Visit: Hannibal MO; Part Three or Going Home

I apologize it's taken me a few days to finish this series.  I took a break from blogging this weekend to start packing (eek!), finish reading a great book, stroll around the Farmer's Market, cook some great meals, wash and put away 9 loads of laundry and spend time with J and friends.  Anyway, here is the end of our anniversary trip (read part one and part two here) and a DIY project I completed with some mementos from our trip!

After listening to some great local music (including two very talented harmonica players), we headed back to Lulabelle's for a good night sleep.  We had seen (and heard) our mystery guest earlier that day but figured he would be long retired and in bed by the time we ourselves hit the sack.

Who is this mystery guest?  Well, you saw him in this photo earlier.

Meet Mr. Train.

Much to our chagrin, Mr. Train went by every hour or so throughout the night, whistling loudly as he came through, letting his presence be known to all.  The B & B did let us know on their website that there were train tracks nearby ("Most of our customers understand that trains are an integral part of the Mississippi River experience, since tracks run right along the river...However, after a glass of wine and a jacuzzi bath, most people don't mind.") and even left out some earplugs for our convenience but we figured with a few glasses of wine and a long day, we would sleep right through it.

Not really.  We tried sleeping without earplugs at first because they can be a bit uncomfortable but after an hour or two, we caved and put them in.  They did a better job of drowning out the horns but we still found ourselves waking up every few hours when the earplugs would slip out.  We gave up sleeping woke up for good around 5:30 and watched the sunrise over the river from our bed.  That part was really neat.  Not sleeping through the night, not so much.  We did have a good laugh about it though before heading to breakfast!

After a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs and pancakes, we checked out of our room and headed to the Mark Twain Museum for a few hours before hitting the road. 

Us in front of Mark Twain's boyhood home

 The museum itself was a complex of building consisting of a visitor's center, art gallery, Mark Twain's childhood home, Tom Blankenship's home (Mark Twain's boyhood friend who inspired the character Huckleberry Finn), the general store and his father's law office. 

Because the museum is not owned by the State or Federal Parks system and therefore relies on private donations and admission fees to keep it up and running, some of the exhibits were more accessible than others (Becky Thatcher's house for example was completely closed for renovation) and others were in need of some repair and updating.  However, it was very interesting to learn about Mark Twain's early life and see some of the places that inspired the novels.   All weekend J and I both remarked that we needed to go back and reread The Adventures of Tom Sawyer again after everything we had read and seen!

We drove back that afternoon pretty tired but after a small lunch, a nap and dinner at a local restaurant we were finally feeling like ourselves again by Sunday night.  Our night with Mr. Train was definitely one for the memory books!

And speaking of memory books, last week I created a little keepsake from our anniversary trip that I wanted to share with you all.  I had picked up some little glass jars from Hobby Lobby last fall with the idea that I would fill each of them with mementos from each of the years we have dated (I've saved movie stubs, wristbands, corks, and so forth over the years).  Alas, many of the mementos are back in California as a result of my move out there after graduation so the jars sat empty in my basement for months until I came up with a new idea.  Why not fill each of them with items from vacations we take together instead? 

Here's what I filled our Hannibal glass jar with:

Now I can't wait for us to go on more vacations so that I can fill more of these cute little guys with stuff!  We are already planning to visit Mackinac Island and Toronto sometime next year (these destinations will be a lot closer to us once we move).  I only wish I would have thought of this sooner (like when we went on our honeymoon to San Francisco and Napa Valley last year)!

Do you save things like ticket stubs and wine corks?  Do you buy souvenirs when you go on trips?  If so, how do you display them? 

Visit: Hannibal MO; Part Two or Our Afternoon

After visiting the lighthouse, we got into the car and drove the few miles to the outskirts of Hannibal to visit the Mark Twain Cave.  The cave is actually part of a cave complex with two cave systems, Mark Twain Cave and Cameron Cave.  The Mark Twain Cave was discovered in 1821 and Cameron Cave in 1925, making them the oldest and youngest show (or tour-guided) caves in Missouri respectively.  Visitors can tour one or both of the caves and we opted for the Mark Twain Cave tour because
a) it was shorter (55 minutes versus 1 hour 30 minutes which given the fact we arrived at 4:30 would make for a later night out for us early birds)
b) it was cheaper
c) there was no wait (we would have had to wait until the 5:00 tour for Cameron Cave).

During the tour, our tour guide shared with us a little history of the cave and later, parts of the story of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the time Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher got lost in the cave.  Mark Twain is said to have modeled the caves in his stories after the Mark Twain Cave that he would have explored himself as a child.

