Summer Vacation

 Kansas City, MO

 

 

After a beautiful drive across northern Missouri,

we arrived at our friend's house just south of Kansas City.

We were eager to see their "new" century old house that they

are restoring and improving.

Old houses, with all their quirks, have a unique personality of their own.
It was fun to stay in a house with so much personality.

 

The following day, we were joined by an old California friend and her

youngest daughter.  They currently live in southeastern Kansas.

Our afternoon adventure was to the high security realm of:

 

 

 

It was kind of like going through airport security to get into the

Money Museum at the Federal Reserve Bank.

Hand over driver's license,

 put all my personal property through the x-ray machine,

walk through the security sensors,

set off the alarm with my hairpins,

(thankfully they just gave me a brush with their eyes and
skipped the pat-down and wand)

reconnect with my purse and all its accessories,

wait for the guard to give me a clearance pass,

(they kept our driver's licenses until we exited).

 

 

 

 Inside were all kinds of interactive displays and facts about money and the economy.

 

 

 

 

We were not allowed to photograph the most interesting part: The Vault.

We were allowed to watch the proceedings in the inner sanctum through a glass wall

while being constantly monitored by video cameras.

 

The Federal Reserve Bank is not where money is printed.

It is where money is sent by your home town bank to be stored,

 destroyed, or redistributed. 

After  a few hours of playing with the interactive displays, observing the vault activities,
watching a video, making rubbings for our own play money,
and getting our souvenir bag of shredded cash,
we had to request that the guards let us out of the building.

As they returned our driver's licenses, the guards warned us that a huge storm
with hail and high winds was headed our way.
Maybe that is normal stuff for the mid-west but it was not what I wanted
to be caught driving in. 
Thankfully, all we caught were a few sprinkles as we drove into
Curtis and Deena's town.  It proceeded to rain gently for a period of
time but it seems like the storm had mostly played itself out over eastern Kansas.

The day was wrapped up with a BBQ, visiting with some of the girls' friends,
and a rousing water balloon fight.
Then it was time to repack our swiftly dwindling supply of clean clothes,
redistribute the massive collection of dirty clothes,
and hit the bed with anticipation of the last leg of our vacation.

 

 



Summer Vacation

Historic Hannibal

(Mark Twain's home town)

 

 

 

 

One day was spent down by the river in the "Mark Twain" historical area.

We started with the Boyhood Home and Museum.

 

In the museum, we encountered Tom and Becky.

Tiana was rather scared of them and was not too pleased

with the photo op experience.

Each year there is a contest for the "job" of Tom and Becky.

One of the perks is scholarship money when they are ready for college.

 

Mark Twain's boyhood home.

There were Twain quotes sprinkled around the interior of the house

and this one reminds me of the universal experience concerning our childhood homes:

 

"Nothing remains the same.  When a man goes back to look at the house of his childhood,

it has always shrunk: there is no instance of such a house being as big as the

picture in memory and imagination call for."

 

 

The famous whitewashed Tom Sawyer fence. 

 

By the time we finished touring the homes and museum,

the humidity had pretty much knocked us flat.

We would slip into any store along the street just to experience their air conditioning. 

It was a relief to come to the Interpretive Center where we could enjoy

the cool air until lunch time.

 

In the afternoon, four of our group hiked many steps to a lighthouse overlooking the river.

 

Bethany was feeling downright sick by this time and declined the hike.
We think that the humidity made her sick to her stomach.

Her and I enjoyed the river view directly below the lighthouse.

 

 

While we were waiting to go back to the Interpretive Center for a talk by

Mark Twain himself,

 

 

we had some time to kill so we found a nice shady spot with a bench

and the kids worked on their trick photography skills.

 

 

 There were some curious stares by people driving by but

we could have cared less in our humidity addled state of mind.

 

So we finished up a day of soaking in both literary history

and humidity.  Arid Kansas was looking like a happy place to land

in the very near future.

 

 

 

Summer Vacation

 Hannibal, MO

(The Mark Twain Cave)

This was our only destination where we completely played the part of tourist.

There were no friends, family, or church events to draw us to this town.

It was the literary and social history that made me choose Hannibal.

 

We rolled into town in the midst of a hot and humid afternoon

 so we decided that the coolest place to be was in a cave.

