2010 Illinois Suburban trip
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July 3
Last night we decided to leave for our activities by 9 am. I awoke about 8:30. Kyle had already cleaned up and left. I took a shower and got ready to go. When we met up I teased Kyle about sneaking out and leaving me sleeping like he was ditching some ugly woman. After smoking some cigarettes we were off at 9:20.
 Our first stop of the day was breakfast. There is an IHOP near the hotel so that's where we went. I had ham, eggs, and hash browns. Yummy! My meal also came with pancakes but those got slid over to John. He ended up splitting them with Kyle.
 Our first visitation for the day is the Lincoln Home site. This a 4 square block area around the Lincoln home that has been restored by the National Park Service. We went to the visitor center first where we signed up for the guided tour and browsed the shop. Pins were found!
Abraham Lincoln's home.
 We had some time to kill before our assigned tour so we explored some of the other homes on display. Most of the houses had a plaque that explained its place in the time of Lincoln.
 Our tour started promptly at 10:55, and our tour guide was a hottie. Nothing like a knowledgeable pretty girl in uniform to make the tour even more enjoyable. She posed for a picture but it didn't turn out well.
 The tour included a couple actors portraying people from the Lincoln era. This is the living room where Lincoln accepted the nomination for president. This desk in his bedroom is where his is purported to have written some of his memorable speeches.
 After the official Lincoln home tour was concluded (it lasted about 20 minutes) we walked through a couple other homes that are available for touring. These have displays inside about Lincoln, his neighbors, home construction from that era, etc.
Lincoln's tomb had been closed when we were there yesterday afternoon, so we headed back over there to visit the tomb itself. The trip across town took about 15 minutes and I got to see a train along the way. As we were leaving the home site area we were flagged down by an older couple in a pickup truck. They asked us if we knew how to get to Lincoln's tomb. Follow us!
 Surprisingly, but not unhappily, there was almost no one at Lincoln's tomb on this holiday weekend. We returned to the tomb and went inside.
The entry room. Hallways from either side of the room lead back to the actual tomb.
The burial place of Abraham Lincoln. His wife, and three of his four children are also entombed here. There are lots of locked doors throughout the tomb building and surrounding area that would be interesting to explore.
 After touring the tomb we stopped at a gift shop outside the gate, but found nothing of interest. We stopped at a Qik-n-EZ for refreshments. Kyle got a 52-oz pop.
 On the way back to the hotel we reconned the route to the ballpark. By 1:30 we were back at the hotel. John said there was a John Wayne marathon on AMC so I turned the TV on and fell asleep for about an hour.
 John came by and said he was heading out to the grille to cook steaks. We gathered up plates and silverware from the room and went outside. We stopped at the front desk and they gave us utensils for the grille. If you've read other trip reports of mine you know that John is a master steak griller. Today was another in a long line of perfect steaks. The steak dinner was great. After our cookout we cleaned up our mess and popped the utensils in the dishwasher in the room. We lounged a little longer, smoked cigarettes, watched a wedding party come and go. Eventually a little before 5pm we headed to the ballpark to use our free tickets.
 When we got to the park we waited in line for about 20 minutes. Besides the game, they are also giving free bobbleheads to the first 500 people, and they are having fireworks after the game. Our seats were third row behind homeplate, and the view was great. I hadn't been to a professional baseball game for probably 40 years. When I was little we went to a Cincinnati Reds game. During the game a girl came around taking food orders so we all had hotdogs and pop. They had the 7th inning stretch, and the crowd sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame". It was a blast. Between innings they had different activities. The game was good, too. The home team got a little behind at first but won in 10 innings. After the game we watched the fireworks. We were back at the hotel around 10 pm. I watched some more John Wayne movies and 'smoked' a couple times with John and Debby. The weather had been nice all day. It was a little warm in the afternoon but no humidity like there would be back home.
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