Vincennes and Lincoln City, IN: October 31-November 1, 2018 - National History Tour

Getting yet another rare free overnight, right at the edge of what I consider acceptable weather, I hastily looked around for landmarks worth visiting in a 2-or-so hour radius from Louisville and discovered some places administered by the National Parks Service, neither of which were National Parks.  But they were good enough for a one-nighter.

The first was the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, which was appropriately located in Lincoln City, IN.  This was where Abe & fam lived from when he was like 7 until 21, I think.  Something like that.  Lincoln's family moving around means many places, across several states, have claim to his childhood now (Kentucky is also one!).  My plan was to get there some time after its opening for the day, spend the morning there, and then continue on to my bigger destination, but as I am a colossal bonehead, I messed up the time change and ended up getting there actually a few minutes before it opened.  Luckily it wasn't a mistake in the direction of being late, I guess.

Here's the main visitor center:

And 180° opposite, the path off into the woods:

The main thing to do here was definitely hike around the woods, but the visitor center itself is nice too, and I wanted to get that checked off before venturing out:

They also had a video!  Reenactments.  Good stuff.

So then it was time for the woods, and as I'd expected, the rain had begun by then.  Luckily I'd known about this through prescient Apps on my Telephone that can predict the weather, so I was well-suited for the elements.

Despite the rain, the temperature was great, and (as seen above) it was the perfect time of year in terms of leaf color for a stroll through the woods.

Here is a statue of the remains of the home itself:

And a faux-village that, in the summer months, is populated by actors pretending to be frontiersmen.  I was quite glad it was not the summer months.

More woods:

Took the path back to the visitor center, then got in the car to head off to destination #2: Vincennes.  Vincennes held the second site run by the National Parks Service, George Rogers Clark National Historical Park.

I am not really sure why there are these separate designations.  Size might be part of it; this park was not much bigger than the monument and visitor center.  National Parks also tend to be about nature and the preservation thereof, but the St. Louis arch is in a National Park, and it's not that big nor that nature-y.  

Nevertheless, I started this park as I had the other: by going into the visitor center and watching the reenactment video they have about the park's namesake:  

I actually learned some stuff here.  GRC was a relatively influential figure in the Revolutionary War but hasn't gotten as much fame or credit as people like Paul Revere or whatnot.  He helped capture some of the territory out in this part of the country, so he's remembered with a rotunda and statue:

It may not hold a candle to anything you'd find in D.C., say, but it was still pretty sizeable:

I mean, literally no one has ever even heard of Vincennes, and they've got this great big American monument on their riverfront!

Speaking of the riverfront, after my tooling around the monument itself, I explored the remainder of the park, including a bridge over into...another state:

Again, like about half of the states in the US lay claim to some part of Lincoln's life or legacy.  Indeed, just across this bridge was the second monument of the day dedicated to ol' Abe:

Crossed back, seeing a wider view of the GRC park:

Next, I took off to a place that had been touted as a Vincennes landmark, the Windy Knoll Winery.  You can imagine my confusion when I arrived to see what seemed to just be someone's house:

There were a few vines around to give me an indication I was in the right place, but I was still skeptical:

Hesitantly, I went inside, to find that indeed, this was just a small-scale winery run by a husband and wife.  I was the only patron at that time:

Feeling as though I owed it to them to participate in their business, I did a free wine tasting and purchased a bottle when all was said and done.

It was tasty!  But I had expected the place to be a somewhat bigger operation and have some kind of long-form tour available, so with my brief visit completed, I returned to town not certain what else I'd have around the area to do.

I'd flagged one place as a possibility before departing on my trip that looked interesting called Grouseland, which is very different from Graceland.  Grouseland is the house that president William Henry Harrison lived in while he was governor of the Indiana territory back in the early 1800s, before, of course, his presidency.  It was not exactly a place that I'd go out of my way to see, but with a bunch of unexpected time to kill, I figured I might as well go over and take a look.  A president's house is a president's house, right?

Then I got there and saw it was $8 just to go inside.  Bump that.  William Henry Harrison was barely even in office.  No thanks.

Near the house was an old like, historic recreation of the pioneer days as they would have been in this area:

I walked in one of the shacks, saw no one, and walked back out and back to my car.  Wuh.

Back at the town's main square, I strolled back over to a church I'd skipped that morning when I was nearby at the George Rogers Clark memorial:

Supposedly there was a library with books from the 1300s there, but it was only accessible upon request.  I called the number but the guy didn't seem to know where anyone with the key might be.  So I settled for just taking a look inside the church proper:

It was nice!  If I have my facts right, it's the oldest church in Indiana and an important Catholic landmark, with some four bishops buried on the premises.

Though bummed that all of my planned activities had ended up being much shorter than anticipated, it was kind of nice at that point to have a chunk of time to just wander around the town and get a feel for Vincennes.  Took a stroll down the waterfront and saw a couple of statues:

Circled back around to where the car was and returned to the hotel.  Got to have a nice little break to put stuff down and get settled, then returned around dinner time to one last place I'd earmarked for this trip:

Vincennes Brewing Company!  See?  They have their own brewery - clearly Vincennes is a hip town.

Went in and asked if they had any recommendations or local favorites, and got what they suggested, plus beer cheese.  Sat and enjoyed my bounty.

Returned to the hotel when I was done, chilled out a bit, and went to sleep.  Got up the next morning and hit the road to return to Louisville.  It was a good thing I'd given myself ample extra hours to get home, because somewhere in the Hoosier National Forest, on a winding two-lane road, this happened:

Which as you can imagine, caused a delay.