Blue Lotus

In Woodstock, Ill. earlier this month, not far from the town square, I noticed something I'd never noticed before, though I don't visit town that often.

Note the Buddha on the grounds of a building that has "First Congregational Church 1906" carved in stone next to the entrance, though it's a little hard to see the lettering in the picture. Turns out that the building is now the Blue Lotus Buddhist Temple — as of very recently, since the its dedication festivities as a temple were only last month, according to the temple web site. Except for the colorful (prayer?) flags, it still looks like a handsome early 20th-century brick church.

Just more evidence that North America is large, and contains multitudes.

The Woodstock Opera House

The Woodstock Opera House dates from 1889, when it was built as a multipurpose building: library, court, council room, fire department and second-floor auditorium for the city of Woodstock. The venue's web site says that Elgin-based architect Smith Hoag added "early American, Midwestern, Gothic and even Moorish elements. The interior is modeled after the showboats of the time, with dimensions and decorations that imitate many of those grand floating theaters."

The theater has hosted entertainment of various kinds since 1890, including an early '30s summer stock theater that included a very young Orson Welles. "In 1947 a group of citizens formed and supported the Woodstock Players," the web site continues. "For several years the Players provided acting experience for students graduating from the Goodman School. Now-famous personalities Paul Newman, Tom Bosley, Betsy Palmer, Geraldine Page, Shelley Berman and Lois Nettleton were among them."

I had to look up some of those actors, such as the late Lois Nettleton. (Who moved on to television, including appearances on Captain Video.) About a month ago, I noticed that Al Stewart would be back at the Woodstock Opera House again. Inconveniently timed, since I knew I'd be busy that week, but I decided to go. He's not getting any younger, and neither am I.

Footprint on the Square

Woodstock, Ill., has a pleasant town square, with greenery, walkways, benches and a statue memorializing the fallen originally erected by the GAR. Unlike some small towns, the business district surrounding the square seems fairly healthy, or at least without a lot of empty properties. Fixed to the sidewalk near I forget which business is this plaque.

Groundhog Day was largely filmed in Woodstock, and that spot is where Phil Connors (Bill Murray) stepped in an icy puddle a few times. If I remember right, he quickly learned to avoid stepping in it, once he understood he was trapped in a time loop. Chuck Peterson and family must have been mightily entertained by the scene.

(Literal) Item From the Past: The Galena Mug

As predicted, the warm temps lasted through the weekend, which meant cleaning out parts of the garage on Saturday, which I didn't much want to do, and taking a long walk on Sunday, which I did.

The same weekend in 1989, it was cold. I remember that because I drove to Galena, Illinois, on (Friday) March 17 that year, and at one point on US 20 not far from that town, my car hit some ice and gave us a momentary scare. It was cold the entire weekend, but Galena didn't disappoint. It's a lovely town in the extreme northwestern part of the state, rich in historical associations, including a former residence of U.S. Grant.

I went to Galena because of Jim Post. In early 1989, instead of paying attention to the Super Bowl, that Sunday I went to see him do his one-man show, Galena Rose: How Whiskey Won the West. Amazingly, there's a late '88 article from the Reader about the show online.

"Though Post's soaring tenor pipes produce some of the strongest, sweetest sounds this side of heaven, the show is anything but syrupy nostalgia," wrote Hank De Zutter. "For it features flesh-and-blood characters -- Indians betrayed, a runaway slave recaptured and freed, an Irish fugitive caught with his pants down, a pioneer woman uncertain about starting over in a town without lace curtains, and Mississippi River poleboat men, fueled by little more than dreams and drafts of whiskey -- the whiskey, Post claims with ample historical evidence, that 'won the west.' "

I'm not sure, but I probably read the article when it was originally published, and it might have influenced my decision to see Post's show. In any case, Post inspired me to go to Galena itself. All these years later, the only physical reminder I have of the trip is this souvenir.

I'm glad I still have it. A lot of things have been lost or kicked around in the years since then. In this pic, it's holding hot tea, which is what I use it for more than anything else.

Fill 'Er Up With Premium Electrons

On Saturday, we went to Chicago Premium Outlets, which is actually in Aurora, Illinois, just off I-88. I saw something there I've read about, but never seen before: an electric vehicle charging station.

