Sweet Seven

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Camden!!! I can't believe that you are seven already! It seems like just yesterday that we went to the hospital to see you as a brand new baby. You were so sweet and cute--and you just keep getting sweeter and cuter. Thank you for being such a fun, wonderful niece. Uncle Greggy and I love you very much!

When it rains, it . . . FLOODS!

Where I come from, a moving body of water does not have to be a mile wide to be considered a river. So, when I was driving to work in a downpour yesterday, and the water was flowing down the streets of downtown Springfield, I was understandably a little nervous! I have never driven in that much water before. It was really raining hard! I called Greg and told him that there were several inches of water on the road, and he said, "Oh, that's normal." :-) So I took a picture to show that there's nothing normal about it! You can even see the police cars pulling up. They soon closed down the roads because the water was getting kind of dangerous. But then a few hours later, the sun came out and literally dried up all the rain. It was so weird--all of a sudden it was a beautiful day with no sign left of the morning's torrential downpour. I'll never understand the weather here.

I especially enjoyed yesterday afternoon because my favorite Illinois family--the Stowells--came by the Great Western Depot for a visit! It was so fun to see them. Unfortunately not all of the Stowells got to come to Springfield, but it was really fun to see Savannah, Sam, Spencer, Sadie, and Brother Stowell (we're glad your leg is feeling better!).

Today it was sooooo hot here. Well, the temperature wasn't terribly bad--just 90 or so--but there had to have been 120% humidity. So it felt much warmer than it really was. We rangers all thought we were going to melt, but luckily we all survived the day. Poor Uncle Greggy Greg (as the Barrett girls call him) fell about 20 feet off of a ladder at work today. He is quite bruised and sore this evening, but thankfully he is all right! Last night he made some really delicious breaded chicken using pancake batter. I think it was some of the best chicken I've ever eaten!

Weekend Fun

What says summer weekend fun better than baseball? Greg and I found a fun, new, local entertainment source: the Springfield Sliders baseball team. They are a member of the Prospect League, and the team is mostly made up of college players. They're not the St. Louis Cardinals, but they're still fun to watch--and, of course the ambiance at any baseball game is fun. The Sliders coach is Jack Clark--the former Cardinals All-Star who signed a baseball for us when we went to the game in St. Louis back in April. The weather was beautiful yesterday evening, and even though the Sliders lost to the DuPage Dragoons, we still had a really good time.

Then today we went to Nauvoo!!! It was so much fun. We left early this morning and made it to the temple for the 10:00 session. It was a wonderful experience. I can't believe that it has been just over a year since our fun family trip to Nauvoo last June! After the temple session, Greg and I had a yummy lunch at Grandpa John's and then took a carriage ride through town. It was cloudy and cool outside--rather unusual for June--but it felt very refreshing. It is quite fun to live so close to Nauvoo. What a fun weekend we have had!

Historical Doritos

Here is a little-known "historical" fact: Abraham Lincoln ate Doritos! :-) Last Friday Greg and I went to the Old State Capitol for the annual Civil War Encampment. Who did we find there--but Abraham Lincoln himself. Of course I had to get a picture. The man's real name is Fritz Klein, and he has to be the best Lincoln re-enactor in the world. He looks JUST like him!!! He is the one who plays Lincoln in the film we show at the visitor center. When we first ran into him he was eating a bag of Doritos. I said, "Mr. Lincoln, you eat Doritos?" He smiled and said, "Oh, yes, it's a rather new thing I discovered." I told him that I work at his house, and he said, "Are they taking good care of it these days?" :-)

Then for the last few days I've gotten to do a little historical dress-up myself. Our living history program is now in full swing, and our superintendent has requested that at least half of the staff be in living history clothes at all times. It's a lot of fun. Kids especially love seeing us walking around, and it adds to the historical ambiance of the neighborhood. As you can see, I'm sporting a green dress with a small pink and blue flower pattern, along with a sun hat and some fake hair :-) My hair isn't long enough to be historically accurate, so I have a bundle of fake hair that I stuff into my snood--which is basically a glorified hairnet. I actually look pretty great--if I do say so myself.

This morning I encountered my first truly terrible visitor at the Lincoln Home. I was the ranger at the front visitor center desk, and a bus group of senior citizens came in while the other rangers were still at the morning meeting. One of the group members came up to the desk and was asking about the film we show. It was about 9:03 a.m., and the group was scheduled to go into the house at 9:20. I told him that our film had already started and that it wouldn't be finished in time for them to go on their tour. But then he kind of freaked out and started swearing, wondering why we couldn't wait a few minutes for them to finish the movie. Finally after some unsuccessful negotiations I put on my mean face and said, "Fine, go watch the movie." Then he started worrying that the group would leave before he was done, so he talked all of them into going to the movie. Needless to say, by 9:07 a.m., I was fed up with people all together and was ready for the day to be done. The other rangers were very upset with the man, and he got a lot of angry looks from people. He was very nasty. But luckily there were a lot of nice people at the park today too, so my mood progressively improved throughout the day.

