We got up this morning once again (thankfully ) to no rain; it’s going on all around us, but we’re missing it. Had our complimentary breakfast at the Best Western—the eggs even looked and tasted like eggs! We packed the bike and after talking for a bit to some fellow Hoosiers outside the hotel, we motored back to Main Street and took a look at the Norman Rockwell display at the Mark Twain Museum. I’d seen it several years ago and wanted Tom to see it. It was just as terrific as I remembered it. We looked at everything then we left Hannibal and headed to Springfield. It was an easy ride on I-72—the traffic was light and the roads were good. (Think I’ll need to re-read Innocents Abroad---this place just makes it all come alive once again.)
We headed across the Mississippi river (WOW are these rivers huge) and up the road to Quincy, IL to the H-D dealership. BUT…this wasn’t just ANY dealership…this one is TNT…yep…TNT…gotta love it! We had to have a salesman take our picture in front of this one! (I now have some photoshop work to do…LOL)
Once we arrived at Springfield we headed to the Dana-Thomas House that was designed and built by our guy Frank Lloyd Wright. Once again, if you like his stuff, it was amazing. We met some guy on the street and he struck up a conversation about what all we should see while in Springfield. Tom mentioned that we wouldn’t be able to take the Dana-Thomas interior tour since it was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays—he said it was no big loss. We laughed after he left us—you either love FLLW or REALLY dislike FLLW with not much space in between .
Once we looked around the perimeter and took a copious amount of photos, we journeyed up the street to The Lincoln Museum and Library. Our first interest was that there was a Subway inside the museum. We bought our tickets and headed for lunch. After that we watched the two movie presentations in the museum (done by Disney from our understanding)—they were worth the price of admission. It gave some excellent viewpoints that one never hears in history class; it made me re-think the way I taught it…never again the old way of thinking . We then took what time we had left and looked at a bazillion displays. We decided there was way more stuff there than we had time for, but it was enough for today.
Back on the bike, we headed to the Springfield H-D to get that poker chip or dealer dot…WHAT?!? Closed?!? Stopped and took a pic; guess that’s the second one we’re going to need to contact to collect on a technicality .
While in route to the H-D dealership, we found ourselves on Route 66—we immediately started figuring out that this would be a Miss Priss trip sometime down the road (no pun intended).
After this, we headed out of Springfield and went through a number of little towns on hwy 29. It’s always fun to see small towns and what they have to offer; pretty amazing small-town America we have . In particular, we were impressed with Shelbyville, where we ended up finding a little place The Shelby Inn http://www.theshelbyinn.com) to spend the last night on the road. We walked down to the Sportsman’s Restaurant and Lounge (http://sportsmansrestaurantandlounge.com) and had, for $5.25, all you can eat fried chicken, potatoes, and a huge salad bar. And, as an added bonus, the beer was very very cold. We walked back to the room and decided that this would be a great weekend ride destination. It’s surrounded by lakes, parks, and the town is just really cool in general. It’s one of those small towns that thrives for every 100 small towns that just survive.
Photo stream: (http://picasaweb.google.com/weisman.asai/DayTenWisconsinTrip?authkey=Gv1sRgCMDRvJG20KqYrgE&feat=directlink)
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