The day after we visited Mammoth Caves, we took an hour drive north to visit (and do the Jr. Ranger program at) Lincoln’s Birthplace National Monument. There was a lovely visitor’s center where the kids picked up their Jr. Ranger books, and we found a little bumper sticker 🙂 .
The park has a reproduction room showing what Lincoln’s birthplace may have looked like when he was born…
I thought the Jr. Ranger books here were adorable!
except Molly, who was more interested in the table of Lincoln Logs…
There is a memorial here, with a large staircase leading up to it. There are 56 steps – one for each year of President Lincoln’s life.
Just to the left of the staircase in the above picture, is a natural, underground spring, which now has steps leading down to it. Abe would have probably been too small to fetch water from it, but he surely drank water from it. His family would have lived here from before his birth to when he was about 3 years old.
The little spring was beautiful, except for all the money that people had been throwing in it.
The weather here has been gorgeous, not too hot, not too cold. We enjoyed a walk around the beautifully kept grounds. Everything here is so green!
Heading back down to the visitor’s center to turn in our Jr. Ranger books…
Caleb likes Kentucky…(and check out those big boy teeth!)
Peanut NEVER runs out of energy…
After visiting the birthplace, we drove a few miles down the road to the Boyhood Home of Abraham Lincoln (still part of the birthplace park, just different site). His family moved to this land after the dispute over his birthplace acreage meant that his father lost that land, and his family lived here for a couple of years before moving (to Ohio I think).
His home here is no longer standing; there was a farmhouse, but it looked much newer, and the ranger station was closed up, so no info there. I was too busy helping the girls look at the pretty flowers…
You’d think we didn’t have caterpillars back home in Montana!
The kids earned their “Lincoln’s Birthplace” ranger badges, and we drove the hour back to the rv park. We made sure that our laundry was caught up (by the time it’s done drying, there is always more in the hampers tho!) before hitting the road the next morning.
Driving through Kentucky towards Missouri, we saw quite a few buggies – I didn’t even know there was Amish country around here. I would have loved to stop somewhere and pick up some Amish made jams!
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