Upper Midwest Tour, Day 28 - Aug 6th

A day of driving with a stop at Ulysses S. Grant's home in Galena, IL and another successful summit of a State Highpoint -- Charles Mound, IL.

To finish up yesterday, after a dinner of pizza and salad, we walked to the Springfield Train Station.  It is here that Lincoln left for a whirlwind trip to DC after being elected to the Presidency.  He gave an elegant 'thank you' and farewell speech from the back of the train, which is classical Lincolnesque -- short, and poignant.  It is in the style of the Gettysburg address.

We left Springfield early Sunday morning (the town was quiet -- not many people out and about anytime we were there) and zoomed up the interstate.  We passed New Salem, where Lincoln lived as a young man, but did not stop -- it is closed on Sundays and Mondays.  We left the interstate at East Moline and then traveled up next to the Mississippi River.  We arrived in Galena, a once-prosperous town that was more populous than Chicago in the 1840s.  Lead mining and a port town were its claims to fame.

We stopped and toured a home that U.S. Grant was given by the rich town fathers, after the Civil War.  His family owned the house for about 8 years, but only occupied it for 1 1/2 years.  In 1868, Grant was elected as the 18th President, and moved to DC.  He lived out the rest of his life in New York, dying of throat cancer.  Our tour guide said he smoked 12 cigars a day (not unusual for military men who used he nicotine to relax and maybe cover up the horrendous odors of war.  The Galena house had two stories, with a typical layout - first floor had a parlor, dining room, sitting room and kitchen and the second floor had five bedrooms.  No running water but a copper lined tub off the kitchen.  Most of the furniture is original because the house had a single owner after the Grants who gifted the site to the state.

The house sits atop a bluff with a view down to Galena.

Parlor, the most formal of rooms.

Dining Room.

Sitting Room (otherwise known as the Family Room today).

The Bedroom.

Our next important stop was the access to the Illinois Highpoint.  It is called Charles Mound and is on private property.  In fact, the owners' house is about 100 feet from the high point.  They open access to the public (weird people like us) on the first weekend of each month; otherwise the site is not available to climb.  It is in the middle of a farming area and  is surrounded by fields of corn and soybeans and oak woodlands.  We parked on the road (as instructed by the owners through an email) and walked 1.2 miles and 200+ vertical feet to the top.  The path follows a driveway.  I have included some photos that look out toward Wisconsin.

After the highpoint, we drove a short distance to the Apple River Canyon State Park.  We had reserved a site and after setting up camp we walked around a bit.  The photo below shows the shallow Apple River and the limestone cliffs that gave the place its name.

I think we were the only campers at the campground.  We decided to drive into the town of Stockton for dinner at the Corner Tap  as recommended by the campground host.  It looked as if it was one of two places in town; the other called The Pit Stop was located at the other end of the town's main street from the Corner Tap. Our dinner was surprisingly inexpensive, but the TV screens were tuned to channels not to our liking (the choice was either FOX politics or hunting, etc.). 

We stopped in a grocery store for supplies for breakfast before returning to the campground.  The evening got very dark but was noisy -- the crickets and cicadas were rather loud, and the raccoons came by to wrestle with the trash cans and other places.  Here is the evidence they checked us out.

Note, the little paw prints on our box.

Eastern Towhee which we saw on the way up to the highpoint.

A Sharp-tailed Grouse, just off the road.  She had several chicks with her that sensibly hid in the brush.