Running Away from Home

We've been in Galena. Himself had a conference. It was wonderful and not like being in Illinois at all. For one thing, Galena goes up. The Illinois I know, Eastern Illinois, doesn't.

I've never been in a Midwestern city where the streets were connected by stairs.

We did all the geeky tourist things: Grant's home, lunch in town, the Old Firehouse stairs, the local bookstore. Galena has trolleys, although we never managed to get to the trolley stop at the right time.

The Galena History Museum was my personal favorite. Did you know 9 Union Civil War generals were from Galena? That Galena made it's money from lead and zinc mining? That the original of Thomas Nast's (of Santa Claus fame) painting of Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox is on the second floor of the museum? Well. good for you. I sure didn't. All of that and you can humiliate persuade your kids and take a Civil War picture.

We peered down an actual lead mine shaft that predates the building - when the museum/mansion was built as a private residence, they threw the construction debris down the shaft. One of the docents said it took an act of Congress to get the shaft re-opened.

I can hear you in my mind's ear, jittering with impatience. "This is all well and good, but what about the important stuff? What about yarn?"

Tomorrow. You'll just have to wait until tomorrow.