Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Sioux City, IA to Hannibal, MO

Today was by far the longest day of the trip.  We made several interesting stops, but that meant getting to our final destination much later than desired.  To top it off, when we got to our hotel in Hannibal, they had booked us in a smoking room and had no non-smoking pet friendly rooms.  They were nice enough to find us another hotel with a non-smoking pet room, but the new hotel was so dingy and smelled like mold.  I don't know what would have been worse - mold or smoke?  Despite that aggravation, we did see a lot in Iowa and Missouri.

The drive was mostly through corn fields.  Our first stop was the John Deere factory in Waterloo, IA.  We unfortunately couldn't take the 90 minute tour because the dog was in the car, but we did go to the gift shop.

Someone is excited about tractors!

After John Deere, we drove a bit further east and stopped at the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, IA.  Along the way, we listened to Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella.  The movie Field of Dreams is based on the book, but basically everything that happens in the movie happens in the first chapter of the book.  I definitely prefer the movie.  It was neat to see a baseball field in the middle of a corn farm, but it was not the most exciting stop.



When we arrived at the Mississippi, we saw her might because the direct southerly route we wanted to travel was totally flooded.  We had to go further east into Illinois then swing back southwest before being able to head south.  It was a cumbersome detour that really cut the time we had in Hannibal.

Hannibal, MO was a bit of a dumpy town, but the downtown area where Mark Twain's house is was cute.  We ate at Lula Belle's restaurant, which is in a former bordello.  Afterwards, we took a quick tour of the street where Mark Twain lived, which has been preserved.  We saw several landmarks from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer including the white picket fence and the home of Sawyer's crush, Becky Thatcher.  I would have liked to be able to actually tour the attractions, but we were there way past closing time.

Twain's House

HIstoric Hannibal, MO
While this road trip has been a great experience, we are all ready for it to be over.  Six hours to Clarksville, TN!

Someone is ready for this trip to be over!


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