Getting to Wisconsin!

We headed northeast out of Quincy toward Monmouth, Illinois.  I saw this weather vane atop a barn.  By the way, the earliest recorded weather vane is from 60 BC!  It was on top of the Tower of the Winds in Athens, Greece!

 We passed the round barn that I had seen when I drove to Wisconsin by myself back in April.  We didn't take time to stop this time.

The farmers were so busy after all the rain they had had.

They have HUGE bins here!

The ground is so dark and rich in Illinois!

We pulled off the road in Monmouth.  I'd seen a sign for the "Birthplace of Wyatt Earp."

What?

Are you Italian or Scottish?!

Wyatt Earp's birth place.

He was quite the character!  He was on both sides of the law.  He was a professional gambler, owned several saloons, kept a brothel.  He was arrested for stealing a horse but escaped from jail.   He also was a buffalo hunter, mined for silver and gold and refereed boxing matches.  

In 1874, when our ancestors arrived in Kansas, Wyatt Earp also came to Kansas to join the police force, where he got a reputation as a lawman.  (However, his reputed wife had opened a brothel also!  What??!)  After getting in a fistfight with a political rival of his boss, he was dismissed from office and went to Dodge to become the assistant marshal there.  With his brothers and Doc Holiday, they were involved in the fight at O.K. Corral.  You can read a lot about him! 

We saw an interesting car!

And this one too.

At Dixon, we pulled off the road again so I could show Al Ronald Reagan's house that I had stopped to see before too.

Al decided we should follow the Rock River rather than go on the 4 lane to 39 and on to Rockford.  It was a beautiful drive.

A stop at a park to use the facilities (non flush kind, but clean).  Place was flooded.

We stopped to see the Abraham statue I had seen before.

As we got into Rockford, we found another KU fan!

And then we were in Wisconsin!

Hey, there is our car - except in yellow, not baby blue!

They say there are 2 seasons in Wisconsin:

Winter and construction season!

We arrived at the kids' home!!

Quincy

We left Hannibal in the morning and thought we'd try to go up a road by the river to Quincy (about 30 minutes north) but the road was closed because of flooding.  We found an alternate road.

 What are these?

 Huh, storage in a hill. 

Same initials as my grade school - Miyazaki Christian School. 
Good old MCS!

Our school, grades 1-8 with school teacher and dorm parents. 

I am on the far left, holding some kind of certificate or something.  

We tried to go up 57 and come into Quincy from the south.  No go.

We used a detour and finally got there.  We wanted to drive through Quincy to check out the bridge over the Mississippi.  We had been told that it was closed and we wanted to see it.

 I saw this pretty church.

 Loving the old architecture!

A photo of a photo shop.

Maine Street in Illinois 

 That's some spire!

This reminds me of Full House 

State Savings and Loan

Governor John Wood, 1st settler of Quincy 

A physician from NY, he served in the Revolutionary War as a surgeon.  He tried farming in Illinois for 2 years.  He purchased 1/4 section of land along the Mississippi called the Bluffs and built an 18x20 log cabin.  He was the sole settler there, with visitations from Indians.  In 1825, the area was renamed Quincy after the newly elected president John Quincy Adams. In 1840, it was incorporated as a city.  In the 1850s and 60s, steamboats and railroads linked Quincy to places west and the city saw increased prosperity.  John Wood was voted in as the Governor of Illinois during the time Abraham Lincoln was president.  Quincy is now a city of about 40,600.

History Museum

 We walked down the hill to the bridge on Maine.

 Here is why the bridge is closed.  The river is about to overflow the road.

 Walking back up the hill to our car.

We found this art on the side of the building interesting.

 Continuing on to Wisconsin with a few more detours - next post.