Cool. A U.S. Department of Energy web page tells me that there are currently about 75 nonresidential charging stations in Illinois, though as a state, Illinois' total is fairly low. California has well over 500, and Florida, Michigan, Texas and Washington state all have between 100 and 200. Then again, some states have none, including the yawning stretches of Montana and the Dakotas.

John Anderson, Hoichi Kurisu, Justin Bieber & Elvis Presley

I'm used to reading that such-and-such Japanese garden was ordered built by so-and-so daimyo during this or that remote century. So even though I knew the Anderson Japanese Gardens pretty much had to be a 20th-century creation, it was still a mild surprise to learn that the gardens were created in my lifetime.

"John Anderson, a third generation Rockford industrialist, started the garden in the fall of 1978," an article posted by WIRF ("Rockford's #1 News Source) tells us. "He was motivated to build a Japanese garden by a visit to Japan after graduating from the University of Wisconsin. The Japanese people, their culture, their appreciation for nature and their landscape design philosophy -- left a lifelong impression on him."

Being from a family of industrialists -- I've also seen him described as a venture capitalist -- Anderson thus had the scratch to hire Hoichi Kurisu to design a garden in Rockford. Kurisu had come to the United States in 1968 to become director of landscaping at the Japanese garden complex in Washington Park Gardens, Portland, Oregon. "Mr. Kurisu continues to this day to ensure continuous improvement of the grounds and design of Anderson Japanese Gardens," the garden's web site says. "The placement of every rock, alignment of every tree, and layout of all paths has been made with careful consideration by Mr. Kurisu over the last 32 years."

So not only are the gardens recent, they're still being overseen by the first generation, though WIRF did say that John Anderson's son (another John Anderson) is now executive director of the property, but only since earlier this year. The designer still comes to do design work every year. So "work in progress" is no lazy description of the place, though maybe "work across the decades" might fit better.

Since we were there last in 2002, the gardens have opened a new visitor center, larger than the previous one and also including event space. Preparations were being made for a wedding in the garden and a reception in the visitor center as we started to leave, right before the gardens closed for the day. The bride and the bridesmaids were outside, posing for photos, while the groom and groomsmen were goofing around in the visitors center.

The DJ was getting ready too. Part of his gear included life-sized standup cutouts of certain singers, present and past. Ann asked for her pic with a certain heartthrob of the day.

Yuriko preferred a heartthrob of an earlier era.

A Shishi Odoshi for All to See

This is a shishi odoshi (鹿威し). I'd seen one before, but did not know the name until we encountered this one at the Anderson Japanese Gardens in Rockford recently.

It's a hollow bamboo tube balanced on a small upright, with one end sealed. Water from another bamboo pipe fills the tube, and when it's close to full, it pivots on the upright and dumps its collection of water. The tube then drops back down, sealed end first, to make a pop against a rock below. Its traditional function was to scare off animals (deer, mainly) who might want to feast on the garden's plants. These days it serves the visual and aural aesthetic of the garden.

I'm not an authority on Japanese gardens, or even an enthusiast, but I know I like that feature. The big-picture bridges and ponds and trees and water features at Anderson please the senses as they should, but I also made an effort to see some of the details too -- the smaller bits of Japanese garden artistry, such as the shishi odoshi but also another fountain:

A stone pagoda nestled in the trees and undergrowth.

And a spheroid stone cat. With emblems of primate fertility?

Anderson Japanese Gardens

This June has offered northern Illinois an unusually large number of cool, cloudy days, some rainy. In between are more standard summer-like days. Mr. Blue Sky never does tell us why he has to be away for so long, but then again rain has its underrated charms. Despite cool conditions, crickets have started singing by night, and I've even spotted a firefly or two.

During one of those summer-like days recently we went to Rockford to visit the Anderson Japanese Gardens. We'd been there before, but it was like going somewhere new because the last time was nearly nine years ago, and that was during the fall. It was time to experience the gardens in the summer. In both seasons, Anderson remains one of my favorite Japanese gardens, and I've seen a few.

The one that impressed me most is still Ritsurin Koen in Takamatsu on the island of Shikoku. But part of that was circumstance. The morning I visited Ritsurin Koen, a heavy summer rain had just fallen, adding luster to the already artfully lush setting. Even better, I had the place to myself, a rarity in Japan.

Anderson has artful lushness too, and is only a little more than an hour away. It has bridges.

And waterfalls.

And expansive ponds.

