My first stop was in Vandalia, Illinois where there is a replica of the Saint Louis Arch only smaller and with advertising for the Travelodge. It is still rather large though, just not as large as the real thing. Also in Vandalia is a Madonna of the Trail. "A recurring piece of public statuary stands in twelve locations from Maryland to California, tracing a historic travel route from "covered wagon days." The statue is the Madonna of the Trail, an 18-ft. tall tribute to the pioneer mothers who traveled west with their crazy husbands." The statue is at the Vandalia capital building. Vandalia used to be the capital of Illinois from 1819 - 1939. Which happens to be the time that Lincoln was in the state legislature and so inside of the capital building they have pictures and plaques of everything that Lincoln wrote or touched during the time that he was there. There was also a bronze statue across the street, that looked a lot like a Ronald Mcdonald statue, I wanted to get my picture sitting with Abe but there wasn't anything around to set my camera on, so Abe didn't get to have his picture taken with me.
Then I drove by the Worlds Largest Cross, and I was going to stop but figured I would get the best possible picture from the highway, so I kept going. In truth I was worried there would be some burly truckers handing out pamphlets.
My next attraction was the "House of Bells" which is 6 miles from the highway on various back country roads. Its basically someone's house who has collected a lot of large bells. I believe many of them are nautical bells, otherwise I don't know why there would be so many. I suppose they could be from churches as well. There was a sign up saying that "people are monitored and that thefts will not be tolerated". If a theft is tolerated, then is it still a theft or is it you giving that item to someone else? Or do you just think to yourself, maybe I shouldn't have so many bells outside? It was fun though and I can see how people would collect so many of one thing. When I was in highschool, I said I liked goats one day and then everyone thought they were my favorite and that I wanted goat everything. Does a person really need 25 stuffed goats, goat trinkets and a goat painting?!!? Though I do still have the goat painting that Matt made for me, it's quite good and humorous.
My final attraction of the day was a "Gravity Hill". This is where you think one way is up but in fact another way is up, so that gravity appears to wrong. On this hill you can drive your car, put it in neutral and it will seem to roll up hill. The directions say to drive to the end of a road, turn around and drive 1 mile and then find it. Unfortunately after getting lost and lots of slow driving I was not able to have any down hill pull me up or have my car roll up any uphill. Someone who knows where it is needs to provide a better description than, 1 mile from the end of the road.
Tonight I am staying in Fort Wayne, Indiana with a guy that I met on http://www.couchsurfing.org/, where people offer up their couch or floor to sleep on for free. After looking at the expense that staying at a cheap $30 motel adds, I decided to give couchsurfing a try. I'm staying with, Scott a software engineer here in Fort Wayne who seems like a really nice guy. He recently moved here from Chicago and offered to let me sleep on his floor in the living room, he doesn't yet have a couch. We went and grabbed some beer and pizza in downtown Fort Wayne for dinner. It seems like a nice, small, very quiet town.
Tomorrow I cross the border and into the Great White North.
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