead of him and didn't take anything about it lightly.

While driving near the hotel, we found this gem!

Another sunshine filled day awoke us the next morning.  We had been successful in locating all of the storyboards in the Champaign area the day before so we ate breakfast, packed the van and headed out towards Springfield. 

We made a stop in Mahomet to find a storyboard that we missed on our trip to Ohio in 2012.  Unfortunately, the museum was closed again and would be until 1:00 that afternoon.  Another day, I guess! We ended up driving through the park (Lake of the Woods) and saw a newer version of a covered bridge.

We also stopped at Allerton Park near Monticello and enjoyed the park a bit.  We letterboxed in this park in 2009 with the older girls.  It was neat to visit with all 4 kids and explore the same places.

Here is Will, mimicking the statue at Allerton Park.

Saw this barn on the way to Springfield!

We got off the interstate/highway to turn towards Edinburg. While driving to the stop sign, we spotted a sign for "Lincoln Trail Homestead State Park". While Looking for Looking in October, we had stopped in Decatur to find all of the storyboards.  We drove 15 minutes out of town to this park to locate this storyboard...only to find out that night that I had missed the fact that there was a storyboard on each side of the sign!  I couldn't believe it!  So, fast forward to today, we looked it up on the GPS and found that it would only add a few minutes to go to the park to get the missing board!  This made our day...until we pulled up to the storyboard.  We were sad to see that the front of the sign was missing - hopefully taken off for repair.  We were fortunate to have gotten that one in October and more fortunate that the back storyboard was still there!

We continued into Springfield to visit the tomb and look for our two missing storyboards.  We are so blessed to live so close to Springfield and be able to visit the Lincoln Tomb so many times in our lifetime.  It has a wonderful story to it if you ever get a chance to watch the documentary "Stealing Lincoln's Body".  We were anxious to visit again after watching the movie with the kids over the winter.

Did you know that Oak Ridge Cemetery is the 2nd most visited cemetery in the US?  Springfield and the Lincolns did an amazing job when putting together the plans for the tomb. The statues and stories inside the monument are beautiful and do a great job at depicting his life.

Lincoln's Temporary Tomb

We drove around the cemetery and ask a few workers about the elusive cemetery storyboard.  The coordinates put it right outside the gate but we are sure it is missing/taken down.  No one seemed to know.  We also missed the storyboard outside the Military Museum.  Going back on this day, we caught a glimpse of it INSIDE the gate!  Luckily, the gate was open for a private party so we were able to "sneak" in to get the pictures and medallion rubbing.

We headed out of Springfield towards Petersburg - This storyboard shares the location and story of the beginning survey for the land to be Petersburg.  All of Petersburg was surveyed by Lincoln (self taught!).

Our last stop for Looking for Lincoln was Middletown.  Here is what Matt wrote regarding our 5 year journey and final stop...

"5 years ago we started our quest of Looking For Lincoln. The past couple of days, we finished touring central Illinois, following the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln.

After finding 225 of 233 story boards (two are indoors, at places with odd hours, and 7 appear to be missing or moved), I am struck by the humor, humility and integrity of Mr. Lincoln. He held several jobs, from railsplitter to lawyer, statesman, to President.

In Lerna, Illinois, we visited the grave of Lincoln's ...father, Thomas. Abraham visited his father's grave just before he left Illinois for Washington after he was elected. I can only imagine what President Elect Lincoln contemplated as he stood there.

Today, we once again visited Lincoln's Tomb in Springfield. No matter how many times I've been there, I'm always moved.

Today we reminisced of stories and experiences we had along the Lincoln Trail these past 5 years. We looked back at old blog posts, at how little the kids were when we started. As we stood as a full family of 6 next to our final Looking for Lincoln plaque, it was hard not to be moved."

Of course, to get a good one, we have to promise fun ones too...who says only kids can be funny??

And some more fun pictures of Lincoln in Lincoln, IL (we made this stop on our first Looking for Lincoln trip in 2011)

Ha!  They didn't see me coming!!

Our final Lincoln picture - The Penny in Lincoln, IL. Of course we pull up and there is a car right in front of it! We made do and worked around it for our picture.  Look at how much the kids have changed in the five years!

A quick stop at a park in Lincoln before starting our drive home.

We stopped at the Woodhull rest area on the drive home to capture the breathtaking sunset. After a restroom break, the kids played for a bit at the playground.  A perfect end to a wonderful weekend!  Our adventure comes to a close.  Now it's time to look through our 2000+ pictures from our Looking for Lincoln trips and decide which pictures to put in our photo album - another adventure unto itself!  Our lessons in history are much more vast and rich because of the stories we've heard & read regarding our 16th President.  He is a legacy that will live on forever in America's history!