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.

Lincoln Link

Hooray! The cell phone tour is complete. I can't believe that we actually finished it ahead of schedule. It was scheduled to be released on June 1, but they finished everything--including information cards--yesterday. If you want to check it out, you can call 217-213-3003. The extension for the Lincoln Home is 5#, and then if you want to hear the neighborhood script I wrote, you can start with the Cook House at extension 50#. It turned out even better than I had hoped! Everyone at the park is very excited about it, and I hope it will serve as a valuable addition to everything the park has to offer. It feels good to see a project turn out successfully.

Storm Chasers

Greg and I recently bought some bikes so that we could tool around Athens in style--and so we could get some good exercise. When I get home from work in the evenings, my feet are seriously ready for a break; so a bike is the perfect alternative to running. Today we decided to go on a small storm chasing bike adventure. We could hear thunder so we checked the weather radar online and saw that the storm was northeast of us. So we decided to go take a look.


Here's the storm blowing in.

And here is a neat picture of the sun shining through the clouds to our west.

But then the storm started getting a little too close for comfort--and we saw some big flashes of lightning. So that was our signal to head home. The storm ended up skirting around Athens, but we're glad we didn't take any chances.

Happy Birthday to Sarah today! It sounds like she, Joel, and Eliza had a fun little trip to the Ninety Six National Historic Site there in South Carolina. That sounds like a really cool Revolutionary War site--hooray for National Parks!

The Potentially Crazy Dog Lady

Yesterday our neighbor, the Mayor, got a new dog. The new dog looks JUST LIKE Big Spike!!! So you can bet that the next time a tornado rolls through and we are running out to the car with our animal children, the crazy cat lady will become the crazy dog lady and will run over and accuse us of stealing their dog. Grrrrrrrrrr.

Speaking of animals, there are two ADORABLE baby bunnies that were born in the Lincoln neighborhood a couple of weeks ago. They have made their new home behind the Beedle House, which is our ranger headquarters, and it is fun to see them hopping around. I've been sneaking them some carrots from my lunch.

Yesterday evening was my first time closing the park! Luckily everything went well. Ranger David (one of our Law Enforcement rangers) went around to the different buildings with me, which was a great help (and made me feel much safer). There is a lot to remember when closing down each building, and probably the scariest part of it is having complete responsibility for a true national treasure.

I am enjoying my day off--especially sleeping in and not having to see 8th graders. Next week is going to be a wild one at work. The park is hosting an Organization of American Historians interpretation training workshop that will involve people from historic sites all over the country (mostly from Illinois though). I have been working like crazy to get everyone registered (while still taking loads of school kids through the Lincoln Home), and I still have to get 125 packets ready for the conference attendees. We have some pretty big-name historians that will be speaking at the conference, so it should be pretty cool. The conference takes place on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday and Thursday I am responsible for conducting the "Ranger Exchange" tours. The Lincoln Home has a partnership with the Abraham Lincoln Boyhood Home National Memorial in Indiana and the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Park in Kentucky where each park sends rangers to the other parks to tour the area and learn about park operations. So we have five rangers coming from the other parks this next week. They will attend the conference, and then for the next two days I will be responsible for showing them around the area. It should be pretty exciting!

The Mayor and the Crazy Cat Lady

Today is the first day that I will be responsible for closing up at the Lincoln Home, so I don't have to go to work until 11:00. It's nice to have a little break in the morning, but I won't get to leave work until 7:30 p.m. Over the weekend, we transitioned to our "extended hours" schedule which will last until Labor Day. The park will be open from 8:30 a.m. until 7:00 p.m., and since I am one of only six people who have keys to all of the buildings, I will be responsible for closing one night each week. Considering the presence of all the psycho people who wander the streets of Springfield, I was a little nervous to think that I might be the only person there until 7:30. But I found out yesterday that one of the law enforcement rangers will be there with me--so that is good.

But anyway, after the excitement of the tornado a couple of weeks ago, I failed to write about one other item of interest: our crazy cat lady neighbor. Remember a couple of months ago when I wrote about our neighbor who ran for mayor of Athens and only received six votes (when the winner and runner-up both received over 200 votes)? Well, Greg and I now jokingly refer to said neighbor (just between ourselves) as "the Mayor." The crazy cat lady is the Mayor's wife. They are quite the neighbors. Their house is totally scary, and their kids are really rude. The Mayor and the crazy cat lady are always outside yelling at their kids, and the Athens Police show up at their home quite frequently.

So it was the day of the tornado, and Greg and I having just seen on the Weather Channel that we were under a tornado warning, packed up the animal children and ran out to the car (we were going to head over to the safety of the funeral home basement). I had just gotten into the car with the children when the Mayor's wife came storming over into our yard. (She definitely seemed intoxicated.) She walked up to Greg and screamed, "You guys stole our cat!!!!" That caught us both off guard. He said, "No, we have our own cat." She shrieked: "No you don't! You stole Bob our cat!! I demand to see the cat in your car!" Greg was trying to get her to leave so that we could leave, but she was acting really crazy. So he took Lily out of the car and said, "Look--is this your cat?" She said, "No, that's not Bob." But then she was still freaking out, and her kids came over and were acting really ridiculous, and Greg told them that they really needed to leave us alone. So we got in the car and drove to the funeral home. As if the tornado wasn't already enough to worry about!

Later that day Greg was able to talk to one of the police officers and tell them about the incident. The police lady asked who it was, and when Greg told her she just rolled her eyes and said, "Well, that doesn't surprise me." She told us that we can call the police anytime the Mayor and his crazy cat lady wife bother us.

Speaking of tornadoes, I took this picture from our car when we were driving home the other day after taking Mom to the airport in St. Louis. We were just south of Litchfield, Illinois, and there were some serious thunderstorms blowing in. I was sure that this was a tornado forming, but it ended up being what they call a "teaser." It's just rain that looks like it's turning into a tornado. On Tuesday while I was at work, something kind of funny happened. The church right next to our bus parking lot has a food pantry. A number of us rangers were sitting out by the bus lot waiting for the school kids to arrive, and we were watching some of the happenings over at the food pantry. A red convertible Camero pulled up, and the couple inside who looked like they had come into some hard times, got out and started loading food items into their trunk. There was definitely something wrong with that picture--a red Camero? Maybe if you drive a Camero you don't have enough money to buy things like food? It was kind of strange. In fact, the whole Springfield area (including Athens) is kind of strange and funny.