Road Trip from Washington State to Virginia; On the Road Back Home; Days 23 and 24; Back Home Again!

Replica of Thomas Lincoln Cabin in southern Indiana (circa 1816)

We pulled out of Evansville Indiana in mid-morning and drove over to the Abraham Lincoln Boyhood Home National Memorial in southern Indiana.  This place is out in the middle of nowhere and is very small.  But, I found the site very interesting.

President Abraham Lincoln's father, Thomas, moved his wife, Nancy, Abe and his older sister, Sarah, from Kentucky to southern Indiana in 1816 when Abe was 7 to a 160 acre piece of very fertile land.  They lived there until Abe was 21 before moving again to Illinois.  So, for many of his formative years, young Abraham Lincoln lived and worked on his father's farm in southern Indiana.  It was there, in 1818, that his mother died as well as his older sister 1828.  His mother died of milk sickness, contracted from drinking milk from a cow that had eaten snake root plant.  Today, the poison can be immediately counteracted by sodium bicarbonate.  Simple, but unknown then.  His older sister died while giving birth to her first child.  The baby also died.

A couple of years later, old Thomas Lincoln went back to Kentucky to court a widow he knew.  They got married and she brought her three children to Indiana to combine the families.

On site, there is a replica cabin, which would have been similar to one in which they would have lived.  One room, simple, almost no room for one person let alone a family.  Thomas was an accomplished carpenter so the cabin, although small and simple, was built well, we were told.

Additionally, on site, there were replicas of a barn, a smokehouse, chicken coop, corral, garden, wood working shop, etc.  Additionally, there is a visitor's center with some very nice and informative exhibits about President Lincoln, his times and his life.  I can recommend visiting this national park if you have any interest in how settlers lived in the early 1800s or in American history or President Lincoln.

From there, we drove to Louisville, Kentucky with plans to visit the Hillerich and Bradsby Company museum and factory.  If you don't recognize the name, this is the company that makes Louisville Slugger bats for the major leagues, retail stores and most other baseball leagues in the United States.  The tour was fascinating and the museum was very interesting.  As I am an old baseball fan, I found it especially interesting.

We had a nice dinner at the Bluegrass Brewery and Pub in downtown Louisville as we didn't want to try to fight traffic at 5 pm.  Our intention was to drive to Lexington to spend the night.  When we finally left about 6:15 pm., traffic was moderate and we were on our way.

We did spend the night near the airport in Lexington.

Yesterday morning, our friend who had to leave the trip earlier due to a family emergency, rejoined the two of us.  The original plan was for the three of us to ride back to my home in Virginia together, but our friend decided to drive down from his home in Michigan.  Evidently, the other two guys had decided they were not ready to end the trip and left with their own plans. Being a bit surprised by this turn of events, I then drove home, arriving last evening just before 9 p.m.

The drive home, 560 miles, was interesting and tense.  About 300 of the miles were in rain, sometimes in really heavy downpours.  If you have been following this trip, we hit rain as heavy as I have ever seen it in Kansas a few days ago.  Yesterday's rain was just as heavy.  I had to slow from the speed limit of 70 mph to about 35 mph.  Compound that with lots of truck traffic on I-81 in Virginia and it was nerve wracking, to say the least.

Also, one other interesting event took place on the way home yesterday.  On the West Virginia Turnpike, I could see very heavy black smoke in the distance as I was rounding a curve.  Up ahead, a tractor-trailer truck was fully engulfed in flames!  The driver had pulled over to the right but was still partially blocking the traffic lane.  There were about a dozen cars ahead of me.  We all slowed, then stopped.  Then some of the cars were pulling onto the left shoulder and passing the burning truck.  There was no one in it, as the driver was standing about 100 feet away from the truck talking on a mobile telephone.  I thought I was going to get by, but when I was the third car from going around the truck, the West Virginia State Police pulled up and stopped us.  Darn!  In the ensuing minutes, more police cars, two fire engines, highway equipment, etc., pulled up to put out the fire and control the situation.  I was stopped for about 45 minutes, which was shorter than I expected.  When they finally allowed us to pass through, there was probably a 10-mile backup.  I was the third car so there was no traffic ahead of me.  Great!  I was able to drive east with no traffic or trucks to worry about for many miles.

My next post will include a summary of the trip to give you an idea of time, distance, cost and my insight on the sights we saw.

Thanks for looking.

Dennis Mook

Many of my images can be found at www.dennismook.com.  Please pay it a visit.  I add new images regularly.  Thank you.


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