And much more. Yuriko feels that Anderson is very much like a garden in Japan, and I thought the only thing missing was an on-site temple, complete with monks periodically ringing temple bells.

CCC Shelter, Lockport

How good of Google to remind us yesterday of a lunar eclipse than could not be seen from North America. But Google is an international company, so it makes sense, and it was a fine doodle. At about 9:30 last night, a full Illinois moon emerged from cloud cover, and it was a fine moon. But ordinary bright white. I'll try to catch the December 2011 lunar eclipse, but something tells me that will mean getting out of bed during the wee hours of a winter night, rather than standing in the warm air and green grass of a June evening.

A web site called Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy tells us that "today citizens still drive on roadways built by the men of the CCC. Vast expanses of public land are connected through scenic byways and fire trails. Lodges, cabins, picnic pavilions, and many other recreational structures still stand as a testament to the craftsmanship and design of the CCC program. One of the most recognizable examples of a scenic road in the central eastern United States is the Blue Ridge Parkway and Shenandoah National Park."

That, and that the men of the CCC planted nearly 3 billion trees, built the infrastructure of 800 or so state parks, fought fires, operated fish hatcheries and did other things. Besides remitting $25 in fat 1930s dollars every month to their families, who presumably needed it. Looking around more, and I found this newsreel clip.

The CCC comes to mind because as we strolled along the I&M Canal in Lockport, I saw this structure across the canal and across the street paralleling the canal (fittingly, Canal Street).

Though on the other side of the canal, it was easily accessible by footbridge. Ann and I went over for a closer look. It's in reasonably good shape, though some of the stonework is worn, and clearly people have been ignoring a NO FIRES sign on the building, since the fireplace inside had been used not too long ago.

The I&M Canal, Lockport

Last Saturday was a good day to take a walk along the Illinois & Michigan Canal in Lockport, so we proceeded from Lincoln's Landing (see Monday) toward Lock No. 1. But we didn't make it that far, despite overcast skies and no rain, and temps in the 60s F., which is ideal walking weather if you're dressed for it. Lilly and her friend parked themselves on a bench only a few hundred feet along the walking path, which parallels the canal a long way, and waited for Ann and I to return, so I thought better of making them wait 45 minutes or an hour on the bench.

No matter. Even a short stretch of the canal has its verdant charms in June, as seen on one bank:

And then the other:

The water itself had no hint of green, but a lot of mud color instead. Though come to think of it, the Earth isn't going to be very green without mud browns. Anyway, it's been rainy in these parts lately, and despite being manmade, the canal is doing its job of taking silt to the Mississippi just as any nature-born stream would.

The Incredible Three-Headed Lincoln

In the mid-1800s, Lockport, Illinois, was an important town on the Illinois & Michigan Canal, which was nearly 100 miles of 19th-century engineering prowess that connected Lake Michigan with the Illinois River and thus the Mississippi. Aside from a spontaneous visit to a Lockport Sonic a few years ago, we hadn't been to the town or its historic district in a long time -- since Lilly was very small, maybe the late '90s. We went again on Saturday. Since our last visit, a plaza called "Lincoln's Landing" has been created. It was dedicated on Lincoln's bicentennial birthday in 2009, in fact.

Lincoln's Landing is next to the canal and also near the handsome limestone Gaylord Building, which used to house the headquarters of the canal. Renovated in the late 20th century, the Gaylord Building now is owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and houses a restaurant and a museum about the canal. We took a look around the museum, which isn't that large and charges no admission (so I was happy to put a little in the donation box). Of particular interest to me was a room devoted to Lincoln and the I&M Canal. As a Whig believer in internal improvements, he was a supporter of the canal throughout his political career, though I imagine that once he became a railroad lawyer, his attachment wasn't quite as strong.

The room displayed a map of Lincoln's circuitous route back home to Springfield after his single term in Congress. If I'd read about the trip before, I must have forgotten it, but the way home in 1848 for the future president took him on a speaking tour of New England on behalf of presidential candidate Zachary Taylor and the Whig platform; then along the Erie Canal to Buffalo, where he met VP candidate Millard Fillmore; then by steamer to Detroit and afterwards to Chicago, which took him through the Straits of Mackinac; and from Chicago to Springfield. The trip can be reviewed in the September and October 1848 pages of this astonishingly detailed web site, the Lincoln Log.

