Illinois VI

I was cruising around Jacksonville, IL.(about 30 miles west of Springfield)  looking for the Vietnam memorial I had heard about. Completely lost, I finally pulled into a local gas station to see if anyone could help. As I headed for the door I noticed a guy on a motorcycle gassing up. As always I checked out the bike and noticed that leaning against it was a complete set of golf clubs! He looked up as I walked over and I said, "I just want to see how you're going to do this! He laughed and explained that his golf bag has shoulder straps and he just wears it like a back pack!

It turns out he knew just where the memorial was and kindly directed me there. It is located in Nichols Park and while I was setting up and taking a few pics I realized that I had actually been here before. These were some of the pictures that were lost when my computer decided to fail. I had forgotten completely about this site.

A few minutes later, the guy on the bike shows up, golf clubs and all. He said he just wanted to know if we had found the site. Lucky for me he did! He told me that there are 14 Oak trees planted around the memorial, one for each of the lost. It was a beautiful site to see these 14 trees, planted as saplings 40 years ago that are nor magnificent tributes to these fallen soldiers.We were happy to note that all 14 trees are still there and seemingly in good shape. You can see a few of then in the pictures.

Not far away, in the same park, there is POW/MIA memorial that has an interesting story behind it. Join me next time, on the 6th of February, and I will fill you in! See you, as always, at 9:00am