Wednesday, May 01, 2002
1. Hannibal
We hadn’t planned on visiting Hannibal, Missouri. We hadn’t even planned to go directly north. Spring storms and tornado warnings prevented us from making the usual diagonal journey from Dallas to Chicago. We drove due north along Interstate 35. At Highway 36, about an hour shy of the sterile Interstate 80, we turned east.
We had stopped at many places along the way. Just into Oklahoma, we stopped in to find out what Fried Pies were. As it turned out, they were exactly as advertised: pies that were fried (about the size of a turnover). Yum! Disgusting concept but still delicious. A hundred or so miles later, after we’d finished the pies, we wished we’d bought more.
We stopped at a roadside store that sold peanut things and bought cashews and peanut oil--it wasn’t yet peanut harvest season. We also stopped frequently, as we always do, to replenish our twenty-first century road-food: Coke, bottled teas, chips, and packaged jerky. Road Trip!
Being frequent travelers on the American Highways, we are cynical about road signs that predict enjoying excursions and "country" dining. We also much prefer the smaller roads. The larger roads look the same, regardless of where you are. The Interstates also hide the people, the countryside, the dominant industries, and everything else that makes each American state, city, or town unique. Since we drag the kids on these trips as part of their homeschool education, it makes no sense to miss what we came to see (America), simply to get somewhere else sooner. We’re also not interested in the homogenized version of America, with Starbucks or McDonalds--we could see that in a textbook, and we have these things at home.
Unfortunately, when the highway billboards promise an adventure all too often it’s disappointing. There are not too many "real" Indian Trading Posts left. When in search of America the main highway exits contain only the commercialized purveyors of assembly-line, packaged Americana, and ones who can afford the billboards. The smaller highways increase your odds of finding a treasure, but even on the smaller roads the chances aren’t good. Every so often, when you are lucky, you’d find an outpost of the real thing--in the back store of gas station, in a cafe with the name "Ruby’s" or "Bert’s." Truckers, we’d learned, weren’t the reliable indicator of a great place. Truckers stop where they can park their trucks regardless of how good or how awful the place might be. A parking lot full of pick-up trucks, Ford Fairlanes, and station wagons--these were good omens.
We’d seen the signs "Tom Sawyer’s Cave" and other Huckleberry Finn and Sawyer signs for about 60 miles. The highway markers also counted down the miles to Hannibal. On closer look and comparison, we queried each other:
"Was Mark Twain from Hannibal, Missouri?"
"Oh yeah, that must be it."
My son had been sighing for about an hour. He knew better than to ask, "how much longer?" He’d learned a better, more passive technique: sighing. Even though the kids were ready to be home and get to their own rooms, their own televisions, and high-speed Internet connections, we were stiff and tired from a day and half of family car trip, and anxious to see or do anything that would temporarily suspend the highway weariness and break the white-line hypnosis. David, being 11, just needed to move around and get rid of some "boy energy." We were also about to cross the border into Illinois. Even though we had many more hours of driving before we reached home, the crossing into Illinois meant the trip was in its final chapter.
At Hannibal, the sometimes-single lane Highway 36 would merge with the blue signed Interstate 76. The markings alerted us to this eventuality. Our nice back road was tuning into an Interstate--Ugh! When the Hannibal exit appeared to be the last holdout of the old road, we exited the highway and followed the signs toward the Mark Twain Historic District.
These signs invoked my worst fears. I had visions of pseudo-nineteenth century "General Stores" selling twenty-first century crap: bubble tape, Snickers, Beanie Babies, and cell-phone shaped bubble gum. As we drove down the hill and approached the historic area, the Mississippi appeared in the distance. The Mississippi with all its slow grace and mystery was the backdrop for the masterpiece that was Hannibal.
There were the usual tourist traps and cute incarnations of a time gone by. The streets were uncrowded, except for the usual: Japanese tourists taking pictures in front of everything, a group of kids, part of some school field trip, wearing remakes of straw hats (obviously machine-made in China or Korea). The kids carried plastic versions of corn cob pipes and walked along the Main Street feigning boredom and exhibiting disinterest at a place as quaint and tourist-tainted as Hannibal. I couldn’t disagree with them. Hannibal had all the earmarks of a tourist trap, or more accurately, a tourist hell. I’d been to towns like this before, Tombstone, Arizona, for example, truly hell-central on the tourist’s roadmap. But I still hadn’t given up hope in Hannibal, and the Mississippi made it desirable, no matter the cheesy tourist signs.
We scoped out the town. We drove up Main Street and made a U-turn where the storefronts ended and the 21st Century re-encroached. We crossed the railroad tracks, through the floodgates to the Mississippi shoreline, and read (without getting out of the car) the sign post that detailed the River Boat cruise schedules. It would launch again at 1:30. It was now 12:25 only 50 minutes until the next cruise.
A Mississippi riverboat cruise? Interesting, I thought. This was not the Disneyland version of the Mark Twain Riverboat or the Columbia sailing around the man-made Tom Sawyer’s Island. This would be the real thing. We had to get home that night and spending three hours on the Mississippi would have made that all but impossible, but I still made the point of reading the sign out loud. I also made a point of doing the math, "hmm, about 50 minutes from now--guess that’s too long, huh?" If anyone in the car had suggested that we wait and take the ride, I’d have casually agreed, but the request never came and it wouldn’t, and didn’t, originate from me. Dragging kids off on an adventure that the adults initiate never pans out, but if THEY think of it, well, that’s different. No one took the bait.
By now it was beginning to drizzle. We crossed back through the flood gates and parked near the end of Main Street. We peeked into storefront windows. Main Street was mostly closed. It was a Wednesday, in May, midweek, not summer--not the usual time for family vacations. Most of the junk shops labeled, "Antiques" were closed, but I spotted a place that might be suitable for lunch. First, we decided to stop in at the Ice Cream Parlor and the kids went inside, while I had my long awaited (it had been 2 hours), finally out-of-the-car smoke.
There were treasures inside this store. I knew this because my kids didn’t come out of the store immediately. I could see through the window that there were trinkets, candy, and ice cream--garbage that even nouveau-teenagers can’t resist eyeing and fingering. Souvenirs!
My smoke finished, I opened the squeaky screen door to enter the shop, without the faintest notice of any alarms or warning signs that an epiphany lay ahead.