So did Lincoln come to Lockport in 1848 or any other time? Make at speech at the site of the Lincoln Landing in Lockport? Do anything in Lockport? Well, maybe. He got around a lot, especially in Illinois. Search the Lincoln Log and "Lockport" comes up twice, neither mention in the context of the man visiting the town, but surely not every place he went was recorded. No matter; every town in Illinois needs a Lincoln site, so Lockport now has one.

Complete with its own odd Lincoln statue as a centerpiece. I've seen a few Lincolns in my time, but none quite like this. I took to calling it the Incredible Three-Headed Lincoln.

Three-Bodied would be more like it, since the bronze Lincoln bodies are joined. It's the creation of by a Brooklyn-based artist, David Ostro, for his first major commission. "Unlike the 200 or more existing statues in the U.S. which showcase the former president in formal propriety, the life-size bronze at Lincoln Landing offers a surprising change from the usual expectations," says the press release issued on behalf of the artist. (One quibble: former presidents are those men who have held the job in the past but who are still alive. Two Bushes, a Clinton and a Carter at the moment.)

"The artwork depicts Lincoln as a young Illinois legislator on his visit through Lockport in not one, but three interlocking poses," the release continues, without being specific about that visit. "The work is installed on a reconstitution of the old I&M Canal wall. The base of the statue captures a seated Lincoln dangling his legs off the edge of the wall, reaching a hand into the depths of what was once canal water, though now only earth remains. A second figure draws out of this seated form, pushing upwards, contemplating a discovered object closed in hand. With the third figure, Lincoln finally stands. Determined to gain his balance on the landing, he tears upwards and outwards from his former selves and pockets the mysterious object."

Pocketing a "mysterious object"? Is that really part of Lincoln lore? What did he find, one ring to rule them all?

The One & Only Shabbona's Rock

On the way to Starved Rock State Park, we made an impulsive stop at the LaSalle County Historical Society & Museum in Utica, Illinois. That's the kind of impulse I get, anyway. It's a fine little museum, replete with artifacts of local interest, such as items from the clock manufacturer that used to be in Utica, and 19th-century buttons made from shells found in the nearby Illinois River. The museum also sported the kinds of items people, or their heirs, give to such museums, such as a genuine Japanese rifle and bayonet picked up at some point during the Pacific War and brought back to the heart of the Midwest.

The museum building is a handsomely restored sandstone structure that was once a granary and warehouse along the Illinois & Michigan Canal. The building is still on the canal, of course, and as inviting as a stroll along the banks of the canal looked, we didn't do that. I didn't take a picture of the building, either. Instead, I pointed my camera at a large rock in the museum garden.

It's none other than Shabbona's Rock. Only so many rocks have proper names, and this is one. Profoundly obscure, but that's all the more reason to like it. Everybody's heard of Plymouth Rock, the Blarney Stone, the Stone of Scone and so on, but only a select few know Shabbona's Rock.

A plaque near the rock says, in full: This large stone was a favorite resting place of the Indian chief Shabbona, who was renowned as the white man's friend. It was originally located in Ophir Township on the property of Abner Westgate. Chief Shabbona would visit the Westgate homestead for two or three days at a time, but he always stayed out-of-doors. He preferred to eat the food which was offered to him while seated on this rock. After being moved from the Westgate property, this rock was relocated twice more before being donated to the LaSalle County Historical Society in 1969 by Westgate family heirs.

Returning from Starved Rock, I couldn't resist a brief stop at the "Agricultural Crash Monument," which is a few miles outside the town of Norway, Illinois.

It's a vintage '40s passenger plane, from the looks of it, beaten up, positioned nose down, and missing its tail. A helpful sign in front of the pseudo-wreck says, in full: Dedicated to all farmers and ag-related business folks that have lived thru the "Agricultural Crash" of the 1980's. Mervin & Phyllis Eastwold, Norwegian Impl. Co. Nearby there's also a more standard sign, quite weatherworn, advertising the Norwegian Implement Co., which appears to be a going concern in Marseilles, Illinois.

The Mudflats & Waterfalls of Wildcat Canyon

We've pretty much skipped spring and gone on to summer. I know that because after dark yesterday I could open my car windows while driving and enjoy the wind. Also, a little later, while taking out the trash, I saw the Summer Triangle. Not riding as high as it will be later, but still there in the eastern sky. Closer to home, junebugs are clinging to our window- and door screens. A lot of them, more than during any recent year. Maybe the cold spring energized them somehow.

