It might be lights out Oct. 1 for Illinois historic sites such as the Dana-Thomas House in Springfield, the Lincoln Log Cabin (a reconstruction of the log cabin belonging to Abe's dad and stepmom) near Charleston and the David Davis Mansion in Bloomington.
More than a dozen such sites -- and 11 state parks -- are scheduled to close as a result of the Blagojevich administration's budget cuts.
State parks slated for closure Nov. 1 include Hennepin Canal Parkway in Sheffield and Channahon State Park in Channahon.
What do you think of the impending closures? Are these communities going to miss out on big tourism bucks as a result or do you see this as a sad but necessary step needed to deal with the state's financial woes?
For a list of the historic sites and a bunch of good information -- including what you can do to potentially save these landmarks -- click here.
Lori Rackl writes a weekly Travel section that runs Wednesdays in the 
I live in Toronto, Canada. Last week i was there in the beautiful city of Chicago. Here are some of the web sites i found pretty useful for my travel preparation to Chicago City.
1. Official Chicago Tourism site
2. Illionois tourism Department
3. Tourism Chicago
4. Wikipedia Chicago Information
I thought that i should share these wonderful resources with you so that you can also advantage from this information. One more travel advice is to prepare well in advance as it can get too much difficult to get place to stay during busy weekends.
Neal
Why is it that 90%+ of the parks targeted for closure are in Republican districts? Yet another Blagojevich political maneuver? Say it ain't so!!!