No visit in Hannibal would be complete without a visit to the Mark Twain Cave.

 It is the oldest operating show cave in the state, giving tours continuously since 1886.^[1] The cave became a registered National Natural Landmark in 1972. Mark Twain Cave plays an important role in the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer^[2] by Mark Twain and is named in honor of the Hannibal native.

Cave Entrance

One odd, even macabre, event in the caves' early history happened in late 1840s when Hannibal physician Dr. Joseph Nash McDowell purchased the cave and used it for several years as a laboratory for experiments on human corpses. His most notable experiment involved an attempt to petrify the remains of his deceased daughter.^[6] Twain's book Life on the Mississippi offered a rather gruesome description of the activities:

In my time the person who owned it [the cave] turned it into a mausoleum for his daughter, age fourteen. The body of this poor child was put in a copper cylinder filled with alcohol, and this suspended in one of the dismal avenues of the cave.

After two years the experiment proved a failure and the girls body was forcibly removed by angry Hannibal citizens who learned about it from children who discovered it while exploring the cave, and sometimes used the body to enhance the spooky atmosphere during the telling of ghost stories.^[8] Many townsfolk also believed that Dr. McDowell used bodies stolen from area graves for other experiments, a not uncommon practice prior to the 20th century. Twain would weave that suspicion into the plot of Tom Sawyer in a graverobbing scene involving Injun Joe.

  It's over 100 degrees outside but cool in the cave.

Donna sitting in the "Parlor"

  Could this be a relative?

July 4th in Hannibal, MO

We were surprised and pleased to find that the carnival in Hannibal was Jones.  That's the same one that we have used in Raytown for years and they have been coming to Hannibal about 25 years.  It was easy to spot owners, Darcy and Carl's 5th wheel because of their darling white picket fence around their patio.  They were busy but made time to visit with us for a while.  What a nice surprise.

It was a full day starting with parade.  We watched for 1 1/2 hours before going on to visit all the vendors on the town sqauare park.  It was a wonderful park in the city with large bandstand with live music and the sidewalks spread out like spokes on a wheel.  Perfect for booths on both sides of sidewalks.  There was a large variety of items sold.  In the parade, there were a lot of politicians and queens and princesses from several towns and organizations.  Most all of the churches had representation as well as many businesses.  While waiting for the parade, we met some other people from southern Missouri.  They were delightful.  The aunt, 94 years old, still ran the uniform store behind us.  She was born and raised in Hannibal.  Amazing lady.  They even went inside and got us a folding chair to sit on.  Meeting people is one of the best things about travel.

The children really enjoyed all the candy thrown to them.  Everyone seemed to have buckets full but they were careful to throw them toward the crowd on the ground and not in the air.  Another welcomed thing they gave out was the frozen coolaid sticks.  These were really welcomed by young and old since it was so very hot.  Later in the parade there were floats with people using super shooters and spraying the crowd.  One lady was even using a large bowl to throw water on people.  Everyone wanted to get wet.  How funny!

As we were watching people, we noticed some of the girls with a darling hairdo.  We inquired about it and they said a man at one of the booths did it.  We searched him out and it was amazing how quickly he did it.  He was selling wired hair bands and with any purchase, he'd do your hair if you had longer hair than mine.  Go to http://festivalnet.com/fno/members/104997 for more info.

Since the 4th was in the middle of the week, their celebration started on the 4th and continued through the weekend.  There was to be live music and many contests like fence whitewashing, backseat drivers race (person in wheelbarrow giving directions to person pushing it who is blindfolded), and many more fun contests.  Unfortunately, we planned on leaving on the 5th so we didn't get to see any of these.

Fireworks from Lovers Leap over the Mississippi River

Between the town and river is a large levee.  People gathered in chairs and blankets on top of it to watch fireworks.  Near the river is a park which was full of people too.  There were several young ladies singing patriotic songs.  What a fun evening!