Illinois is notoriously flat, so anyplace that's not-flat is going to get some attention. So it is with Starved Rock State Park, which despite flooding last weekend, had a lot of visitors, us included. In its pamphlet describing the park, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources says: "[There are] 18 canyons formed by glacial meltwater and stream erosion. They slice dramatically through tree-covered, sandstone bluffs for four miles... The park is best known for its rock formations, primarily St. Peter sandstone, laid down in a huge shallow inland sea more than 425 million years ago and later brought to the surface."

Ancient sea beds, in other words, acted upon by forces recent in geological terms -- glacial meltwater busting through moraines toward the end of the last Ice Age. Once the glaciers were gone, streams that still flow, fed by snowmelt and rainwater, took over the task of erosion. Did they ever flow while we were there, coursing through solid-looking canyons. But if I understand the lessons of Deep Time, the canyon walls are in motion too. The present shapes will not be there for distant posterity, if any; other, unpredictable shapes will be.

For the geological moment, anyway, what you get at Starved Rock are some fine waterfalls. Such as this one, which was actually one of two crashing down into Wildcat Canyon. The other fall was to the left of the one I photographed, exactly the same height but a little less volume.

The trail led from a boardwalk along the river back to an intensely muddy patch within view of the falls, but not close enough to satisfy the urge to stand (almost) under the falls. So we crossed the mud and came to the edge of the stream created by the falls. Surprisingly, the current wasn't so rapid that we couldn't wade across it to a pebbly flat much closer to the falls, as the knot of people in the photo had done just ahead of us.

The water was cold, but not icy. The mud was soft, but not gooey. The roar of the falls was distinct, but not deafening. Yep, summer's here, complete with mud on my toes and waterfall spray in my face.

Squishy Illinois

At the end of May 2011, the soil of northern Illinois is squishy. My main sample is my back yard, parts of which are still damp from previous weeks punctuated with days of rain, sometimes very heavy. But that's not my only sample. We visited Starved Rock State Park on Saturday, which hugs the southern banks of the Illinois River in LaSalle County, just beyond the pale of metro Chicago. Part of the park was inaccessible.

But mostly the trails were open. Down in Fox Canyon -- the park's "canyons" aren't very big, but they are steep -- the trail becomes a boardwalk that overlooks a bit of water. A bit more than usual, I'd say.

Most of the trails aren't boardwalk, but dirt, which meant a lot of mud. Enough to coat our shoes and the further reaches of our pants, and inspire some low comedy. That is, one or another of us nearly slipping and falling. I'd say that's the prehistoric, almost pre-human origin of comedy, watching fellow members of your clan slip and fall.

But at least the land was lush. A month ago, there would have barely been a green fuzz. A month from now (and probably sooner), the place will be swarming with mosquitoes, but only a few were active over Memorial Day weekend. This year's irritatingly cold May days might been responsible for that, in which case they weren't quite so irritating.

The Electricity That Courses Through Our House

Not long after reading part of a pamphlet that ComEd, our electricity provider, sent with a recent electric bill, I decided to look into that "too cheap to meter" business. According to one source at least, Lewis Strauss, chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission during much of the Eisenhower administration, wasn't actually taking about nuclear power when he said that "our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter." He was just being optimistic about energy production in general.

The pamphlet is ComEd's "Environmental Disclosure Information," and it's fairly interesting reading, despite the utility's bragging about procuring x number of renewable energy certificates. Its best feature is a pie graph, "Sources of Electricity Supplied for the 12 Months Ending December 31, 2010." Since I buy all my electricity from ComEd, that pie graph describes where my electricity comes from, too.

Nuclear power is in red -- the figurative color of the fiery atom, I guess -- and it's 50 percent. Fully half the pie is red. The next largest slice, 38 percent, is black. For coal. Or more precisely, coal-fired power. Black for dirty coal. Natural gas-fired power, colored a less dirty gray, is 9 percent. That leaves 3 percent for everything else: wind power, biomass power, and hydro power. Each is 1 percent and colored green, brown and blue, respectively.

Nukes 'n' coal: that's the reality around here. Illinois happens to be the number-one U.S. state in nuclear power generation, with a summertime capacity of more than 11,000 megawatts. (And where does that hydro power come from? Illinois' dams are fairly small, I'd think.)

