The M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I!

 

Do you remember as a grade school kid learning that little chant to help you remember how to spell Mississippi? I do, just as easily as I remember that riveting poetry, "Pop, pop, pop, goes the popcorn in the pan! Pop, pop, pop! You can catch me if you can!" (Yes, sometimes I can't remember why I walk in a room, but I remember grade school poetry).

Our trip back from Chicago included a stop in Hannibal, Mo. It is located on the banks of the M-i-s-s-i-p-p-i. As I mentioned in the earlier blog post from LeClaire, Iowa, Randy is fascinated by our country's major rivers. It's not like he grew up by the water - unless you count Peace Creek or Rattlesnake Creek. But he's fascinated, nonetheless. 

As we were figuring out our itinerary for the trip to Chicago for the wedding, he planned the stop on our way back home at Hannibal, Missouri. Several weeks before the trip, Randy called the Mark Twain river boat, hoping to book a dinner cruise on the Mississippi. But the day we were to be there, the river boat was booked for a private event. He was disappointed, but we still decided to stop in Hannibal. We could still see the river up close instead of from the top of a highway bridge. And we knew Hannibal provided plenty of history with the Mark Twain museum attractions. 

From the shoreline, we watched the Mark Twain river boat set sail that Sunday evening as they motored down the Mississippi with a private group.

Earlier in the day, we had seen the boat out on the river - along with a dramatic sky!

We also got to see a tug boat - the Sir Randall - taking off from the Center Street Landing. However, we weren't able to see it perform its duties after it departed.

We were thrilled to discover there were hour-long scenic cruises offered - sans meal service - on the Mark Twain river boat. We booked two spots on the boat for the next day.

My travel companion was a happy camper - or happy boater.

 We sat up on the third deck so we could have a wide open view.

 

We saw the Mark Twain Memorial Lighthouse from the river. We did not walk up its 244 steps. 

I think one of the reasons Randy is interested in major rivers is because they serve as a thoroughfare in moving and exporting grain. 

This barge was loaded with wheat. Another barge parked out in the river was loaded with cement from the Continental Cement Plant, a business that's been operating in Hannibal since 1903. The riverboat captain said the company's cement has been used in many construction projects, including the Empire State Building and the Panama Canal.  More recently, the cement was used in the Minnesota Vikings’ new football stadium and the St. Louis Cardinals’ newest baseball stadium.

Coming back onto the landing after our cruise.

The riverboat captain also recommended going to Riverview Park, and we were glad he did. What beautiful views of the Mighty Mississippi!

From there, we could also see the grain handling facility - another bonus for Randy. It was located right along the river and by a train track.

A giant statue of Mark Twain also looked over the river from the park. It commemorates Twain's days as a riverboat captain. In 1859, he became a licensed pilot on the Lower Mississippi River. 

 

When his piloting career ended with the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Clemens went to the Nevada Territory where he first used the pen name Mark Twain in 1863 while writing for The Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, Nev. Clemens took the name from the river sounding that indicated 12 feet of water, which was safe for navigation. 

I told Randy this photo would be more impressive if you couldn't see the cars in the museum parking lot - ha!

Before our river excursion, we toured the Mark Twain Museum complex.  It included the Huckleberry Finn House, Mark Twain Boyhood Home, Becky Thatcher House, and Grant's Drug Store.

Twain wrote his many books at this desk, including those about Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.

Mark Twain was a master at "stretching" the truth and adding exciting details to dress up stories. Real people were developed into exciting and colorful characters. He used his childhood in Hannibal to inspire the characters.

The museum has an impressive display of Norman Rockwell art. Already famous for his Saturday Evening Post covers, Rockwell got the opportunity in 1935 to illustrate editions of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

I discovered that none of the previous illustrators had taken the trouble to visit Hannibal, Missouri, where Twain had lived as a boy. ... After I'd been in Hannibal for a few days, I had a sketchbook full of authentic details.

Norman Rockwell

The edition of Tom Sawyer with Rockwell's illustrations appeared in 1936 and Huckleberry Finn in 1940. Rockwell gave them to the Mark Twain Museum before his death in 1978.  

As an avid reader and a former newspaper writer and editor, it was interesting to me to learn that Twain was not without his naysayers. Book banning is nothing new.

The Concord (Mass.) Public Library committee has decided to exclude Mark Twain's latest book from the library. One member of the committee says that while he does not wish to call it immoral, he thinks it contains but little humor and that of a very coarse type. He regards it was the veriest trash. The librarian and the other members of the committee entertain similar views, characterizing it as rough, coarse, inelegant, dealing with a series of experiences not elevating, the whole book being more suited to the slums that to intelligent, respectable people.

The Boston Transcript

March 1885

Mark Twain definitely didn't take himself too seriously.

High and fine literature is wine, and mine is only water. But everybody likes water.

Mark Twain

 

Since we returned home, Randy has re-read both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

The home of Tom Blankenship, who Twain used as inspiration for the character Huck Finn.

 We also had to visit Becky Thatcher's Ice Cream Parlor.

After leaving Hannibal, we also enjoyed an overnight stop in Kansas City, where we got to see these two. 

We ate supper at the Kansas City Taco Co. and had ice cream at Betty Rae's. Then we listened to jazz at the Green Lady Lounge. I didn't get a photo, but we were also glad to see our friend, Barb, before returning home - just in time to make dinner for 40 for the Core group two days later. Back to reality!

All I Owe I-O-Way

We had to laugh at our first stop in Iowa. I made Randy take a photo by a buggy in front of the Amish Country Store at Lamoni, Iowa.  I told him I could have gotten a similar photo and only driven about 40 miles east from our home to Yoder, Kansas. 

But, it was still a good place to stretch our legs and wander through a country-style store before getting back in the car and heading on to Des Moines. 

Iowa was our first stop as we journeyed toward Chicago to attend the wedding of our brother-in-law Andrew's oldest daughter, Julia. My other siblings flew, but we took the more scenic route. Best laid plans often get derailed. The trip to Des Moines was uneventful (thankfully), but Randy was supposed to golf the next morning before we moved onto our next overnight stop. But it was raining, so we pivoted. A Facebook friend had recently posted photos from the Amana Colonies in Iowa. I saw that was fairly close to the route we had planned to take anyway. So we went to the Amana Colonies for the day instead.

After seeing the Amish buggy at our first Iowa stop, I assumed the Amana Colonies would be similar to the Old Order Amish that reside in Yoder, just 45 minutes from our house. I was wrong. Yes, there were quaint shops featuring handmade items and the place was full of history. But the Amana Colonies were settled by the Community of True Inspiration. I had never heard of this religion. It is a group of Christians descending from settlers of German, Swiss, and Austrian descent who originally settled in New York state. When that area got too congested for their liking, they migrated west to Amana, Iowa, where they settled in seven small towns in East Central Iowa along the Iowa River.

They lived a communal life for nearly 80 years. The Amana residents achieved this independence and lifestyle by adhering to the specialized crafting and farming occupations that they had brought with them from Europe. Craftsmen passed their skills and techniques on from one generation to the next. They used hand, horse, wind, and water power, and made their own furniture, clothes and other goods. The community voted to form a for-profit organization during the Great Depression - the Amana Society - which included the Amana Corp. (Yes, the Amana Corporation that made home appliances.)

Today, the Seven Villages of Amana are a tourist attraction known for their restaurants and craft shops. The colony was listed as a National Historic Landmark in 1965. There are still about 300 people who attend the True Inspirationists church services. The Society still owns the farm ground and some of the church members are tenant farmers on the Inspirationist-owned land. Unlike the Amish, they embrace new technologies, including GPS in farm implements and modern conveniences in everyday life. However, like the Amish, during their church services, men still sit on one side of the church, and women sit on the other.

The Amana Colonies don't shy away from beer or other spirits. We ate lunch at the Ox Yoke Inn, and Randy sampled a flight of beer. Good German that he is, he also had the Jager (pork) Schnitzel with spätzle, homemade mashed potatoes and gravy, a yeast roll and homemade strawberry jam. (I didn't get a photo of that.) I had the Reuben sandwich. I guess it was a local favorite, too, since the Amana Colonies sauerkraut was one of their commodities.

We toured the Communal Kitchen and Cooper Shop, which the Amana residents left much as it was back when it was used three times a day.

 

The General Store is also set up much like an old country store at the turn of the century.

The landscaping around these buildings was gorgeously manicured.

The shops and restaurants were housed in the old - but beautifully maintained - buildings.

Though not on the "official" tour list, we also walked through a cemetery. One of the guides had told us that Amana citizens aren't buried in family plots. Instead, they are buried by date of death. 

Just a small portion of an old wooden fence remained.

The pine trees in the cemeteries were beautiful.

We went to each of the seven Amana villages just to see them before we drove onto Davenport, Iowa, for the night. The next morning, we went to LeClaire, Iowa. Our first stop was Antique Archaeology, home of American Pickers.

We like watching the TV show on the History Channel. We didn't see any of the television stars, but we still enjoyed the stop.

We remembered this giant papier mache head from one of the episodes.

After we spent a little money at the store, we asked where we could get down to the Mississippi River. Randy has always been fascinated by rivers - even if we live nowhere near one. When we drive over big bridges, I'm always afraid he's going to turn the steering wheel the same direction as his gaze as he peers over the railings in an effort to see any barge or boat traffic on the big waterways.

So he was thrilled he got to see this barge being pushed down the river. 

 We also toured the Buffalo Bill Museum right along the waterfront. 

William Buffalo Bill Cody was born in LeClaire.

Besides information about Buffalo Bill, the museum included the steamer, the Lone Star.

The Lone Star is a National Historic Landmark. It operated from 1890 to 1967 and is one of the longest running wooden steamboats in the U.S. It is the last remaining example of steamboats built in the Western Rivers style of construction. This consists of a shallow wooden hull supported by a hogging truss system. This style was necessary for the shallow waters of the Mississippi River system.

After another look at the river and lunch at Big Dave & Holly's, we took off toward Chicago. More from our trip to come.

By the way, the title of the blog is a song from the musical, State Fair, about all Iowa has to offer. We missed the state fair by a week or so this time, but it may be in our travel plans in the future. We know some experienced guides (our friends - and Eric's parents, Alan and Christy).