The original entrance, found in 1820 by a boy and his dog

This photo shows the ash years and years of flame powered lanterns have left on the stone.

One of the more narrower passageways in the cave

Prior to becoming a National Natural Monument,  people wrote or otherwise carved their names into the cave walls.

In the late 1800s a local resident was married here.  Since then there have been six marriages in the cave.

After our tour, we headed over to the wine tasting room on the property to try some local wines.  While on the way, we stopped to whitewash some fences for good ole Tom Sawyer.

For 3.95 a person, we each tried six wines and got to keep the glasses.  Pretty good deal, huh?  We tried their dry wines and were pleasantly surprised with their quality--sometimes with wines, local isn't always better (at least when it comes to sweet Missouri wines) :)  So much so that we bought a bottle home as a souvenir!

After we finished our tasting, we stopped by Lover's Leap on the way back to the hotel.  Many towns have spots like this where two star-crossed lovers (in this story two native Americans from warring tribes) took their lives rather than be separated.  It provided great views of downtown Hannibal and the river.

The legend

River view complete with riverboat

Once back in our room, we dressed for dinner and opened the bottle of champagne we had brought with us, a graduation gift to J from his former boss in Omaha who now lives in Napa Valley.   It was delicious!

In my research last week I had found a local restaurant I really wanted to try called LaBinnah Bistro.  I wrote down the address of the Bed and Breakfast whose owners managed the bistro and who hosted the information about the restaurant on their site.  It turned out that wasn't its actual location.  When I googled the bistro on my phone, we also found the address of an old mansion in Hannibal listed.  We drove up there only to find that the bistro had moved to a new location further down the hill.  We finally found the correct address (after three tries) and went inside for dinner!

The food did not disappoint.  The chef there tried to use as many fresh and local ingredients as possible in his dishes and it showed in the taste and quality of the food.

Our appetizer: Pesto topped with tomatoes, white onions and Parmesan cheese served over poppy seed baguette

My dinner: Shrimp Istanbul with golden raisins and a sweet and spicy sauce

J's dinner: African Peri-Peri (pork with a spicy African glaze)

After dinner we headed back to Java Jive (where we had gotten coffee earlier that day) for open mike night.  We listened to local musicians play for an hour or so before heading back to finish our champagne and sleep.  Little did we know we would have a frequent, uninvited visitor who would keep us awake most of the night!

To learn who this guest was, come back tomorrow for the third and final installment of our anniversary trip recap!

Visit: Hannibal MO; Part One or Our Arrival

As I mentioned in this post, J and I enjoyed a little weekend getaway in Hannibal, MO to celebrate our first anniversary.  And boy was it fun!  I originally was going to share all of the details and all of the photos in one post but there are too many words and too many photos to share in just one post so I'll be splitting them up into three parts (arrival, afternoon and morning) and posting it all over the next several days!

We began the morning by filling up on delicious iced coffee from our good friend JDP at Cafe Rationale.  Afterwards, we headed back to the house so J could get a few hours of bar exam studying in before hitting the road.  I finished reading The Princess of Nowhere, a quick read I had checked out from the library days before (check back tomorrow for a review!), and got done the chores necessary for our trip: packing, putting out extra food and water for Woods, cleaning his litter box, cleaning out the fridge of anything that would go bad while we were gone and taking out the trash.  After a quick but delicious lunch, we hit the road.

Pictured: Smoked Gouda, turkey and cranberry apple chutney sandwich with Caesar salad

I drove on the way there so J could get a few more hours of studying in for the weekend which was fine with me because I had the Dixie Chicks' Taking the Long Way to sing along with!  We arrived in Hannibal just after two o'clock and promptly checked into our Bed and Breakfast.

We stayed at Lulabelle's Bed and Breakfast which was a bordello in the early 1900s run by a madam from Chicago in its former life.  According to the B & B's promotional materials, the building was one of few that was designed and built specifically for its purpose.

See that grey and yellow box peaking up over the hill there on the left.  That would be a train and a foreshadowing of things to come!

We stayed in the Purple Passion room (all of the rooms have very suggestive names to go with the theme) which was quaint and perfect for our needs.  In our room at least (I don't know about the others) visitors had taken to signing and dating bars of soap or wine corks and leaving them behind as a souvenir.  The bars of soap were literally all over the room and it was fun to read them and the occasions for which people had stayed there to celebrate (engagements, honeymoons, anniversaries).

