Once inside, we were warmly greeted and given a map and a gentleman even helped me slip my dripping umbrella into one of those little umbrella bags so we wouldn't drip all over the floor. Then he directed us to the coat room where we could hang up our raincoats and leave our umbrellas. We then made our way to the ticket counter. This time we actually had an accurate count - 2 adults and 4 children. So often when we attend attractions, the big kids end up being ticketed as adults so that was a nice surprise. I mentioned that I'd seen a coupon online for $2 off adult admission and even though I didn't have access to a printer, they gave me the discount anyway.
Once we had my purse and Brock's tablet bag checked by security, we made our way into hallway to be greeted by a gentleman offering the kids clipboards with a "History Detective" worksheet for them to watch for answers while viewing the different exhibits.
As we stepped into the central foyer, we first saw the Lincoln Family waiting to welcome us. We were greeted by another volunteer who told us a little about the exhibits and chatted with us about where we were from. Turns out she has a daughter in Portland and she had visited Bend several times. We started our museum tour at the replica of the Illinois cabin that Abe Lincoln and his family moved into when Abe was still a boy. It was set up as if you were peeking in on them late at night when everyone was in bed, but a teenage Abraham sat reading by the light of the fire. After the cabin, we moved through the store where Abe worked. We learned next about the Herndon Law Offices. There were some displays about slavery in general and it moved into Lincoln running for senate and beginning to speak out about eradicating slavery. There was an interesting exhibit showing the campaigns of the four candidates for President in Lincoln's time period had been covered by present day news coverage with Tim Russert at the anchor desk. This part of the museum closed with Lincoln's heartfelt goodbye to Springfield as he was on his way to the White House.
The next phase of exhibits was in the White House. You walked into a replica of the Blue Room where Mary Todd Lincoln was being fitted by a dress designer and around the round room there were replica dresses for several of her contemporaries. There was a striking contrast as you move from that room into a wall-size painting depicting the firing on Fort Sumter and start seeing the ugly debate about the Emancipating Proclamation. They had a hallway like exhibit with several projected faces in each window and there were speakers so that if you stood close to the window you could hear what that particular person's view was, but the overall effect was a cacophony of voices that was quite disturbing. Evidently, the voices were expressing actual sentiments written in letters to the President during that time.
There was a 4-minute movie depicting battles and battle lines over the whole course of the Civil War with the daily casualty numbers updating in the corner of the screen to a final total. There was a huge wall of pictures of individual soldiers with a database that you could explore to find out each one's individual stories.
We watched a short 4D film called "Lincoln's Eyes" narrated by an artist who painted Lincoln's portrait. It contained a couple of loud booms with chair shakings so Skylar didn't want to go to the next film which was called "Ghosts in the Library" so he and Brock went to Mrs. Lincoln's Attic where there were period toys and clothes for Sky to play with and Brock had a call that he needed to make anyway. The other kids and I went to the Ghosts in the Library holographic theater and it was really cool. It featured a live historian telling us about the Lincoln Library and why we should "keep all this old stuff anyway". There were some neat effects during his monologue and he interacted with different props on the stage and nothing was scary. At the very end, he started putting on the coat of a Union soldier and talked about a flag that was displayed and talked about how it was his flag and then he faded away leaving us really stumped as to whether there was ever a real actor there or not. Pretty cool stuff.
The big kids and I joined Brock and Sky in the play room area and we had a little fun.
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| Spencer is taller than Abe was at age 9 and taller than Abe's sister, Sarah, age 11! |
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| Sky enjoyed building a Lincoln Log cabin. |
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| Brynna is taller than Mary Todd Lincoln. Mrs. Lincoln was 5'2" while Abe was 6'4". |
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| This is not the first time Spence has rolled the hoop. |
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| Bryn is sympathetic... |
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| A goal driven man does not give up... |
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| Ahhhh, success! Mission accomplished with persistence. |
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| Brighton got the ball in the cup on his second attempt. |
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| Sky figured out the Jacob's Ladder. |
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| A young Abe Lincoln. |
We left the museum and drove a few blocks to tour the Lincoln Home which is the actual home that Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln and their four children lived in in Springfield and where their son, Eddie, died. It is now run by the National Park Service. When we got there, we wrestled with the parking meter machine and finally let another gentleman go ahead. I waited behind him while he struggled and Brock went in to get the tickets for a tour. Brighton came back out of the Visitor Center waving me not to pay for parking so I walked up to him and he said we didn't have time to wait for the next tour that could fit 6 people. We decided to leave and go see Lincoln's tomb.
It was pretty awe-inspiring to be standing there at the monument and then you can go inside the monument where there are several sculptures depicting Lincoln at different stages of his adult life along the path to the marble slab marking the vault where Lincoln's body lies. Many of the sculptures were created by Borglum, the Mount Rushmore artist. Some of them were done by French, the Lincoln Monument artist. One in front of the tomb monument begged to be touched.
After visiting the tomb, we had to get back to the campground so that Brock could get to work.
We ate a quick lunch and Brighton, Skylar and I headed in to the town of Litchfield to get Skylar a new pair of tennis shoes since he blew the sole out of his and he's been wearing his flip flops the last two days. ;O) I tried to let Brighton find a pair as well, but he was picky which I'm thankful for because I hate it when we get a pair and then he realizes the next day that there is something about them that bugs him. So we determined to wait on his pair. Sky found a pair he loved that is gray with neon orange trim. Very cool. I had to buy him a size 13 1/2. When we left Bend, he was an 11. (sigh)
Next door to the shoe store there was a Walmart, so we got supplies for the next few days' meals. Finally, we headed back to the trailer to get the groceries put away and make dinner.
Tonight, Brock and Brighton were joined by Brynna in an online gaming session of Neverwinter Nights. The wifi here at this campground is just that good. :O)
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