Today we traveled from Chebanse, Illinois to Milton, Wisconsin, some 200 miles. For the most part, we stayed off the interstate highways and journeyed along secondary roads which are far more interesting and you get to see so much more of the countryside – it’s totally flat with mile after mile of corn fields!

And here we are in Wisconsin, cheese country! Cheese is the state’s history, its pride, its self-deprecating, sometimes goofy, cheesehead approach to life! Wisconsin is the largest cheese producing state in the US delivering over 2.9 billion pounds of cheese annually!

One of the fun things to buy here are cheese curds. Cheese curds are an essential product of the cheese making process and before cheeses like cheddar are formed into blocks or wheels and aged, they start out as curds. Fresh cheese curds have a slightly rubbery texture and squeak when you eat them because the elastic protein strands in the curds rub against the enamel of your teeth and create a squeak! This characteristic sound is a sign of its freshness and after some twelve hours or so, the curds will begin to lose their squeak which can be restored with a few seconds in the microwave oven!

Mike and I are very fond of Wisconsin and have been here many times. A long time ago, we looked at buying a second home in a place called “Door County” where we will head too in a few days. Door County has a wonderful climate, beautiful scenery, magnificent sunsets, great fishing, fantastic art galleries and interesting restaurants!

Cheeseheads! Throwback to 2011. From left: Bob Skrzypczak, Uncle Mike and Mike. Cheesehead is an American term for a person from Wisconsin or for a fan of the Green Bay Packers NFL football team, the arch rivals of the Chicago Bears!

 

George Halas McCaskey (pictured left wearing orange jersey), is one of 13 grandchildren, and namesake, of George Halas, the founder and patriarch of the Chicago Bears. Today he serves as the chairman of the board of directors.

 

 

Ryan Pace (pictured right in white jersey), general manager and responsible for the day-to-day operations of the team.

 

 

John Fox, pictured wearing polo shirt, head coach who joined the team in 2015. Fox is only one of a few head coaches to lead two different teams to Super Bowl appearances. He is pictured here Jonathan Anderson, Line Backer.

 

 

 

Quarter-backs (wearing orange jerseys) Mike Glennon (#8) and Mark Sanchez (#6).

 

 

 

 

 

We left Springfield on August 1 and traveled some 170 miles to Chebanse, Illinois to attend the Chicago Bears Training Camp! Mike was born in Chicago, is a die-hard Bears fan, and attending the camp is a bucket list item for him!

We get into town and immediately head to Bourbonnais and the Olivet Nazarene University where the training camp is taking place as Mike is excited beyond all measure and wants to check it out.

After walking the campus, we head to the Brickhouse Brewery and Restaurant down the road for a quick beer en route home. Well, I thought Mike would hyperventilate when John Fox, the head coach of the Chicago Bears and Ryan Pace, the general manager wander into the restaurant, ask for a table at the back and disappear out of sight!

Today, we are up early and off to Bourbonnais to meet with Ron & Shari Krywanio, my brother –and sister-in-law and Uncle Mike, Mike’s friend from high school, our regular travel companion, and likely one of the nicest people on the planet!

Uncle Mike has obtained VIP tickets for us which gives us access to a hospitality area, good seating and bottled water, an important element as the temperature is soaring.

The training camp is certainly a sight to behold; 90 players on the field being directed to test different plays by the coaching staff; every 15 minutes or so, a horn blows and everyone moves to a different place – it looks like organized chaos but they all seem to know what they are doing; TV cameras and the media line the edge of the pitch; a young man sitting behind gives me the run-down on every player I ask about and their position on the team; his Dad does just as well in answering my inane questions of why the players are doing what they are doing!

It is all rather exciting, and for over two hours Mike sits with the binoculars glued to his eyes, his player notes on his lap, and barely utters word. He is in seventh heaven and it’s fun to see his enjoyment!

The Krywanio-Bears: front row, from left, Mike and his brother Ron. Back row, from left, Uncle Mike and Shari Krywanio.

From left, Mitch Trubisky & me! Mr. Trubisky was this year’s number two pick in the National Football League draft (out of 500 players) and has joined the Chicago Bears as a quarter-back. It is highly anticipated that he will be a rising star!

In a life that spanned nearly a century and witnessed some of the momentous events in American history, Elizabeth Keckley was born a slave. A gifted seamstress, she earned her freedom by the skill of her needle.

Keckley first met Mary Todd Lincoln on March 4, 1861, the day of Abraham Lincoln’s first inauguration as President. As she was preparing for the day’s events, the First Lady asked Keckley to return the next day for an interview. When she arrived, Keckley found other women there to be interviewed, but Mrs. Lincoln chose her as her personal dressmaker.

In addition to dressmaking, Keckley assisted Mrs. Lincoln each day as her personal dresser and helped Mrs. Lincoln prepare for official receptions and other social events. For the next six years, Keckley became an intimate witness to the private life of the First Family. Known for her love of fashion, the First Lady kept Keckley busy maintaining and creating new pieces for her extensive wardrobe.

In 1868, Keckley published a book “Behind the Scenes” in which she described her own rise from slavery to a life as a middle-class businesswoman. While acknowledging the brutalities under slavery and the sexual abuse that led to the birth of her son George, she spent little time on those events.

The book created a tremendous backlash in Washington D.C. as Keckley had unveiled what went on behind the public scenes of the First Family and revealed private and domestic information involving, primarily, a white family, at time when it was deemed inappropriate behavior to do so.

In 1892 Keckley was offered a faculty position at Ohio’s Wilberforce University as head of the Department of Sewing and Domestic Science Arts. Within a year, she organized a dress exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair. She died in May 1907.

We are in Springfield, Illinois having traveled some 360+ miles from Arkansas.

Abraham Lincoln, was born in Kentucky in 1809 into a poor family. He lost his mother when he was nine years old and moved to Springfield, Illinois where he remained for most of his adult life.

Lincoln taught himself to read, became a lawyer and in 1860 was elected as the 16^th President of the United States.

His presidency was a firestorm from the word go. Lincoln’s election victory prompted seven southern slave states to form the Confederate States of America and before he had moved into the White House, the first shots were fired starting the Civil War on April 12, 1861.

Driven to maintain “The Union,” Lincoln confronted Radical Republicans, who demanded harsher treatment of the South, War Democrats, who called for more compromise, anti-war Democrats, who despised him, and irreconcilable secessionists, who plotted his assassination.

As the war progressed, his complex moves towards ending slavery included the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Lincoln used the U.S. Army to protect escaped slaves, encouraged the border states border to outlaw slavery, and pushed through Congress the 13^th Amendment to the US Constitution which permanently outlawed slavery.

Lincoln was an exceptionally astute politician and managed his own re-election campaign in the 1864 presidential election. On April 14, 1865, five days after the end of the Civil War, Lincoln was assassinated by a Confederate sympathizer and died the next day.

Abraham Lincoln’s final resting place in the Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Illinois.

Mike rubbing Lincoln’s nose which is said to bring good luck!