The Mark Twain Cave, to be exact, where

Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher were lost in
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Twain actually wrote about this cave in five of his books.

 

 

I was eager to visit a Missouri cave and see how it compared to

a California cave.

 

The first cave tour was in 1886.

We were thankful we did not have to begin our tour at the Discovery Entrance

but could enter through a regular doorway.

 

The 55 minute tour took us through many winding, narrow, limestone

 passages  with no great loss or gain in elevation.

In CA caves we often descend to great depths and then have to climb back out.

The Mark Twain cave is 6.5 miles long, has four entrances and 260 passages.

It is easy to see how someone could be lost in there forever.

Many CA caves have large chambers which showcase stalactites

and stalagmites but this was not the case in the Mark Twain Cave.



 

 

The cave is 52 degrees year round.

Before the tour, some people put on sweaters or light jackets.

I was just eager to get into the cave so I could feel the cool air.

 

 

 

 

 Before this became a national historical site, it was a common practice for
visitors to leave their names and the date on the walls.
The tunnels were full of names and dates from many years ago.

 

Besides being made famous by Mark Twain, this cave had some infamous characters

live, work, and hide in it's many passages.

We peered into Jesse James' hideout (where he signed and dated the walls)

 and down the passages into the

science lab where Dr. Joseph Nash experimented on human corpses.

The Confederates also used the cave to stockpile weapons.

In more recent years the cave was used to store large amounts of food

 in case of a Cold War attack.

 

 

Leaving the cave area, we drove up the steep road to Lover's Leap

which gave us a wonderful view of Hannibal and the Mississippi River.

The only problem was that it had begun to rain and thunder rumbled ominously

through the dark clouds.  I  quickly decided that being on the highest point of the area

and near a chain link fence was not the best place to be during a thunder storm.

 

 

 

School Time is Here Again

 

 

Without undo excitement, the older three headed off to classes this morning.

It's hard to believe that the boys are seniors and Bethany a sophomore.

Little Miss has been slowly gathering steam with a new subject per week

since the beginning of August.  It's less of a shock to both her and I that way.

 

 



 

Down Memory's Lane

 

The three older children were shopping for sunglasses

when my youngest showed me a pair that she wanted to buy.

I turned to look at the rack of children's sun glasses
and saw in the upper corner sun glasses for toddlers.

 

Just seeing those little sun glasses brought back fun memories

of taking the boys to the beach for the first time.

They were 21 months old and we were at Coronado Beach

in San Diego.  They were scared of the water so we spent

our time playing in the sand that day.

 

They were so cute in their little sun suits

with babyhood still resting in their sweet little faces.

These pictures always make me smile.

 



 

 

Summer Vacation

The Mississippi River

 

Months ago, when we were planning this trip, someone piped up
and said, "Why don't we visit the Mississippi River?"
I thought, "Why not?"

Relatives gave us advice on where to go and what to see
based on what our family enjoyed doing;
 the historical and educational.

 



 

As we drove through Iowa and Missouri we admired the beautiful
green fields, the many trees, and the lush countryside.
When we exited our vehicle and the humidity slapped us in the face,
we remembered why everything was so lovely.
Oh yes, this greenness comes with a price.

 

 

We crossed into Illinois at Quincy and made our way down

a few obscure twisting gravel roads to view a lock in operation.

Lock and Dam #21

This lock had a nice upper level viewing area with bathrooms on the lower level.
We arrived just in time because there were two huge barges in the lock ready to
be raised to travel north on the river.

We watched the barge workers run around lashing the two barges
together and the lock supervisor driving around and around in his little cart.

 

 

 

 

Now the lock is empty.
It took longer to get the barges ready than it did to raise them in the lock.

 

 

 

 

 

We could tell from all the activity that the Mississippi River is still

a very important avenue for economic systems from the north to the south.

 

We made our way further south, crossed back over the river into Missouri,
and headed to the home town of Mark Twain.

 

By this time we needed to replenish some supplies so we
stopped at a nationwide chain where this was our
most surprising find of the day...

 

The contents looked quite attractive with cherries floating around in the red liquid
but at 50% alcohol they were probably rather potent cherries.

We laughed and wondered if it was common to sell moonshine in MO.
Maybe they have such things in other states too but I must admit that I don't
go down the alcohol aisle on a regular basis.