Hannibal, Missouri

In Mark Twain country

This is why this stop is on our itinerary. It's the hundredth anniversary of Mark Twain's death, and with his newly-published autobiography, there's been a renewed interest in America's greatest writer. We can't say that the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum made it very easy for folks to find them; we spent a half hour or so lost. And much of the restoration of some of the buildings--his father's law office, the pharmacy, the Becky Thatcher House--are still works in progress. But being introduced and reintroduced to the fascinating life and prose of the man made the extra miles worth it.

Mark Twain's desk.

The Mark Twain Museum, four blocks away from his Boyhood Home & Museum, offered some artifacts, like the desk above, but mostly there were small tableaux of scenes from Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn:

Huck and Sam and me.

The museum not only captured the spirit of his works--especially Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn--but captured the time and the challenges of Clemens himself. Displays included a wheelhouse similar to those on many of the riverboats he piloted, including a typical bell the pilot would ring for depth, and a typical whistle he would blow for direction. Hmmm...bells and whistles!

Clemens depicted in the pilot house.

A number of other displays include Huck Finns raft, and the wagon below:

Mary Frances aboard the J & B Overland Express

A couple of pleasant surprises upstairs in the museum were a roomful of original Norman Rockwell paintings done as illustrations for new editions of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (I didn't photograph those--nearly got in trouble last year for taking a photo of a different Rockwell) and another room where a display of quilts having nothing to do with Mark Twain or Tom or Huck or Becky was on display:

Mary F. with her favorite quilt on display: Fan Dance.

From the museum we moved up the street to the Boyhood Home and Interpretive Center, a display which has a lot of development yet to occur, but is fascinating in the way it enables the visitor to see the history of the man side-by-side with the stories he wrote.

Mark Twain in the bedroom of his youth--several rooms in the Clemens House showed the

older man in the rooms of his boyhood home, as if it were his spirit revisiting.

For a ten dollar fee, you can scribble your name on the reproduction of the famous whitewashed fence. We chose a different use for our money and bought his newly-published autobiography.

Mary F. at the famous fence.

There are also a couple of cave tours nearby but the writer's claustrophobia kicked in and we elected make a brief visit to Terrible's Mark Twain Casino, twenty miles or so north in Lagrange, instead.

A pleasant meal at Ruby Tuesday's and back to the hotel in time to catch the final quarter of the Patriot's victory over the Vikings, and Game 4 of the World Serious, as Ring Lardner used to call it.

All in all, a very nice day, and tomorrow we head for Salina, Kansas.

Lexington KY to Quincy IL

Pretty much a toss-up between west through St. Louis and up, or up to Indianapolis

and over. We've been to St. Louis a lot, so we chose the northern route.

The Kentucky Vietnam Veterans' Memorial

Time to move on out of Lexington, westward. Although it's early, and it's cold, we can't depart Kentucky without a visit to the Kentucky Vietnam Veterans' Memorial, twenty miles west in the capital, Frankfort, oddly placed right next to the Kentucky Department of Corrections facility, but lovely in the foggy morning, with a view to the Capitol Building. It took a lot of trigonometry to design this memorial, in which the shadow of the gnomon--the pointer of a giant sundial--touches the name of each deceased Kentucky warrior, exactly at noon on the anniversary of his ultimate sacrifice. More than a thousand names are etched in the concrete there, and when you read the names and know the precise date when the shadow of the gnomon will underline their valor, it is hard not to adopt that person as part of you. In May and June of 1968, so many Kentucky boys and girls lost their lives that the concrete slabs can barely allow room for their names. My friend Chris O'Brien fell in Da Nang in May that year; perhaps one of these Kentucky boys was with him.

Mary F. stands beside the Gnomon of the Kentucky Vietnam Veterans'

Memorial. A lot of trigonometry went into designing this outstanding memorial.

A lot of names. And so many others, in so many other places:

Some of those lost to their Kentucky families in the summer of 1968

As seen from the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial, the statehouse of the Commonwealth of Kentucky:

The Statehouse in the morning fog

Nearby, a fawn and her mother wander in the dewy early morning grass; mom didn't want her picture taken today:

She and her mom liked the mowed grass near the memorial.

When we were at home in Massachusetts, we thought the political advertising on TV this year was as disgusting as it could possibly become--the Supreme Court's utterly stupid decision to allow anyone to spend anything to bend the shape of our government to their ends has resulted in not just many times more political ads than ever before, and not just their ability to hide who the advertisers are, but in a sleaziness which would make our forefathers and foremothers sick at heart. As we cross this country, it's hammered home that it doesn't occur only in New England. The sickness of false, negative, outright mendacious advertising in this political campaign reaches all over the country, and may end up in ruining the careers of outstanding public servants, while putting into the seats of power some of the most ignorant tools of corporate and religious lobbies that we have ever witnessed (no pun intended.) Unfortunately, we may be on the verge of seeing the majority of voters get exactly what they deserve.

