The Road West

Pullman

Since I was traveling with Papa Burns, Day 1 started out at the ass crack of dawn. We were on the road by 5:15. The drive was pretty quiet until we got to Cleveland when it started to SNOW! Driving along the lakes are always an adventure. We hit Chicago after lunch and stopped at the Pullman National Monument. It's one of the newest national monuments (added in 2015). I had heard of the Pullman car and the Pulllman Porter but I didn't realize the extent of George Pullmans influence.

Pullman

He built the first model planned industrial community. His vision never really materialized thanks to the famous Pullman strike. Today they have restored a lot of the old workers homes and it is a really quaint little community. It was sunny and in the 50s so it was a great place to stretch our legs. We turned south of the lake and the landscape flattened out on our way to Bloomington, IL where we spent the night.

Lincoln Home

Old state house

New state house

The next morning we got deep in the Land of Lincoln. A couple years ago I had gone to Kentucky and seen Lincoln's boyhood home so it was nice to see his adulthood home. We took a tour and 90% of the interior was original. You could feel the history in the house. While in Springfield we decided to see the Old and New state houses as well as the final resting place of  Lincoln.

Lincoln Tomb

Lincoln Final Resting Place

After that it was time to cross the Mississippi and head into St. Louis. I was super stoked because I had never been to Missouri before so I was glad to check a new state off my list. And what an entrance to see the arch welcoming us! First, we toured the Old Courthouse and watched a documentary of the construction of the arch. It only took 2.5 years to complete. The most fascinating part was that the insurance company predicted 13 people would die during construction and no one did. This was back in the days before harnesses so people were just working 600 feet in the air with no safety gear. Eek!

The entire area around the arch is under construction and it was cloudy and rainy so it wasn't quite that scenic but I knew the good views would be up at the top. I wasn't really sure what to expect with the ride to the top but the tram cars were like little pods that were 4 foot tall and had 5 tiny seats shoved in them.It was definitely a unique ride. At the top we could see east and west and it was a heck of a view.

Tram

East view

West view