Summer 1991

Summer 1991

Aimee and I spent the summer visiting Midwest attractions. One weekend we drove to Detroit to see the Henry Ford Museum. It is an immense and amazing place with lot of early Ford cars documenting the development of the automobile. But it is so much more. Besides lots of trains, it contains many historical items, including the Kennedy assassination limo. There is also a complete historical housewares section illustrating innovation in domestic engineering. We could have spent several days here.

Another weekend we drove out to the see the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, IL about 45 miles northwest of us. It claims to be the largest train museum in the US. It definitely has lots of engines. We learn a little about steam power and finish the day with a short ride on a steam train a few miles down the track.

My father gave me glowing reviews about his recent visit to the House on the Rock, so we made the three-hour drive to Spring Green, WI to see it. While there is a strange Frank Lloyd Wright type house built atop a rock, the main attraction is the eccentric owner's collection of stuff. It takes several hours to wind our way through a maze of oddities. The most interesting are the huge collection of automated musical instruments. Many are quite cool and unique.

We did a day trip down to Starved Rock State Park to learn why it is the most popular site in Illinois. The park sits atop a limestone bluff overlooking the Illinois River. In 1683 the French built a fort here to be near the Grand Village of the Illini Indians that once sat on the opposite bank. The bluff got its name from a legend that the Illini tribe in 1769 took refuge here during a siege by attacking Potawatomi Indians. We hiked around the cliff and canyons. It looks surprisingly like the Mississippi bluffs near my hometown of Godfrey, IL.

While visiting my parents, I took Aimee with me to the nearby town of Collinsville to visit Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. Cahokia was the capital of the Mississippian Indian culture in the time before Columbus. The site contains many earthen mounds or platforms, but the centerpiece is Monks Mound that covers 14 acres and is 100 foot high. The attached museum is well done. It is amazing to learn that mounds from prehistoric Indians have been found throughout the Midwest. St Louis once had the moniker of Mound City. Sadly, most have been plowed over by farmers or leveled for buildings. There are also ruins from a circular Stonehenge-like observatory, nicknamed ‘Woodhenge'.