Merriment in Missouri

Gosh, here we are at the end of September! It feels like this month has flown by. I'm sure much of that is due to the anticipation of our time on the East Coast was drawing to a close and looking forward to traveling again; albeit with bittersweet emotion.

We've had a great week of traveling and sitting. Only one travel day of ugly weather and that only lasted for part of the day. Since we got to Missouri the weather has been fab – u – lous! It's a little cool this morning 'cause it's breezy, but that's okay. The sun is shining and every day is better when the sun shines. :)

Here’s a look at our campsite and surroundings.

  

Yesterday we took the day to go into Hannibal to visit some of Mark Twain's (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) stomping grounds. Hannibal is another quaint town that has made the most of its most famous residents.

 

Thankfully, there is lots of public parking as well as on-street parking in town. And it's free! We were able to find an on-street space on Main Street. When you drive a big ol' truck like ours, finding parking isn't always easy. :) We then walked down to the riverfront. Oh, the Mississippi River. It is gorgeous. And it's fun to stand in Missouri and realize you are looking at Illinois.

I don't know why I find that amazing, but I do. I guess I am easily entertained.

The riverfront has a nice little park with beautiful flowers and a statue of Mark Twain in his riverboat pilot days.

It's so easy to walk to anything you want to see in town. Our next stop was touring Mark Twain's boyhood home where we started with a walk through of the timeline of Mark Twain's life. He sure packed a lot into his life! We saw the bedrooms, kitchen and living area. He even had a chest of drawers exactly like one we used for all of our years in our home! It's now being used by our great niece, Ryleigh. Kinda cool. The one thing I didn't like was that there was a life-sized figured of Mark Twain in each of the rooms. That was a little creepy to me.

The block that includes MT's home (yeah, I know him well enough to call him that!)

also has Becky Thatcher's home,

the law office of his father, and Grant's Pharmacy where the Clemens family lived for a time.

I’m not going to bore you with lots of facts and lore about Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens – you can google him and find out whatever you want. However, I did learn one thing I had never heard before and thought it was pretty neat. On the night of his birth, Halley’s Comet was seen. He said he would love to have it come back on his death. Now, since the comet doesn’t show up but every 75 to 100 years, that was probably not gonna happen, right? Well, as it happened, while Samuel Clemens was dying, Halley’s Comet was once again seen in the night sky. Isn’t that cool???

From the tour, we went to the Hannibal Trolley Company to sign up for the next tour.

We had taken a trolley tour in Savannah and just loved it. Well, this one didn't come close. We enjoyed it, but the driver/narrator wasn't the best. She was a nice older lady, but her narration left a little to be desired. She told us facts, but there was just something missing. The tour takes you over 14 miles of Hannibal and you learn the history of the area. By far, the best part of the tour was Riverview Park where we stopped at the overlook of the Mississippi River.

Oh. My. Gosh. Such a view. And there was another statue of Mark Twain as he overlooked the river.

After our trolley tour, we were ready to come home. We enjoyed our day in Hannibal. On the way home after we both said what fun we'd had, I made the remark that it's not often that we don't have fun together – no matter what we're doing! And isn't that a great way to live!

Tomorrow we break camp and hit the road one more time before setting down for awhile. We've got a long day (for us) as it's a little more than six hours to Junction City, KS from here. That translates into a seven or eight hour travel day, depending on how often we stop. But, that's okay. Once we're get there and set up, we don't have to move again for at least six weeks or so.

Next post will be filled with AubreyLynn updates! :)

Until the next time . . .