An "Oh, by the way" disclaimer

Oh, by the way, there are ads on this blog that sometimes we don't like. For one, a show on MTV called "Skins TV" looks like we're some kind of porn site. I wouldn't watch it and I doubt any of our friends following this would, either. Anyhow, blogspot makes these deals, not us.

Reaching our destination

A long drive across Indiana and Illinois, but in the end a spectacular view of the bridge over Ol' Man River to Missouri:

Twilight at the bridge from Broadway in Quincy, Illinois, into Missouri

And a most enjoyable dinner at this busy little tavern on Front Street, where the barmaid admitted she hadn't made many Martinis or any Cosmopolitans before, but they were wonderful; apparently it pays to read the recipe:

Kutters Bar and Grill, riverfront, Quincy, Illinois. Great martoonies.

Tomorrow: let see what's happening in Mark Twain country.

Lexington, Kentucky

Horsefeathers

Lexington calls itself the Horse Capitol of the World, which is probably true for thoroughbreds. So, naturally, with the racing season at Keeneland ending tomorrow, we decided to dine at the Equestrian Room followed by a few races and perhaps a Pick Four for a shot at a share of a $200,000 purse. Alas, no room at the races--sold out!

Toyota

So, we decided horses are passe anyway, and it was time to look into automobiles--Toyotas, in particular, at the Camry Factory Tour here in Georgetown, just a few miles from our hotel. It turned out a lot more interesting and a lot cheaper than going to the track where you can't do lunch for less than fifty bucks. A one-hour guided tour of TMMK (Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky) is free and fascinating. It's the second largest Toyota plant in the world at 173 acres. They make Camrys, Camry Hybrids, Avalons and Venzas, all for domestic consumption. We think of them as Japanese, but the Camry has more American content than any vehicle made in this country. All cars made there have already been sold, and vehicles ordered are manufactured with the colors and options packages required in about 20 hours, about half of that in the painting process. No inventory of parts or supplies is kept; rather everything is received using J-I-T (Just In Time) delivery. Each place in the assembly line is manned by a team of four, who trade places every couple of hours during the day. In the twenty-three years of this plant's existence, there has never been a layoff, even during the recent accelerator scares. Most of the movement of partly-assembled vehicles is on overhead conveyors, dropping down to working height at various stations. Timing is everything: doors are removed from the bodies after painting, and ride on their own conveyors for a couple of hours while the bodies receive dashboards, seats and cushions, carpeting and electricals, and just at the right moment, the doors drop down from their overhead conveyors in just the right spot to be returned to their vehicles. Perhaps the most lasting impressions we had were how friendly the factory employees seemed to be in the huge, airy shop. The employees pedaling large tricycles with reworked items to where they were needed. And of course, the little musical robot carts toddling alongside us, delivering parts and tools to just the right places, at just the right times.

Entry to the Toyota Plant Tour at Gate 2 - No cameras after this.

Time for lunch

Our last time in Lexington, a year and a half ago, we accidentally found some great steaks and appropriate beverages at a little bistro called the Columbia Steakhouse in downtown Lexington, so we decided to stop there for lunch on the way to our next attraction. Unfortunately, we found it closed from 2:00 to 4:30, and it was nearly 2:00, so we walked a way toward downtown and discovered the Sidebar Grill, literally a hole in the wall with a few tables inside and quite a nice lunch menu. The moral: Never get mad when your plans don't work exactly; that's the best time to discover new things.

That's just Mary's place

From the Sidebar, it's about a quarter mile to the Mary Todd Lincoln House as the crow flies, and we managed to arrive just in time for the last tour of the day at three o'clock. Mary Todd's father bought the house, which had been a tavern, when she was eight, and she lived in it until she was twenty-one. She also managed a visit there some years later with her husband when he was a Congressman from Illinois. It was sold upon Robert Todd's death in 1849, served in many capacities, even a brothel, until it was purchased and restored in the 1980's as the first historic site dedicated solely to a First Lady. The tour itself was interesting if a bit hard on the feet. Very few of the artifacts on hand were actually the property of Mrs. Lincoln, but a good job was done in restoring the house to its era.

The Mary Todd Lincoln House, Lexington, Kentucky

By now, it was time to return to the hotel and find out if something edible remained in the cooler—it didn't—and to find some beer because there's a lot of dust in Kentucky and a powerful thirst was building. So we stopped at Wal-Mart for a couple of nuclear dinners and went looking for a liquor store for an icy six-pack, only to learn that Lafayette is one of the three dry counties in Kentucky!

