Lincoln museum on wheels review

This weekend I did get out to the Lincoln museum on wheels. It was okay. If this was your introduction to Lincoln it was probably more interesting but all in all I had a good time. My fiance, our son and my parents went along. The longest part was waiting in the line, the museum itself didn't take long. In line I met a few guys and might have recruited one or two to the roundtable so that was good. If I had planned ahead I would have brought a ton of newsletters and hit the entire line. Maybe I'll do this when the semi returns in August.

Here's a shot of the line, when we left it was even longer. I'd bet there were over 100 people in line at this time. Inside they had a few exhibits I thought were especially interesting, of course it was hard to get shots of them all because there were way too many people inside. This was meant to be the platform of the train station in Springfield when Lincoln left for the presidency. They played a little loop of a few quotes from the speech he gave (although I think that speech was actually made at the house, but I'm not a Lincoln scholar so I'm not sure).
I thought this was interesting just because this is a replica of the clock he had in his law office.

And a replica of his name plate outside his office. The only other exhibit I wanted a shot of was a great chart showing the differences between north and south according to the 1860 census, great info plus the visual impact was pretty neat, but there was no way to shoot that with all the people inside the truck.
They also had the video, "The Civil War in Four Minutes." I've seen this before on youtube but I'm pretty sure its since been pulled from the site. Its a pretty impressive little video.
I did think it odd that they did not have any gifts. I would have bought something for my four year old, maybe it would have sparked a little interest in the war. Later in life he'd remember that day his father took him to see a bearded guy in a tall hat, and maybe he'd have some sort of odd plastic Lincoln figure to remember the day by. Clearly there was no room in the semi but a little tent outside with a few books, hats, etc would have likely done a good amount of sales for the museum. Maybe that's just my retail background talking, but I'd imagine a few thousand people went through the museum this weekend and even if less than 1% bought something it would have been profitable. If they had sold bottled water they would have made a killing, it was a hot day to be standing in the sun, plus I forgot my hat so they might have sold a hat to me too.

Here's my dad and I in front of the semi. No one else was willing to get their picture taken.