America's Best Idea

It's been all about the national parks at Illinois' one-and-only national park lately. We've been getting ready for the big premier of Ken Burns' new mini-series: "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" on Sunday, September 27 on PBS. They'll be showing a 45-minute preview of the film to the public at the Lincoln Home on Saturday. The series should be pretty amazing--they've been working on it for six years. And of course anything Ken Burns does is top-notch. It will be exciting to see the series which will highlight America's natural parks and explore the history, meaning, and importance of the National Park Service. I've been writing press releases, site bulletins, and other materials to be handed out to the public on Saturday. Hopefully the series will increase interest in the national parks--which really are one of America's very best ideas. So be sure to tune in to PBS on Sunday evening! The series will run for two hours each evening from September 27 through October 2.

Speaking of national parks, here is my Natchez ranger friend and former roommate Jessica's cute dog Wilhelmina in the costume Jessica made for the annual "Bark in the Park" event in Natchez. Isn't she funny?! She's a little ranger dog!!! I wonder if Jessica could make an outfit like that for Kaiser. I am very excited because on Thursday I get to go home to Utah for a visit!! I will miss Greg who needs to stay here to take care of work, school, and the animal children, but I am so excited to see family and friends. It will also be nice to have a little break from work. A few random things: I got a flu shot today, and Big Spike ate a slug the other day. He got kind of sick, but he seems to be doing a little better now.

Strange Springfield

Today was a funny day. At the Lincoln Home, we have been planning for our "Safe Trick-or-Treat" event at the end of October. Today my assignment was to obtain an application from the city of Springfield to get a permit to close down Edwards Street (which runs along the south end of the park) on October 30 so that the kids can cross the street there without having to worry about traffic. Unfortunately obtaining said permit requires one to get signatures from 80% of the residents living along the street, saying that they don't mind if the street is closed. That would be okay--if the street you're wanting to close isn't the GHETTO! I told my boss that I didn't want to go soliciting signatures by myself, so they sent Ranger Matt with me--which I ended up being very grateful for. It was okay when we were on the nice end of the street--there's a bed & breakfast, a law office, and a restaurant there. All of those people were happy to sign our form. But then we got to the shady end of the street. There is an apartment building there, and we had to try to get signatures from all of the tenants. When we opened the door to the building, the putrid smell almost knocked us over. We tried holding our breath and running around to the different apartments, but no one would open their door. Finally a BIG black guy opened the door, but he really "didn't" live there--he was just visiting his brother who wasn't home. We also had a crazy white guy open the door, but he refused to sign anything (I think he thought we were the police). So we got zero signatures from the apartments, and then there was one other really dilapidated house along the street from which we got no response. (There are also a couple of vacant, run-down houses on the street.) We returned to the park with only three signatures--but I told Mike that I was resigning from signature duty because I never want to return to that apartment building . . . ever!!!

Just as I was thinking about how funny it was that in Springfield you can go from pristine National Park to Ghetto Land in about ten steps, I looked up and saw a strange car(s) driving down the road. It was a car made out of a half of two different cars--duct taped together in the middle. (Safety hazard?) The front was bright yellow, and the black was brown. I had to pinch myself to make sure that I wasn't in some kind of messed-up dream. :-) It was really funny. Springfield, Illinois is a strange place. I wonder what Abraham Lincoln would think if he could see his hometown today.

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cracker Jacks . . .

Last Saturday Greg and I had another wonderful trip to St. Louis for a Cardinals game! It was an absolutely beautiful day to be at the ballpark.










Here is our favorite player, Albert Pujols, getting ready to bat. We were hoping that he would hit a home run for us, but they kept intentionally walking him.

It was a really good game, and the Cardinals had the lead going into the 9th inning, but unfortunately the Atlanta Braves pulled ahead and won by one run. It was still a very exciting game.

And, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset on the way home--a perfect ending to a perfect day!

Surrounded by Stars

I knew it was bound to happen--out of all of the thousands of people going through the Lincoln Home each day, there was bound to be someone famous. Today I gave my first tour to a "famous" person. I didn't know he was famous--I had never seen him before, nor did I recognize him, but Ranger Gene did. Gene actually recognized him from the Gore Vidal "Lincoln" DVD we sell at the park bookstore. He played Stephen Douglas in this funny movie we have featuring Sam Waterston as Abraham Lincoln and Mary Tyler Moore as Mary Lincoln. Anyway, Gene recognized this guy as Stephen Douglas, but it turns out that he is quite the Hollywood actor--even though none of the other rangers remember ever seeing him on TV. His name is Robin Gammell, and the biggest role he ever played was Mauric in one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (this picture is of Mauric--he doesn't really have a crazy forehead). Most recently he was on the TV shows "Nip/Tuck" and "Saving Grace." I have never seen those shows, nor did I ever have the desire to see them, but it's cool that I was able to take a famous Hollywood actor through the Lincoln Home. He was really nice, and he and his wife had an adorable dog named Finnigan. Unfortunately Finnigan didn't get to come inside the house.

Tad the cute cat came back to our house! He couldn't resist the kitty food we left outside for him. I was afraid he had left us forever, but when Greg came home for lunch yesterday, Tad was out by our door munching on some food. He even followed Greg back to work--until he saw our neighbor's cute kitty whom he then went to play with. Hooray for Tad being our outdoor kitty! He was outside eating once again today when I returned home from work. I think he likes having adventures around Athens. He is so cute. Greg made some delicious turkey for dinner, and I now have some white chocolate bread pudding in the oven, so we're going to have a yummy treat.

BYU Rocks!

Wow, that was the best football game . . . ever! I can't believe that BYU just beat #3 Oklahoma. That was an awesome game. I was especially excited because the game was shown on ESPN so we could watch it out here in Illinois. Greg and I had a football party, and what a party it was when BYU won! That was so great. Today as Greg and I ran errands in Springfield, I was all decked out in my BYU gear. :-) I love BYU. I am so happy that they won!!!

This was a busy week at work, and I am grateful it is the weekend. Yesterday at the Lincoln Home, this cute cat (whom we named Tad) was wandering around. He had been in the neighborhood for about a week, and some of the rangers were getting concerned because he kept trying to get into the houses. The last time a stray cat got inside the Lincoln Home, it went straight for the original horse hair furniture! So Melissa and I volunteered to take Tad to the Animal Protective League (where Greg and I got Tiger Lily). When we got there, they said that they had no room for any more cats! :-( We didn't want to take him back to the Lincoln neighborhood because we were afraid he would get hit by a car, run into the Lincoln Home, or something of the sort. So we brought Tad up here to Athens, and Greg helped us set up a cage for him in the laundry room. Then we all had to go back to work. When Greg and I got home later in the day, we could see that Tad was not happy. He didn't like being inside, and he really didn't like Lily or the Spikes. He was very upset. I called my boss Mike back at the Lincoln Home to ask him what we should do, and he said that he thought Tad might like living outside here in Athens. So Greg and I took him outside, and he seemed very happy. He's a natural explorer. We left food out for him, but I think he just kind of ran off into the sunset to find a new adventure because we haven't seen him today. I feel bad and hope that he will be okay and that I did the right thing, but I couldn't see keeping him inside. There are a lot of cats here in Athens, so he should be able to find some nice friends. I love cats. Lily has been extra cuddly since Tad left. She was very upset when he was here, and I think she is trying to remind us of how cute she is so we don't bring any more cats home. :-) And Happy Birthday last Wednesday to Riley!!! And Happy Birthday tomorrow to Grandma Cathy!!!