Tomorrow, we're heading for Mark Twain country.

Chambersburg to Lexington

The route:

The eastern third of this route (mostly Maryland) is magnificently scenic; the middle

third (West Virginia) is pleasant; the final third (Kentucky) is best suited for a nap,

unless you're at the wheel, of course.

Camera Woes

As we explained yesterday, our brand-new Samsung camera didn't react well to the roof leaking on it, but fortunately--we thought--we had our trusty--we thought--old Canon Sure-Shot with us so we could keep a visual record of a road our earlier travels had shown was one of the most scenic in America, the Route 68 National Highway in the Maryland panhandle. Alas, when Mary F. tried to take a picture, it froze like the cops had guns trained on it. I had a half dozen AA batteries in my briefcase, and a couple more in the glove box--none of them worked. When we crossed into West Virginia the Visitor Welcome Center had none, either. In fact, we didn't find any until lunch at Shoney's in Frameville, by which time the really photogenic stuff was past.

Anyway, here are a couple views from the internet:

A milestone for our MPV

In Charleston, we hooked a right onto I64 and headed for Kentucky, but before we got there, in Huntington, WV, actually, our reliable little tin can had a milestone of her own, her odometer flipping from:

...to:

Car carnage

About half way through New Jersey, peaking in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky, is the roadside slaughter of deer, easily the most visibly striking of the tons of roadkill along any major highway. But we wonder, why deer? Skunks and armadillos we can understand. They have defense mechanisms that protect them from natural prey, and they think in their little brains that they're invincible, having no idea of how a few tons of metal at highway speeds can change the concept of invincibility significantly. We can understand possums. They aren't very fast, or deep, thinkers. We could understand crows, because they spend a lot of time picking through the tastier portions of highway carnage, although we hardly ever have seen one of them fall victim, because as birds go, they are very, very smart. Deer have big ears to listen for danger, big eyes to spot movement, and no reason at all to leave the tasty grass beside the highway for the tarmac, but...smack! A thousand of them a day decompose beside our highways.

Miscellany

Some fat guy was nice enough to fill our car with gas (Mary F.

didn't think I'd print this picture but hell, I have no pride left):

Hey, I got a beautiful woman to go to a hotel with me. Note the impatient look?

We'll miss election day while we're on the road. So we've already voted, by absentee ballot. As you may have guessed, we didn't vote to allow the foxes back into the chicken coop they decimated while George W--the first moron president in American history--presided over the greatest transfer of wealth in human history, the great divergence, from the middle class to the corporate barons.

Tomorrow we'll spend the whole day in the Lexington area--with camera batteries in hand. See you then.

Gettysburg

We've been to Gettysburg before, and wandered the battlegrounds with taped autotours, watched the battle reenacted in the great little electric show in town, climbed the tower, visited the Cyclorama. But we had never visited the Eisenhower farm, and after the delightful visit to the Eisenhower Museum in Abilene last year, it was the main attraction for us for this year's visit. It turned out the Cyclorama has been restored and moved since our last visit, and now rests in the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitor Center, newly built in 2008, and now the terminus for all National Park tours in Gettysburg.

This is pretty much where the action begins in Gettysburg.

At the visitor center we bought a throw away camera, since Mary F.'s brand new Samsung that we bought just before her 50th high school reunion, was damaged by a leaking kitchen ceiling, and--not knowing that--we had left our old digital camera at the hotel. Stuff happens.

My bride boarding the bus. She let me come, too.

You can't drive to the Eisenhower farm. Mamie left strict instructions that the property wouldn't be paved over for parking. So we boarded the tour bus and rode past the sites of such intense history as Pickett's Charge, and the site of Eisenhower's first assignment, in 1917, command of a Tank Corp training facility next to the cemetery where Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg address only 54 years earlier, to the modest farm the soon-to-be President and First Lady bought in 1949 for $44,000.

The modest home of a President. The third section from the left is original to the

eighteenth century; the other parts had to be rebuilt in 1949.

The barn adjacent to the house was for cows, farm equipment and storage of Eisenhower's vehicles: a Chrysler Imperial limousine circa 1954; a Buick wagon; a Crosley runabout, and several golf carts. Eisenhower's life was so busy that he never had a driver's license until leaving the Presidency.

The original barn.

An end-view of the barn shows the milk room on the end, which was converted to Secret Service quarters in 1965, after the Kennedy assassination changed the rules about post-presidential protection.

The Eisenhower barn was red when he bought it, but the the President though that was to ostentatious.

We weren't able to take pictures in the house with a flash--and the disposable camera we had bought didn't know when not to--but we were surprised at the modesty of it, considering leaders from all over the world were entertained there during and after the Eisenhower presidency. Mamie liked pink just a bit too much for my taste.

