Hannibal, MO. 105, day 3

The morning broke to a glorius day that was perfect for a Texas boy. It was sunny and warm. After eating at the motel breakfast bar, Kevin and I went downtown to see Hannibal. That's Kevin across the street taking pictures back to the north.
Not surprisingly, most of the stores down by the river are geared to the tourists the town needs to survive and the notoriety of being the hometown of Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens).

Down at the south end of downtown, near the end of this main street, there is an avenue that goes to the park at the river's edge. This steamboat takes tourists out for rides. Standing just above the water, looking across to Illinois, I couldn't help but be amazed at just how big and fast moving the Mississippi is. There is just so much water!
When Kevin and I had stopped into one of the shops on Main Street, we asked how business was. The shopkeeper was an older woman who let us know what she thought then of the media coverage.
"CNN has nearly killed this town!" she vented. "We aren't getting very many people at all this year compared to last. I get phone calls all the time from people who say that they saw the floodcoverage on CNN and that picture of the water right up to the stop sign. We thought the town was ruined."
She explained the stop sign's location as being downriver from the main business district and that their levees and floodgates worked perfectly. But she said it wouldn't be exciting coverage of dry ground, so CNN spiced things up. When we walked to the boat dock, I was fascinated by the flood gate. I had never contemplated exactly what a flood gate was, how it worked or what it looked like. It wasn't until we were coming back toward the town from the river that I realized what we had walked over. The steel that is flush with the ground in the picture is raised to the height of the levee to form the barrier needed to hold the water back. It is a plate of about 5 inches in thickness. That shopkeeper had said they didn't have those back in the 90s when it flooded and without them, the town would have been devastated this year as well.
"But they worked perfectly. If only CNN worked as well."
I'm reminded of her as we are watching coverage of Hurricane Ike this morning.

105, Day 2

When I woke up at 6 in the morning and left the tent to take care of business, I was stunned by the amount of dew! I had forgotten about dew in the summer. Dallas rarely has much. The outside of the tent was soaked, it was pretty damp inside (I had left the flaps on the windows open; it was pretty warm), and the towel I had hung from the handlebars after the shower the night before was probably wetter than when I put it there.
One of the best things about this campground is Bill, one of the old coots that works the place, gets there between 5:30 and 6 every morning and brews up fine coffee, which he is willing to share for free. In the office they have a combination flea market, general store and RV supply/parts retail operation. Most all of the packaging has taken on the yellow pall of aged materials and seeing the number of VHS tapes for sale made me wonder how long this stuff had been there. The wasn't alot of dust on it though and after being in there a while, I realized it likely came from the cigarette smoke Bill was constantly generating with his filterless Camels. Even Gateway, the tailess black and white cat that never goes outside seemed a bit smoke stained. But she did know how to let you know what she wanted you to do to her. She would jump up on anything that was level with my hand as I walked around looking at the inventory while sipping the piping hot first cup. When I didn't pet her long enough and moved to another place, she would manuver to directly in front of me and present her stomach to be scratched. Obviously, someone has been reading Cosmopolitan to her for she had no reservation about having desires and getting them taken care of!
"There's a lot of different stuff in here," I said to Bill as I went to pour the second cup.
"Alot of junk is what it is," he answered with a smile that let me know he appreciated my politeness for not wanting to disparage his surrounding but that he also harbored no illusions either.
Following a bit more conversation and getting other parts of my morning ritual taken care of, I got packed up and hit the road. The company I work for has branches in both Springfield and Fenton (a St. Louis suburb), MO. Springfield was first up and about an hour away. I froze on that hour ride! A McDonald's breakfast and then I walked into the branch. I kept on my do-rag and denim jacket when I strode into the office.

"I understand you have a nice bathroom here. Can I use it?" I said.
Byron was on the phone but he looked at me and pointed to his right.
"It's right there, sir."
Rhonda was just looking at me, not quite sure what to do. Obviously, I was only an outline to Byron, silhouetted against the windows. When I softened my stench a bit and told them that "John Gryder told me to give you guys some crap" they knew who I was. John is based here in DFW and is the national sales manager for the company. They know him well in all the locations.
Byron told me that if a guy gets off a motorcycle and walks in to use the restroom, he isn't going to argue! He was feeling bad for not recognizing me, as he has been down to our location.
After putzing around Springfield too long, I headed toward St. Louis. I had told the night before Kevin I should be able to make it there by noon. But since I wasn't leaving Springfield until 11:00, I knew I couldn't make a 200 mile trip in 60 minutes. I texted him that it would be closer to 2 and set off.
I was off a bit on my calculations and figured he had used his iPhone for directions and was waiting in the parking lot impatiently when I got there at 2:30.
Nope. No Kevin.
I used the same line when I walked in and Gina was really troubled about how to respond. St. Louis is more urban than Springfield and so I'm sure she had some trepidation about this situation. Sherry uttered, "Hang on a second." to the person on the phone and exclaimed, "I know who you are! I talked to Byron!"
I visited with them a moment or two then went to their warehouse to learn some of what they are doing with some new products we are beginning to stock. Ron and Jim were very gracious in sharing their experience with me and it has made my job much easier since my return.
My miscalculations were pretty small compared to Kevin's. He was 100 miles off on the distance he needed to travel after his meanderings to southern Illinois and didn't get to the branch until 4. Both of us needed a visit, drink and rest before leaving again. It turns out we had both traveled almost 650 miles in 2 days to this meet point. He came from Valpariso, IN.

Sherry gave us some good directions to avoid the St. Louis rush hour traffic and we set off to find Missouri route 79 (The Great River Road) and the scenic drive up toward Hannibal.
It was a really pretty ride as we passed recently flooded farmland and saw the high water marks on several houses and buildings from this summer's rains. It was dusk as we pulled into the town of Louisiana and asked at the motel for a room.
"I'm sorry," said the western Asian proprietor, "but the pipe layers are in town and I have just given out the last room."
"Is there a campground close by?" Kevin asked.
"No, those are all filled up first," was his reply. "You will need to go all the way to Hannibal, maybe for a room. There is nothing near here."
Snap.
This was in my plans. Darkness was chasing us hard now and Kevin REALLY doesn't like riding at night; he reminded me of this when he was asking if his newly installed headlight was actually functioning.
When it became apparent we were not going to make the 20 miles or so before dark, we pulled off on a scenic overlook and got this shot -


The last 6 or 7 miles were ridden in some of the thickest bugs I have ever seen! When we finally found a room at the second motel we tried, I noticed they were falling off of Kevin onto the desk as he filled out the registration paperwork!
Dinner of a few cold beers and pub pizza made the night complete!

A Brief Detour in the 105 Saga

A brief intermission in Kurt's travelogue.

I found this op-ed piece by Thomas Friedman of NYT interesting. For months his essays have had the feel of a "true believer" when he opined on Obama's campaign. Suddenly inevitability seems to have disappeared, much as it did for Senator Clinton's campaign early in 2008.

And now back to our irregularly scheduled programming.