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Welcome To I've Heard Things
GALENA, ILLINOIS & GRANT'S HOME
I took a trip most recently, to Galena, Illinois and then on up into Wisconsin to see Frank Lloyd Wright's estate, Taliesin. You will notice that my vacations usually involve trips I can drive to as I am not a fan of flying & have very limited funds in which to use for holiday.
Driving is a good way to go anyway, because it's not so very much the final destination but the journey to there that becomes the stuff memories are made of.
Galena, Illinois is a very enjoyable little town that used to be a riverboat town and Lead mining town in the 1800's. The architecture in this hilly sprawling town is mostly pre-Civil War, early Victorian style. Originally the town consisted of wood structured homes until the 1850's when a law was passed forcing all dwellings to be made of stone or brick to prevent fire hazard.
U.S. Grant's home is on a hill slightly outside of Galena and so we made our way there, too. Here are a few pictures of this leg of our trip.
SPRING GREEN, WISCONSIN & TALIESIN
In Wisconsin, we made our way to the small town of Spring Green to see the estate of Frank Lloyd Wright, which he lovingly named Taliesin. I say estate because not only was his home on this ancestral ground, but many other buildings including a barn designed by Wright and a school by the name of Hillside which Wright originally designed for his two aunts. This school still continues to be used as a higher education facility for drafting, art and music to this day.
My opinion has completely changed on Frank Lloyd Wright (and the thoughts on him probably won't be seen as good ones) but I will talk about these thoughts on a later date. Truly Frank Lloyd Wright was a genius of design, this cannot be denied after seeing his work. Here are a few pictures from this trip.
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GETTYSBURG
While on vacation, my family and I decided to visit Gettysburg. I wasn't really very excited about going there since I'm not much for Civil War History, but I went anyway. I loved being there. It's kind of hard to explain, but you can actually feel the presence of those that fought and died there. It's all around you. I cannot begin to tell you the range of emotions that I encountered at the battlefields and the monuments for those that had given their lives in the war. The historic towns are riddled with signs that a full-fledged war had taken place within the town as well as the outskirts of town. They were visible everywhere. Bullet holes in the walls of shops and homes were found as well as many stories told by the homeowners. A few townspeople were ancestors of the original homeowners and told of their family members signing up to fight before they were even old enough to shave.
My favorite place was the battlefields themselves. I became so emotional at some of the fields that I openly wept (so unlike me to be like that in public) - the emotions I felt were emotions of fear, desperation and pain. So many died. So many that believed in equality for all peoples in America. Freedom and Equality must be fought for - it doesn't come easily, it isn't free and always there is a price to be paid. I'm so glad I went on this trip.