As a kid of the forties and fifties, Eisenhower was a hero of mine and a million other kids, and my dad, an Army Air Corps veteran, idolized him. He's still my favorite president, a moderate, intelligent man--completely unlike the blowhards, nitwits and corporate pimps who represent the Republican party today; aw, gee, is my politics showing?--who was a 5-star general but as president never lost a soldier's life or an inch of ground on his watch.

Mary F. appreciates a rose behind the Eisenhower house--a bit of rain was falling.

In his final years Ike spent what time the public allowed him to be alone developing soil conservation methods on the property he bought, with the simple idea that he wanted to leave a piece of the earth better than when he found it.

Upon our return to the Visitor's Center and a couple of films about the Civil War and a re-acquaintance with the Cyclorama, it was mid-afternoon and time for...lunch!

We had overheard one of the tour guides waxing eloquently about the finest French onion soup in the land, available at Dobbin House Tavern, a historic building which was built in 1776 and served as the manse of Rev. Dobbin of Ireland, and later as his classical school and since the Civil War a tavern much as today. My bride proved the tour guide right, and washed down la spécialité de la maison with cider laced with buttered rum. My lunch was equally délicieux: crab bisque with two pumpkin martinis!

Mary F. in front of Dobbin House Tavern

It was time to head back to our hotel in Chambersburg, twenty-five miles west. But along the way we couldn't help but pay a call at the Adams County Winery, housed in a red barn near Cashtown, where R. E. Lee gathered his troops prior to the assault on Gettysburg:

We found the Adams County Winery--the only patrons!

After a quick taste-testing I bought a couple of dry reds, one called Rhedd Butler!, and Mary F. purchased everything pictured below:

Mary F. in a sippin' mood.

OK, just kidding. After sipping and spending, we headed once again for Chambersburg, but couldn't help but stop at Mister Ed's Elephant Museum, something you certainly wouldn't expect to see on a country road in Pennsylvania and I'm not really sure that we did:

Elephants, just not real ones. A pleasant stop, nonetheless.

There didn't seem to be any real elephants around, and we understand there was a bad fire there recently, but to their credit Mr. Ed's boasted one of the nicest stuffed-in-a-little-trailer candy store and fudge shops we've ever seen, and we left with half a pound of delicious pumpkin fudge. Gourd-gious.

Best fudge in a trailer, ever.

By now this old couple was ready for kicking back at the hotel with a chicken sandwich and some of our Adams County Winery treasures. But there was one more stop to make:

My two sweethearts. Both fun to take on vacations.

At a Rite-Aid on route 30 to turn our toss-away camera pix into a CD for this up-to-date report to our friends and family.

Not a bad first full day for our Autumn Adventure 2010. Tomorrow: Lexington and horse country.

On the Road Again - Athol to Gettysburg

After disaster deployments that lasted too long, and repairs to the house that really couldn't wait, we're finally on the road for our annual autumn adventure a month later than we planned. When you live in the Northeast, the first leg of any journey west is about the same, and like last year by the time we'd cleared our eyes of sleepy seeds we were tooling down the Wilbur Cross and Merritt Parkways in Connecticut and enjoying the fall colors as well as the artistry of the many old bridges we passed under.

It's not like we haven't been anywhere or haven't had adventures since last fall--we've just been too lazy to write about them. But, in February we enjoyed a week in Florida with our friends Kent and Joanne, shown here with Mary Frances in a delightful candy store at St. Armand's Circle on Lido Key:

Sweets for the sweet.

Other enjoyments on that too-brief trip included a trip to Solomon's Castle in Ona, a weird but oddly delightful collection of amusing curios made from discarded trash where its creator toils to this day:

Solomon's Castle -- sided with used printing foils.

It was a place so fascinating it caused our ladies to dance:

Mary F., Joanne, Ann and Cynthia

In May we traveled to Columbus to celebrate granddaughter Violet's 6th birthday:

A wagon load of trouble...and joy.

In July we rented a house near Scarborough Beach, in Narragansett, Rhode Island, and enjoyed the company of son Dana and daughters Karen and Heather and their families:

Victor Hatch, Elise Taylor, Bennett Taylor, Lucas Forman, Violet Hatch

Including a ferry boat ride to Block Island:

Ben, Elise, Violet, Lucas, Wendy, Victor

...and back:

Heather and Lucas

And decimating Rhode Island's sea food population:

Clockwise from left: Wendy, Karen, Mary F., Elise, Violet, Keith, Lucas, Bennett, Dana

Those are great memories. Tomorrow we'll wander about Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in search of more of them. Then on our way again, like this morning: