Day 19 (Wednesday, 9/28) - Summary

I walked to Charleston from Mattoon on a bike trail and was joined on the walk by my host of the prior weekend, Chuck Hand. Charleston, site of one of the seven Lincoln Douglas Debates and home to a museum about the debates, was the place I chose to mail a letter to the Presidential Debates commission; I proposed that the 2008 election, occurring during the 150th anniversary of the Lincoln Douglas debates, should have one of the presidential debates at one of the Lincoln-Douglas sites and follow the format they used. I also was interviewed by a local reporter who wrote a good story about my Lincoln Trek. Because I had cut back on the amount of walking, I have time to take in additional Lincoln sites. As a result, Chuck drove me to Champaign where I plan to spend some time perusing the excellent Lincoln collection in the library of the University of Illinois.