Rogue Ranger National Treasure Adventures

Well, the last few days have been quite eventful to say the least. On Tuesday we had our big Organization of American Historians workshop. It ended up going very well, but I was so pooped after it was all over! It was a lot of work to pull everything off--but I've decided that I love Catherine Clinton (one of our speakers). She currently teaches at Queens University in Belfast, Ireland, and her new book on Mary Lincoln called Mrs. Lincoln: A Life is awesome. She tries to dispel all of the negative myths and misconceptions about Mary. It makes me really sad that Mary usually gets such a bad wrap. If you think about it--you see three of your four boys die, you're leaning on your husband's shoulder when he's shot and you get covered with his blood, then the people in the room where your husband is dying kick you out and won't let you back in to be with him when he dies--you'd probably act a little crazy too! I think that Mary Lincoln is terribly misunderstood. I am glad that I am in a position at the Lincoln Home to try to dispel some of the negative ideas about her. It drives me crazy when the first question a visitor asks is: "Why did Mr. Lincoln marry a quack?" But at least that gives me a chance to explain that she wasn't a quack. So anyway, a good deal of our workshop on Tuesday dealt with Mary Lincoln, so it was very interesting, and everyone there (about 100 people) seemed to enjoy it.

Then on Wednesday I was responsible for taking four rangers visiting from the Lincoln Birthplace and the Lincoln Boyhood Home on a tour of Springfield . . . and I lost one of the rangers. Seriously. We were at the Presidential Museum, and all of a sudden Ranger Rod just disappeared. He's an older gentleman, and the other three rangers said that he's quite independent and probably just wanted to go through the museum at his own pace (he had also been there before). So I stuck with the three rangers, and we went through the museum which they enjoyed very much. We assumed that Ranger Rod would just wait for us in the rotunda when he was done looking around, but we could not find him anywhere. We searched all over and even had museum security looking for him, but he was nowhere to be found. Finally we found a security guard who said that he had seen him leave the museum. We went out to our van and found a note from him saying that he had gone back to the hotel, so we went over there to look for him but couldn't find him there either. The rangers discovered that their park van that had been parked at the hotel was gone, so we figured he must have gone up to New Salem (which was our next destination) by himself. Indeed this was the case. We called New Salem and they confirmed that they had seen someone matching his description come through, but he "looked like he was in a big hurry." I was so confused--and a little annoyed that the now rogue Ranger Rod had been so impatient and inconsiderate to just go off by himself. The other rangers from his park were really concerned because he has heart problems, and they were pretty embarrassed about how he was behaving. He had been treating me kind of strangely earlier in the day--like I was just this little know-nothing kid trying to play tour guide when he already knew everything. Anyway, we went up to New Salem and eventually found him walking around. He said, "Where have you guys been??? I've been here for a few hours!" Our answer was: "We've been looking for you." We were about an hour behind all day, but we saw everything and--despite having a rogue ranger with us--had a pretty good time.













Then yesterday was the day of our true adventure! I spent most of the day taking the visiting rangers around our park, talking about the restoration of different buildings and such. But then we went to the Lincoln Tomb for a tour. I had called ahead to schedule a special tour, but I didn't know quite what we were in for! This really nice man named Mike took us around and showed us the usual highlights--the original tomb, the site of the second temporary tomb, etc.--but then he took us inside the tomb . . . and I mean inside! He said, "I imagine that you guys are adventurous. How would you like to go climb around in the catacombs?" So we went through some secret doors, and pretty soon we were on the interior of the tomb area. It was seriously a scene right out of the "National Treasure" movies! We were using flashlights and climbing rickety ladders, walking on termite-eaten boardwalks, crawling through brick tunnels, and looking over the edge to see 20-50 foot drops. It was so crazy cool!!! I found these images of the interior of the Lincoln Tomb online--and that's pretty much what it looked like. At one point we were at the base of the large tower and could look clear up to the top. There is a ladder that goes clear up to the top of the tower, but we weren't quite that adventurous :-) At one point we were even standing on top of the vaults in the wall where Mary, Eddie, Willie, and Tad are buried! It was so crazy and fun. Rogue Ranger Rod wondered what exactly he had gotten himself into, but the other rangers (including me) were quite enthralled with it all. There were falling rocks and debris piled up everywhere. We even got to see some pieces of the original sarcophagus where Lincoln's body was originally placed (until some men tried to steal his body in the 1870s and broke the sarcophagus). Of course we didn't get anywhere near where Abraham Lincoln is buried--because they have insured that no one will ever be able to even try to steal his body again. He is now buried ten feet under the bedrock in a steel vault encased in several feet of concrete.

So it was quite an adventure yesterday! I have now been to the basement of Mount Vernon and seen the innards of Lincoln's Tomb! You have to admit, that is pretty sweet. Though I was rather disgruntled with Ranger Rod after Wednesday, having to deal with him was well worth the Lincoln Tomb experience.