Perfect ending to the day - Lincoln's birthplace

Perfect ending to the day - we stopped at Lincoln's birthplace. We had also planned to visit his childhood home (about 10 miles northeast), but unfortunately due to construction delays and the time change from Central to Eastern between the caves and here, we arrived with only 45 minutes until close. We had time to see the visitor's center and watch a 15-minute movie about Lincoln's Kentucky years. We saw the Lincoln family Bible, which was cool. We also got to see a section of the Boundary Oak, which was estimated to be 15-20 years old when Lincoln was born, and served as a boundary between the Lincoln property and the neighbor's.

Then, we went to the Memorial. This building houses a replica of the cabin where Lincoln was born and is believed to be on the same spot where the original cabin stood. Pretty place.

There are 56 stairs leading to the memorial, one for each year of Lincoln's life.

Elise wanted me to take this picture of her. She is in there, I promise! You can't take pictures of the cabin inside.

It was interesting to hear about his life. They always talk about how Lincoln was born so poor, but the film we watched said that actually the Lincoln's would have been considered upper-middle class by today's standards. They were in the top 20% in income on the tax rolls for their area.
At the bottom of the stairs and to the left of the memorial are stairs leading down to this, the "Sinking Spring". This is how the Lincoln's "Sinking Springs Farm" got its name. It was at least 5-10 degrees cooler down here, and it felt great!

It was very interesting to learn more about President Lincoln. Not only was he an abolitionist, but so were his parents. It was one of the reasons why the family left Kentucky (a slave state) for Indiana when Lincoln was a boy - although land disputes were the main reason. My favorite quote of Lincoln's from the movie, (I might be paraphrasing a bit): "If slavery isn't wrong, nothing is wrong."

I recently read a book about Mary Todd Lincoln, who was also from Kentucky but came from a wealthy and prominent family. It was good to see his background after reading about hers. That could be a whole other post, but I think Mary Lincoln gets a bad rap. If you want to read the book, it's called "Mrs. Lincoln." I liked it.

So that's our history lesson for the day. My favorite president.