 

Hermann, Missouri 6-29-12

The last two days have so very HOT!

We have been in Hermann, MO for the last two days.  We thought being in the hills would be cooler - WRONG!

In town, we visited some of our favorite old spots and found some new. A great place is on 1st street, Hermann Wurst Haus.  We were treated to samples of their homemade brats and sausages.  A couple of their flavors were Smoked Apple Maple Sausage, Cheddar Brat, and much much more.  Lunch there was great.  Great place to shop too.  All kinds of mixes, jellys, etc.

Of course after a wonderful meal, guess what we found?!  Custard Concretes!  Yum

 



In search of Antonella's Pepperoni Marinara Cheese that we purchased last visit, we drove 12 miles south to Swiss, MO

They had some wonderful sausages, made in house, cheeses, etc. but alas - not PMCheese.  They too had hot samples of a wide variety of brats and sausages.  The special was buy 4 packages, get one free.  Had to get them and Lexi a smoked pig's ear.



No visit would be complete without going to Stone Hill Winery.  Oh my, guess we will have to sample more wine!  Good as always.  They had sale of 1/3 off unopened cases so we "needed" a case of Cross J.  Being hot and tired we went back and hybernated in the coach for the rest of the evening.

Today we went back into town (we are staying in Lazy Day campground out by the highway) and visited Adam Puchta winery and did another wine tasting.  We came away with more great wine and a bagette.  Lunch was at Stone Hill winery and then to Hermannhof Winery for some white wine and cheese.  We then made a quick stop at Ricky's Chocolate Box.  The selection of hand made candies is remarkable.  We each picked out a couple of pieces for later.  Again it was so hot we went back to the coach for a cool easy evening.

All in all, it was a very successful shopping excursion.

Tomorrow we head to Injun Joe's campground near Hannibal where we will stay for about 4-5 days.

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Visit to Warsaw, Missouri

 Monday we headed out of town and went to Warsaw, MO  to the home of Larry and Edna Hockett (cousins).  It was a delight spending time with them and enjoying their home and 25 acres.   We all agreed it would make a great par 3 golf course.  It is a lot of land but they enjoy it.  Dry camping was great in the shade of the trees and breeze.

It was amazing how many black berries we picked each day.  Thank heavens they had rigged up an ingenious watering system for them because of this drought. They were terrific over vanilla ice cream! 

We took a trip over to the other side of Lebonon yesterday, 6-27, complete with stop at Bennett Springs, great food, outlet mall, and detour with flat tire!  What fun!  Chances are we won't see them again until January in Harlingen, TX.  Thank you Cuzzins!

From here we headed to Hermann, MO...................

SUNDAY 6-24-12

 Time passes quickly when you are having fun.  The Summerfest BBQ in Raytown went very well.  The weather was perfect and a lot of people came.  Since we had the coach parked on the grounds, we had happy hour outside of it every night after closing. 

 I helped with the face painting.

Dog costume contest

 Red Solo Cup!

Sorry the photos are not better but this phone doesn't do too good in the dark.

Today we went to see Aunt Betty Lou in the nursing home before we leave town.  She is doing much better and hopes to go home this Wednesday.

Also we went to Ron and Mary's home for a great gathering of the family.  It was Lori's birthday and we have several other birthdays coming up and we wanted to see everyone before we left.  We were sorry to miss John's kids.  They must have had other plans.  The weather was close to 100 degrees so the kids made good use of their pool.  We are so blessed to have a close family!

 6 week old great nephew, Tobias King, son of David and Nyla King

What a sweetie!

Tomorrow we will leave Lees Summit, MO and go to Warsaw,  MO to visit Hocketts.  Whenever we leave there, it's on to Herman, MO to stock up on wine, summer sausage and pepperoni marinara cheese for the road.  We will start heading north from there.  No definate plans but will have to be home for the first weekend in October for girls scrapbook weekend and the Nascar Races in Kansas.  I will try to do better keeping up with the blog.