After we checked in and got settled into our room (including having an ice bucket brought to the room for some champagne we brought along), we decided to explore Main street a little bit before heading to the Mark Twain Caves nearby.  We first stopped by Java Jive which billed itself as the first coffee shop west of the Mississippi (get it?) for some coffee.  We got a cappuccino (for J) and  an iced Chai latte (for me) to go and walked up and down Main street looking in the little shops and generally getting a feel for the area.

When we turned to head back to our room, we saw a white lighthouse at the far end of the street.  I had read about the Mark Twain Lighthouse online--like in Springfield with Lincoln, almost everything in the town had Mark Twain's name attached to it even if it was built after he lived/died.  Our favorites were the Mark Twain soda dispensers and the restaurant that promised Mark Twain Fried Chicken.  We decided a lighthouse in Missouri was worth seeing and wanted to get a closer look.  On our way up there, we came across this lovely bronze statue of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

Halfway up the long flights of stairs was a lookout area that we learned used to be the Mark Twain Memorial Bridge.

Built as part of the New Deal in 1936 and demolished in 2001, the Mark Twain Bridge was a major go-between over the Mississippi River.  Now it is a great place to look out over the river and take in the sites.

Ironically, due to some large overgrown trees in the area, the views from the bridge were better than they were from the lighthouse itself.  The lighthouse's tower itself was padlocked shut, which might have something to do with the lackluster views.  There was also no explanation anywhere of why the lighthouse was built or even what year it was constructed.  Tourism fail!

Lots of green make for a somewhat obscured view of the river

On our way back down, we came upon a house nestled in the hillside there with two lovely orange tabby cats.  They were very sweet and could have been Woods' long lost siblings!

The one in the back looks especially like Woods!

After our little walk around town, we got in the car and headed to the Mark Twain Caves for some cave-exploring and wine tasting, which is where the tale from our weekend getaway will pick up tomorrow! 

In the meantime, have you ever played tourist in a nearby city?  Any summer trips on the horizon?  Where to?  I'd love to hear all about it!

Weekend Getaway and a Big Announcement

This weekend marks our first wedding anniversary and to celebrate we are hitting the road!  We have been talking about taking a trip for a while now but we finally hammered out all the details this week which has created a fun, spontaneous air around the weekend.

The cool mustang we got to drive around in on our wedding day.  House pictured: site of our wedding reception

Leading up to it, we had a few criteria that needed to be met for our trip:

1. Cost: With J studying for the bar, only one income (mine) to speak of and some major changes on the horizon (more on that in a minute), it needed to be a relatively inexpensive trip.
2. Location: Must be within driving distance.  See number 1.  Plane tickets this time of year are notoriously expensive. 
3. Distance: Even though we are driving, with the high price of gas we knew the destination couldn't be too far away in order to keep costs low.
4. New: Must be a place neither of us have been to before.  We love exploring new cities together!
5. B & B's: We really wanted to stay at a Bed and Breakfast while we were there.  I love them and find them extremely romantic and much more personal than a standard hotel room!

With these criteria in mind, we narrowed it down to 3 finalists: Sainte Genevieve, Hermann (Missouri wine country), and Hannibal, MO.  Sainte Genevieve is having a French Heritage Festival this weekend, which may explain why all the B & B's in the area were booked on Saturday night (the night we were hoping to stay).  Hermann's B & B's were all more than we were looking to spend for a night (average was around 140 dollars a night) which, combined with wine tasting fees, would be pretty pricey for a two day trip.

Enter Hannibal.  Only two hours and four minutes away from St. Louis, we were able to find a charming B & B for only $90.00 a night! With lots to do including visiting Mark Twain Caves, Mark Twain's Boyhood Home and Museum, a cute downtown area and a few wineries nearby, I know we will have a great time and I can't wait to share all of our photos and experiences with you next week!

Okay so this is Disneyland's version of a steam boat, but you get the idea!  Image via weheartit

Oh, and about that big announcement? 

J and I are moving.  

In less than two months.

  

To South Bend, IN.  

Home of my beloved Fighting Irish and my sister 

(although she will be studying in Rome next year.) 

Image via weheartit

J was offered a great job for a year and we are very excited/a tiny bit nervous about this next stage in our lives!  I will of course take you all along for the ride as well as we start new jobs, explore a new city, make new friends, take in a football game or two, and decorate a new apartment.  There are great things on the horizon so stay tuned :)

Visit: Cahokia Mounds

Saturday after filling up with some delicious First Watch breakfast (courtesy of a gift card), J and I headed over into eastern Illinois to see Cahokia Mounds and took advantage of some of the warm weather we were having at the time.

