When I think of states associated with President Lincoln, I think of Illinois first. We visited the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park on our way north from Nolin Lake. President Teddy Roosevelt officiated when the cornerstone of the monument was put in place and President Taft presided over the dedication ceremony. Kentucky makes a case for shaping Lincoln’s principles and anti-slavery stance, and also tries to set the record straight in terms of the exaggerated “dire poverty” that even Roosevelt mentioned in his cornerstone dedication speech. We all grow up reading of Lincoln’s humble beginnings, but really his early life reflected how most middle-class Americans lived on the Frontier. His father paid for the farms they lived on, owned horses and livestock, and never really stayed in one place long enough to replace the one-room cabin that was every farmer’s first temporary home. In that light, he was not rich but not impoverished, either. It is true that he had very little formal schooling, and, being a driven, self-taught man, went on to become the first president who was not from the thirteen original colonies. He held our country together during its most trying time, and is rightfully regarded by historians as our best, most influential president with outstanding leadership qualities.

The first two Lincoln homes in Kentucky are about 10 miles apart, and both were open today for visitors. From Sinking Spring Farm the family moved to Knob Hill for better quality farm land, then moved to Indiana when the entire Knob Creek Valley became part of a land title dispute. Both Kentucky properties were contested in court with Thomas Lincoln losing both cases. Apparently land title disputes were common at this time in history. These experiences may have helped President Lincoln be a very exact and careful land surveyor while he was studying law as a young adult.

Our new campground is My Old Kentucky Home State Park in Bardstown, the bourbon capital of the world. There are eleven distilleries in the area! We don’t travel with a chainsaw, so we should have no problems following the rules here. Our host at the Blue Heron Winery joked about us not stealing his chainsaw, and I laughed and told him we didn’t have any room for extra things like chainsaws in the van. The cats and their stuff occupy a lot of space after all. I do think we can find room for a bottle or two of bourbon:)