Fall Odyssey 2006

September 22, 2006--Clarksville, MO to Beardstown, IL (230 mi)

Part One--Clarksville, MO to Hannibal, MO

I was up at 7am this morning and eagerly out the door by 7:45am. I was really excited to drive the River Road (Hwy 79) in daylight and the weather was totally in support of this idea--it was another crisp, blue, sunny, glorious day far away from home.

I stopped for breakfast at the Corner Cafe in Clarksville (see photo above). This was a great breakfast stop. The cafe house was built in the late 1800's and is nicely restored to provide the patron a bit of a trip back in time while eating 3 poached eggs and blueberry hot cakes. Everyone in the cafe seemed to know each other fairly well. I was the stranger, but I made talk with the waitress/proprietor to try to fit in.

My next stop was a few miles NW outside of Louisiana, Missouri (which is kinda' fun to say isn't it?) where I noticed an alluring old farmhouse (see exterior & interior photos above & below) about 100 yards off a lonely stretch of Hwy 79. I pulled over and hiked over to the place. I'll guess that this house was built in the 1840's and was lived in for at least 100 years.

I just HAD to find my way inside of this place! It was actually a bit of a challenge to breach the thick weaving of briars that guarded the dangerously eroded front stoop of the house. They were like sentinels warning me that the house did not want me to pay it a visit. I lingered inside the house upstairs and downstairs for nearly a full hour contemplating what past events took place where I was standing. I took several photos, but none really capture the character of the place. What a fun little side-adventure though. As I said before: I'm easily entertained.

I continued northward along Hwy 79 to Hannibal, MO stopping only once more in between to go on a mini hike along a hilltop vatage point where I snapped some shots of the winding Mississippi (see photo below). I had purposely planned to pass through Hannibal, MO because it is the boyhood town of Mark Twain and is supposedly the inspirational setting for the Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn stories.
I quickly browsed through the Mark Twain tourist spots including his restored boyhood home, but it was hard to take seriously a tour through an old house with a sign on it that reads: "Becky Thatcher's House". I just wasn't onboard for that ride, I guess.I did, however, enjoy my walk through the historic townsite (see photo below: I was lucky enough to get the old car in the shot) of Hannibal. I even paused on the west bank of the Mississippi to watch a very loooong, and also very sloooow barge pass me by (easily entertained). I left Hannibal by around 11:30am without bothering to stop for the requisite tourist's lunch (did I really want a Huck Finn burger?) and headed across the River eastward into Illinois. I took Hwy 336 northward to Carthage, IL on my way to Nauvoo, IL. See Part 2 of September 22, 2006 in the next entry....