He had visited before but since I had never been, he returned with me to explore the site.  I will share some of the photos I took while we were there but know that they do not do the site justice by any means!

A view of the Mississippi from the top of Monk's Mound

The area was inhabited by a tribe of Native peoples who researchers refer to as Mississippian people from approximately 700 CE until 1400 CE in the largest settlement in the Americas north of Mexico.  At its height in 1250 CE, the area had more inhabitants at the time than London and would hold the record for largest American settlement until 1800 CE when it was finally broken by Philadelphia!

Just as European cities at the time began to see the division of labor and professionalization of skills and trades, researchers have found evidence that a similar division of labor occurred in this settlement (think spear makers, potters, and other crafts people).  Yet sometime around 1200, for reasons that are not entirely clear to researchers, the settlement fell into a decline and was completely abandoned by 1400 CE.  Some likely causes for this decline include overcrowding, depletion of natural resources, war, disease, social and political unrest or more likely, a combination of these forces that brought about the end.

The word Cahokia is a bit of a misnomer because it refers to a group of native peoples who inhabited the area in the 17th century, long after the settlement had been abandoned.  In the mid 18th century, local historians suggested it be called Cahokia Mounds to honor the 16th century natives. 

J and I discussed this quite a bit as we were walking around and the popular perception of native peoples is that of nomadic, "uncivilized" people.  Places like Cahokia Mounds demonstrate how far this popular opinion is from the truth. 

The site itself consists of a museum, gift shop and the grounds themselves.  While the natives built over 120 mounds, only one is fully accessible to visitors due to issues with erosion and so forth.  As you look through these photos, keep in mind that each of these mounds were created by human hands and tools.  Pretty amazing right?!

One of the many mounds at the site (now a state park).  You can see how erosion has taken its toll on these earthen mounds over the centuries.

A look as we approach the largest mound, Monk's Mound. The settlement's leader lived and ruled from a wooden structure that was built on the top of this mound. 

Halfway up Monk's Mound.

A view from the top. This gives you a better idea of how big these mounds actually are since we are at least 12-13 miles away from downtown St. Louis. 

Zoomed in view of Downtown St. Louis from the top of the mound

This was a great place to visit and I would encourage everyone in the area to check it out, especially as the weather starts to get warmer (hopefully).  Since I am not a native of Missouri, I really enjoyed learning more about its history!

Many have compared the settlement to Chichen Itza in Mexico.  My question to you is: Have you ever been to Mexico and seen them in person?  What about Cahokia Mounds or other local (St. Louis or not) treasures?  I'd love to hear (and learn) all about them!

Remember When Wednesdays: Feed the Birds

"All around the cathedral the saints and apostles
Look down as she sells her wares
Although you can't see it,
You know they are smiling
Each time someone shows that he cares

Though her words are simple and few
Listen, listen, she's calling to you
"Feed the birds, tuppence a bag
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag" --Feed the Birds, Mary Poppins

My sister Madi (pictured below) and I were fortunate enough to spend a week in Paris and then the South of France a few summers ago with my parents.  While we were there we visited the Notre Dame Cathedral and fed some of the birds there.  They would literally eat off of your fingers and the feeling of their little feet and beaks pecking at your hands was a very strange and unusual sensation.  We have a whole roll of film devoted to this bird feeding and our expressions were pretty much the same in all of them! 

Visiting Paris was like a dream.  We went on long walks with a guidebook as our tour guide and took turns reading passages aloud about Parisian history, art and architecture.  We ate fresh salads dressed with little more than olive, vinegar and salt and pepper.  We ate lots of bread and cheese and traveled all over Paris using public transportation.  I can't wait to go back!

 

Speaking of trips, anyone out there have some exciting getaways planned for 2011?  Let's share travel stories!

Weekend Plans

I am very excited for my weekend to start--very, very excited! I am heading home to sunny Southern California to visit my family, get a much needed hair cut and highlights, and my final dress fitting!!! I already packed my shoes (I forgot them the first time--ooops!) and cannot wait to try on my dress and veil (which my seamstress made for me!)

I also plan on catching up on some reading on the plane and getting to spend time with family and friends I don't get to see enough! I will miss Woods and J while I am gone, but excited that my return flight gets me home in time so that I don't miss our weekly (and sometimes fancy) Sunday night dinner--yay!

Hope your weekend is as fun and relaxing and productive as mine is slated to be!