I promised myself that I’d travel one weekend a month before I ever got back to Missouri. I’ve got a lot of places to see – Kansas City, Chicago, Des Moines (Des Moines!) – and not a lot of time to see them before I graduate and mosey my way out of flyover country.
So I took a daytrip to Hannibal, Missouri. Hannibal is most known for being the boyhood home of Mark Twain providing the settings of all Tom Sawyer’s adventures. Okay, Hannibal is really only known for Mark Twain. It’s a one-horse town. I mean really really a one-horse town.
But it was only 95 miles from Kirksville, which made for a pleasant drive. I got up around 7, hit the road around 9 and was wandering around Hannibal by 11. Not too bad, really. Except that I’d seen just about everything there was to see by 12:30.
Seriously. I got a picture by the big MT sign, I saw Becky Thatcher’s house and Tom’s fence, I stood next to the Tom & Huck statue and I gazed out across the mighty Mississip. After that there really wasn’t much else to do. I could’ve spent a Hamilton and a half to see some museum filled with stuff I already know (I was a Twain-ophile for a while back in middle school), but I couldn’t bring myself to. I was tempted to see the Mark Twain dioramas, but it was Sunday and they were closed.
Still, I wanted to contributed to the local economy in my own special way, so I got a BLT and some (of the best) onion rings (I’ve ever tasted) at the Mark Twain dinner and headed home. Of course, I wound up taking the long way home (not on purpose) and there was the additional fun that comes from realizing that you’re out of radiator coolant on one of the only stretches of mid-American highway that doesn’t have gas stations every ten minutes. But I’m safe and my truck’s alright and now I’ve got one less city to see before I die.
they’ll come to you,
J.K.F.
pics
and a brand new column on the brand new dorm