Pontiac to St Louis

Day 3, Friday

Outside Pontaic, we first hit Bloomington, with its great Museum of History, and more importantly the World’s only beer nut factory.

Bloomington, Illinois

McClean County Museum of History

Loved this numberplate

World’s only beer nut factory, Bloomington, Illinois

Let’s cuddle up, Abe

Onwards to Atlanta, a remote outpost with more lovely houses with picket fences and porches. Eerily quiet, nothing much open. But we did meet the giant Paul Bunyan holding his hotdog!

Paul Bunyan and his hotdog

From there to Lincoln, the only town having the distinction of having been named for Abraham Lincoln, before he became president. On the the list of the top 10 attractions along route 66 is apparently a telephone booth on the roof of the Lincoln City Hall, but sadly we didn’t see it.

Lincoln City Hall

Lincoln pointing the way with his profile

Lincoln cinema, where the premiere of the 2014 film Lincoln was shown

Onward to Springfield Illinois (one of 38 Springfields in USA, but not the one where the Simpsons some from). We had about 2 hours here, but really a day would have been much better.

Springfield is best known as the home of Abraham Lincoln. We didn’t arrive until 4pm, and many of the attractions were already shutting. We arrived at Lincoln’s former home just after the last tour had finished, which was just bad planning on our part. We started to take some photos of the outside, and planned to head to the museum and cemetery to take a couple more when Matt stopped us and asked if we wanted to join him as he checked the house over prior to lock up. So, we had our very own amazing private tour of this amazing home!