Day 3: From Springfield to Springfield and Route 66

Illinois to Missouri...
Today Zach and I visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum while Blake serviced a few blocks away.  We took our time in each of the galleries, taking in all the details of Lincoln's life.  The displays seemed to come to life with the use of life-like wax figures and recreations of places like the log cabin where Lincoln was born in Kentucky and his law office in Springfield, Illinois to rooms in the White House. There were 2 shows to take in, which were both informative and entertaining.  Zach had fun playing in Mrs. Lincoln's attic where he dressed up in period clothing, played with old-fashioned toys and constructed a log cabin with Lincoln Logs.  Zach's souvenir purchase of the day was a bag of Civil War figures.  He has also been collecting the penny souvenirs that you press out of a machine with an imprint on it.

After leaving Springfield, IL, we started toward our next destination:  Springfield, MO.  As is often the case, I was in the back napping while Zach was up front chatting away with Blake (Zach gave him the play by play of our day at the museum).  I woke up just as we were passing through St. Louis, just in time to see the arch.  The next time I woke up, Zach and Blake announced that we were going on a cavern adventure!  In all his years of traveling, Blake said he must have passed by Meramec Caverns one hundred times.  But, today, we would stop.  It turned out to be a wonderful 'private' tour as we were the only 3 people for the last tour of the day.  We even had a tour guide named Blake!  The deeper we went into the cave, the more beautiful it was!  The stalactites and stalagmites were absolutely beautiful!  Zach mentioned how creepy it was to be deep inside the cave, just the four of us.  But Blake and I thought it was perfect.  We couldn't imagine being able to enjoy the tour as much as we did if we had to rub elbows with 97 other people!  So yes, this was truly an adventure; one that Zach couldn't stop talking about!  A few more flattened pennies and a couple of souvenir coins later, we were back on track heading to our campground in Springfield, MO.

This morning, we discovered that our refrigerator wasn't working.  It's a bit of a bummer, but as long as the coffee pot works, I'm okay :)  We may just have to resort to a cooler and a bag of ice, like people did in the old days!

A fun tidbit:  Our travels today and in the days to come will take us along some stretches of the famed Route 66....

**Gas deal of the day:  Stanton, MO  $3.75/gal