state parks project, part 16: lincoln

I mentioned that it's fall break, right? Mike and the boys have been off all week, but I got one measly day off. But believe me, we made the most of it. We rented a house just north of Louisville (on the Indiana side of the river), and were exploring some of the southern state parks. We also brought Charlie along for the trip. Before this, the longest trip he's taken with us was to the cottage in Michigan (about an hour), so we weren't sure how he was going to handle it, but he's been a real champ.

First up this morning was a visit to Lincoln State Park in Lincoln City. This is the area where Abraham Lincoln lived from around 1816 to 1830. Weirdly, the park doesn't include the Lincoln homestead itself; that is part of the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, which is conveniently located directly across the street from the main entrance to Lincoln State Park. But more on that in a bit.

We drove to the parking lot at the trailhead, conveniently right on Lake Lincoln, which is really beautiful. And almost as soon as we got out of the car, I had a revelation: Lincoln was the 16th president, and this was our 16th state park. It was totally unintentional (we are really not that clever), but the boys were tickled when I told them.

The trail that we picked was called "Mr. Lincoln's Neighborhood Walk." Neat, right? The trail led past the church the Lincoln family attended, the cemetery where Lincoln's sister, Sarah, is buried. She died in childbirth when she was only 21, and her baby died too and was buried in her arms. The boys were shocked when we read the explanatory sign to them; it never even occurred to them that something like that could happen.

After that, the trail wound around past the mill where Lincoln did a lot of his business, then there was a brief detour to the Lincoln Amphitheater, which looks like a relatively recent addition to the park. It shockingly (!!) wasn't in use on a Friday morning late in October, so the boys got to explore a little, which they were very excited about.

After that, the trail wound back around to the start at Lake Lincoln, but we took our time exploring along the way. Overall, we really liked this park. The trails were well maintained, and there were sections with really interesting elevated wooden walkways with switchbacks, which I've never seen before. Max and Henry liked the amphitheater best, and Liam says he liked the disparate elements of it, heading from lake to cemetery to church to wooden walkway to mill to abandoned well to amphitheater and back again.

On the way out, we decided to go across the street to the national memorial and see the actual site of the Lincoln homestead. We checked out the sculptures on the outside of the visitor center first, then went in to use the restroom ... and that's where it kind of went sideways. It turns out that you have to pay to see anything, and since we didn't intend to stay very long, that didn't really make sense. The desk attendant did grudgingly let us use the restroom, just as long as we assured him we were leaving right afterward. So that's what we did. Maybe next time, Lincoln homestead!

See also: SPP1, SPP2, SPP3, SPP4, SPP5, SPP6, SPP7, SPP8, SPP9, SPP10, SPP11, 
SPP12, SPP13, SPP14, SPP15.