MISSISSIPPI TRIP TALES

Not a stranger to Highway 61 from Iowa college days and later young family days, it also ended up being the quickest route from the End of the Rainbow Valley south to Little Rock via St. Louis. Over an hour north of St. Louis we passed signs advertising Hannibal, Missouri. Natureman, although an avid reader, wasn't interested in taking a tourist break and visiting the boyhood home of Mark Twain.  Truthfully, it would have jeopardized our St Louis arrival time and put us in at rush hour.  We didn't veer from the highway...

BUT it so happened we needed to end up past St Louis on our return trip and Hannibal would be ideal.  One 4 car pile up detained us some 20 minutes north of St Louis in addition to a back up from cars needing to take the Kansas City exit but we got into Hannibal just after sunset. Too late to venture downtown but perfect for dinnertime. 

After breakfast the next day we took our field trip to Hannibal's historic downtown. The photo op of sticking one's head through the head holes for Becky and Tom was no longer outside the famous picket fence next to Tom's Boyhood home but had been replaced with a paint can and paint brushes. 

Tom Sawyer's Boyhood Home sits across the street from Becky Thatcher's house. You remember them, right?

 These buildings were all part of Mark Twain's book settings with the mighty Mississippi in sight one block away where many other adventures from Samuel Clemen's books like the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Life on the Mississippi. 

An old mailbox sits street side . I wonder if it still is a working mailbox. Well, we didn't have time to write any postcards as we were anxious to get on our way back home...




Hannibal is a sweet historic town and maybe one day we will return for a root beer and a visit to the Mark Twain Cave...

It certainly brought back tales of yesteryear right there on the Mississippi... and now back to live upriver.