The disclosure also tells me that for every 1,000 kilowatt-hours ComEd produces, 894.19 lbs. of carbon dioxide are emitted, on average, along with a little more than a pound of nitrogen oxides; 3.7 lbs. of sulfur dioxides; 0.006 lbs. of "high level nuclear waste"; and 0.0004 cubic feet of "low level nuclear waste." Sic. Hyphens, please. I presume that the high-level stuff is the kind that will ooze lethal radiation for thousands of years.

Looking for a moment at my most recent electric bill -- not too cheap to meter, alas -- I see that it includes figures on our power usage last year: about 9,150 kilowatt-hours, which, according to handy figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, is below the national average of 11,040 kilowatt-hours per household per year, though that's a 2008 number. So our annual share of carbon emissions, just from electric usage, is about 8,186 lbs., but since it's a gas, I'm having a little trouble visualizing that. Is it enough to fill up a bouncy castle, for instance?

Also, our share of that high-level nuclear waste in 2010 was 0.0549 lbs., or about 0.87 ounces. A modern (post-1982) penny weighs about 0.09 oz., just for comparison, so that's about 10 pennies' worth of material that'll fry your gonads. Doesn't seem like much, but I wouldn't want to take delivery of it.

Groundhog Day Again

Turns out there's a fair amount of rumination on the subject of how long Phil Connors (Bill Murray) spends in a February 2 time-loop in Groundhog Day. That came to mind because we watched it the other day. Not February 2, as it happened, but Sunday, February 6. Close enough.

The only time I'd seen the movie before was a few years after it was released, so long ago that it was on videotape. It's more remarkable than I remembered, though I remembered liking it 15 years ago. "Bloody brilliant," as the fellow at Obsessed With Film puts it, who also says "normal people should be happy to just watch, and accept that Phil Connors is stuck repeating his one day endlessly over and over until he finds himself."

I'll go along with that. But I was also interested to learn that Woodstock, Ill., not far northwest of where I live, is passed off as Punxsutawney, Pa., for the most part. A couple of sources tell me that there's a plaque on the Woodstock main square marking the place where Phil Connors had his encounter with insurance salesman Ned "the Head" Reyerson and stepped in a cold puddle. Next time I'm in Woodstock, and we go now and then, I'm going to look for that. That's my kind of landmark.

Behold the Man Somewhere Else

Recently I drove on US 20 from the northwestern suburbs of Chicago to Rockford, Ill. I recommend it over I-90 for that particular trip, and not only because much of the road is the U.S. Grant Memorial Highway. On a clear day in early November, the rural route has its charms, including the remaining leaf colors, newly bare branches, farm fields now at rest for the season, tumbledown barns, signs large and small, towns only small, and unexpected sights.

At an intersection not far east of the town of Marengo, a large billboard announces that the Ecce Homo Shrine isn't far away, promising an unexpected sight to see. The billboard said something about baroque design, though I didn't make note of the exact phrasing. But the tone of the thing was, C'mon now, visit our shrine! Not far away!

How could I resist? A baroque shrine out in exurban Illinois: for all I knew, that could be the 1,001st thing you have to see before you die. Or maybe an unexpectedly quiet place for reflection and prayer. Either of those kinds of places would be worth stopping for.

So I turn off US 20 and then take another turn, and before long I see the shrine on the left side of the road, I drive up to the gate -- which is closed by a rope hanging between two posts. A sign on one post, like the sort you might buy in a hardware store, says KEEP OUT. On the other post another sign says PRIVATE PROPERTY.

I sat there for a few seconds, taking that in. I confirmed that this was, indeed, the shrine I'd been looking for. A sign not far away from the gate told me that. Then I noticed that two security cameras were pointing right at me, one on each of the posts also sporting the unwelcoming signs.

Fine. Maybe the Chicago-based Fraternite Notre Dame, which owns the shrine, has had trouble with vandals. Still, I hadn't felt that unwelcome at a religious site since I was brusquely ordered to leave the grounds of the Masjid Sultan in Singapore, though I'd visited no prohibited areas. Why the billboard, if all you see at the shrine are signs telling you to get lost? It was hard to think of the place as a House of God. More like a Gated Community of God, I think.

Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield

The Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site is a small part of Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois. Oak Ridge is a hilly, verdant site, rich with mature trees and stones and statuary, a place well worth visiting even if Lincoln weren't there. But he is there, and Graveyards.com claims that it's the second-most visited cemetery in the country after the Arlington National Cemetery, and it's plausible. Another source puts the visitor total of Oak Ridge at 375,000 each year.

People have visited in numbers ever since a crowd came for the tomb's dedication 136 years ago this month, and the place also attracted unsavory characters in the form of unsuccessful grave robbers not long after Lincoln's internment. Even on Sunday morning a week ago, a steady trickle of visitors came to commune with Lincoln.

Curiously, the tomb was in the news in a minor way over the weekend we visited, for plans to install a heating and air-conditioning system based on geothermal technology -- becoming a green tomb, in other words. Not many tombs have HVAC needs, but this one does have interior spaces with climate control. As a geothermal system, out-of-sight underground pipes will be main component. A better choice than putting solar panels on the obelisk, I think.

Oak Ridge is a large cemetery, so Lincoln and his family are hardly alone. From a position in front of the Lincoln tomb and facing away from it, the John Riley Tanner tomb is easy to see, a grey and stony presence. I had to go over and look at that, too. Tanner was the 21st governor of Illinois. When Gov. John Peter Altgeld commited political suicide by pardoning the surviving Haymarket Riot prisoners, Tanner was the beneficiary, unseating Altgeld in 1896.

I knew nothing about Tanner, so I looked him up, scanning Wiki first, and it's a curious entry. Clearly a sympathetic writer had a hand in the article: "He was one of the most remarkable governors of the late nineteenth century," is the second line. I checked the bibliography, and with one exception, a reference work published in 1978, every source cited is from 1920 and earlier. Does that mean there's an opportunity for some enterprising historian to dust off Gov. Tanner, if indeed he's so remarkable?

Highly visible at the entrance to Oak Ridge Cemetery is the stone of Roy Bertelli, known for one thing -- his stone in the cemetery.

Part of the Bertelli monument says "Mr. Accordion" and features an image of an accordion cut into the stone (hard to see in my pic, but not this one). Apparently the late Mr. Bertelli erected the stone to annoy the management of Oak Ridge, though it isn't clear from the Roadside America account why the cemetery didn't succeed in stopping him. Anyway, there it is, within accordion-hearing distance of Lincoln's tomb.

Palms Grill Cafe, Atlanta, Illinois

More than five years ago, Ann and I traveled to St. Louis to attend my nephew Sam's graduation from Washington U. She was all of two years old then, so there's little chance she remembers any of it, even Atlanta, Illinois' own Hot Dog Man, pictured at this site yesterday. Now that we've been back, as a seven-year-old she might have some lasting notion of it. Likewise but even more so for her mother and sister. We all took a look at Hot Dog Man.

So did a Japanese family who happened to be there at the same time as we were on Friday afternoon. I didn't ask them, but I suspect they were following some kind of Route 66 itinerary. Hot Dog Man must be in all the Route 66 books now.

They weren't the only ones out following old U.S. 66 on Friday, just the only ones I saw in Atlanta. Historic 66 parallels the main Chicago-Springfield-St. Louis highway, I-55, as a two-lane road much of the way, so close that it's easy to see from I-55. Sometimes we passed a vintage car, or in one case a convoy of four or five vintage cars, heading southward on Historic 66. By vintage I mean 1940s or '50s models. Somehow no one feels enough Dust Bowl nostalgia to outfit an auto to look like Tom Joad's jalopy, but maybe someone has done that on the Oklahoma-to-California section of Historic 66.

Atlanta was on U.S. 66, but when the town was bypassed by I-55, one impact was the demise of a downtown restaurant called the Palms Grill Cafe, opened in 1934. It was not there when I passed through town in 2005. But it is now, revived from the commercial dead and reopened last year. According to various sources, the intention was to re-create it as closely as possible to its '30s appearance.

"When it first opened, the Grill (as the locals call it) was known for its home-cooked meals, BINGO, and weekly dances in the back room, which is now filled with additional tables," says Illinois Adventures, a web site that promotes central Illinois tourism ("the Land of Lincoln proves it has more to offer than cornfields and that windy city up north," it says).

"Schoolchildren frequented the restaurant for its 45-cent plate lunches and travelers stopped there while they waited to catch the bus. The restaurant doubled as a bus stop, and people waiting to hop on would flip the switch for the light at the bottom of the Grill’s large neon sign to let drivers know they were inside."

Just an aside: a 45-cent lunch in 1934 or even a few years later was a modest price, but not exceptionally cheap. The equivalent in buying power in 2010 would be $7.33, or roughly what a basic meal at the restaurant now costs, including drink and maybe tip.

Illinois Adventures continues: "The restaurant, which re-opened on April 28, 2009, looks much like the original — right down to the position of the small, square tables on the left and the L-shape bar with its spinning stools on the right. It’s a no-nonsense sort of place, with just a hint of nostalgia evident in the white-painted tin ceiling overhead, the old-fashioned cash register sitting next to a modern one, and the glass bottles of Coca-Cola served from a cooler behind the counter."

We had lunch there on Friday. How could we miss that, especially since it's across the street from Hot Dog Man? Other details of my own observation include a blue-and-white Public Telephone sign, a Felix the Cat clock and a Roberts Milk clock, art deco lamps hanging from the ceiling, two coffee makers, a soft-drink dispenser of a modern variety, a stainless-steel double-headed milk shake mixer, and a microwave oven, something the place surely would have had in 1934 if it could have. Each table, and the counter too, sported six-inch or so plastic palm trees. We put ours on the napkin dispenser. The restaurant wasn't crowded, since we'd arrived at about 2, but we still heard the clink of plates and silverware, the occasional crunch of ice and the clatter of kitchen utensils, since the kitchen wasn't fully hidden.

The short-order cook had some talent. Some of us ordered lunch items such as sandwiches, but others ordered breakfast. I was in the breakfast camp, having a nicely done ham-and-cheese omelette. It came with hash browns. This Atlanta, at least, is north of the invisible grits-hash brown line that spans the nation from the East Coast to some unmarked spot on the Great Plains. But it's probably not that far north of the line.

Springfield '10

A few weeks ago we got e-mail from a major airline. Being on their e-mailing list is a legacy of my family's trip to Japan last year, when they all signed up for the airline's frequent flyer program. The reasoning at the time was eh, why not? I nearly trashed the e-mail, but noticed that it claimed that the miles earned by each member of my family last year were due to expire at the end of 2010. Round-trip to Japan represents a fair number of miles, but I figured not enough to get you more than a quarter of a domestic flight (after which you'd be ejected with a parachute, which would cost extra).

Then I found out we actually had enough miles to book three no-charge hotel nights. Not top-drawer hotels, but reasonable limited-served brands in a variety of places. We didn't need much more prodding than that to take a short trip, especially over the elongated Columbus Day weekend, which our school district thoughtfully made even longer by scheduling parent-teacher meetings on Thursday and Friday -- and ours on Thursday.

But where? Some deliberation followed. Eventually we decided on Springfield, Illinois. It's out of town but not too far; not overwhelmingly large, nor too small for a couple of days' visit; we hadn't been in years; and the place has more than enough to see. We used two of the three nights, driving down Friday and returning today.

When you go to Springfield, as an ordinary tourist anyway, the thing to do is Lincoln. Served up with a little more Lincoln on the side. And maybe another helping of Lincoln after that, just to be sure. Sure of what? That you've experienced enough Lincoln. The main industry of the town might be state government, but not many casual visitors are going to come to town to catch a meeting of the Illinois Cemetery Oversight Board, for instance (created just this year because of this scandal).

No, people come for Lincoln. Springfield makes it easy enough, since he seems to be everywhere. While walking down one of the city's streets yesterday, I wondered what kind of project it would be to take a camera in hand and photograph every image of Lincoln visible in downtown Springfield. My guess is that it would be a long task resulting in hundreds photos: not just official items such as statues and plaques, of which there are many, but also the proliferation of Lincolns associated with shops and shop windows, advertising and even handbills with cartoonish but recognizable Lincolns.

To help satisfy the desire for Lincoln and further promote him, the State of Illinois did an unusual thing in the 2000s. It developed the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. I've been curious to see this place since it opened in 2005, and now I have. That was the main course. For our sides, we also managed to visit the Lincoln Home National Historic Site, the Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site and Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site, which isn't far from Springfield, in Menard County.

So we went for Lincoln, like everyone else. But for all that, he wasn't quite the whole trip. We got to see this guy too. He's tall, but he's no Lincoln.

We also paid a visit to the empty tomb of Mr. Accordion. More about which in the coming days.