#Gates50States

Down the road and across the river from Springfield, Illinois, we landed in Hannibal, our first real taste of Missouri.

Hannibal isn’t a real big town, and through HomeAway we found an apartment in the downtown area, just down the street from the Mississippi River as well as the Mark Twain Museum, and pretty much every other place you’d really want to visit in Hannibal.  A renovated store front, it gave us multiple rooms for the kids, a kitchen to prep our cooler, and enough space for the kids to run around and get the wiggles out.

The kids have grown up listening to the stories of Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Becky Thatcher and the rest.  Mark Twain’s stories, primarily The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, have both entertained and inspired imagination among our three (well, all five of us, if we’re honest).  In the years we’ve spent looking forward to our Missouri stop, we’ve prioritized Mark Twain.

According to the stories and reputations, there are two especially good Mark Twain impersonators performing in Hannibal, and our schedule allowed us to visit the Mark Twin Museum at a time when Jim Waddell performed his bit.  He recited portions of Twain’s autobiography, which provided new material for the kids, separate from the stories we’d read in our lead-up, and set them up for what they were about to see in the Twain and Thatcher houses down the street.

The museum folks set up the boyhood home display in such a way that kids could have fun and the older kids along with their parents could really dive into the period, the history of the late 1800s.  Jenn and I particularly enjoyed reading the interpretations and projects, and we took in as much as we could before the kids were ready to move on to the next item.

In fact, we got to hear two very good story tellers that day.  The second came on our Haunted Hannibal Ghost Tour, where our guide talked non-stop for about 90 minutes about the ghost sightings, the paranormal activity, and strangeness from the history of Hannibal.  I have no idea how much of it is even remotely accurate, and I suspect next to none of it is, but the five of us were hanging on his every word as we drove through the streets and listened to his tales.  The man never stuttered, paused with an, “Um…” or broke from the most believable tone of voice you could imagine.

As dusk fell upon us, we visited a graveyard on the outskirts of town, much like Tom and Huck found themselves in when they tried to cure warts and witnessed Doc Robinson’s murder at the hands of Injun Joe.  Our guide handed us little metal rods designed to detect spirits (DON’T CROSS THE WIRES!), and we strolled around the graveyard for a while.  Some in our group claimed they saw some interesting things, spirits or ghosts or whatever.  Who knows?  Our kids had a bunch of fun in the spirit of Tom Sawyer, and if family vacations are about memory making, this detour was a wonderful success.

It’s not a long drive from Hannibal to St. Louis, and we had tickets to ride up to the top of the arch, and we needed to get checked into our hotel with enough time to explore the museum, so we headed south for our next stop.

We’ll get the one negative about Gateway Arch National Park out of the way.  We were not real thrilled when we saw in 2017 that Jefferson Expansion National Memorial  had been renamed.  We’ve been to Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Glacier, Olympic, Redwoods, Mammoth Cave, Cuyahoga Valley… this attraction, this memorial and museum, is distinctly not in line with what ought to be designated a national park.  And we’re not the only ones who feel this way.  Okay.  We’ve said it.

We absolutely loved what is now  Gateway Arch National Park.  The museum’s interpretation of the history of westward expansion, the beauty of the architecture, the view from the top, we all enjoyed our time, and more than that, we gained an appreciation for just how important this area of the Midwest is, the Mississippi River, the intersection of trade routes, etc., and how they contributed to our nation’s history and to its greatness.  Be sure to make time to watch the movie about the making of the arch, as well.  Do not miss the movie.  And the view from the top.  Oh, my.

After our time at the museum and grounds, we took a ride on the Becky Thatcher Riverboat for the evening, enjoyed dinner on the Mississippi River, and the sights of St. Louis at twilight and lit up at night. Given ticket prices and the average food I don’t know if I would do this again. Being such an industrial river with a main emphasis on transport and commerce, the Mississippi banks are not exactly picturesque. I would only recommend a twilight/evening sailing.

And that’s all we had time for in St. Louis.  On our way to Branson for some shows, we stopped to get some gas in Cuba.  Like so many of our impromptu stops, Cuba turned into a good one for us.  As we coasted up the exit, we saw large iron statues depicting the Osage Indians, the nation in the area who traded with the western settlers, and who established trade routes that eventually became Interstate 44.  This caught our eye, and we pulled into the parking lot of what was the local visitors center.  The nice lady volunteering inside told us the history of the murals in town, as Cuba is known as Mural City, and of course we had to check out some of the Rt. 66 history.

We walked around town appreciating some of the murals and reading some of the history when outside a bakery, Little Jack Horner’s, a man stepped out and told us how his son was one of the models for the mural we were observing.  It only made sense to carry the conversation into the bakery (have you met our three kids), and we got slices of coconut cream and cherry pie for an early lunch.  Why not?!

Little Jack Horner’s Desserts is exactly the type of place we like to find on our #gates50states adventures.

And then down the road we visited Lambert’s for lunch.  A huge restaurant, apparently popular with the tour buses, we’d read that this was one unique place.  Everyone said the food was great, but that wasn’t what made Lambert’s unique.  This place throws their rolls.  As in, a server carries a huge basket of the tastiest rolls you’ve ever enjoyed, stands in the corner of the dining room, calls out asking if anyone wants another, and then whips it across the room.  They’ve got pretty good aim… assuming the receiver catches the roll.  The lady sitting behind Jenn saw it go between her hands, and the aerial roll hit Jenn on the back of the head.  SURPRISE!

It was a long wait, but the food… It’ll kill you, but if you don’t make a habit of eating it every day, it’s an amazing stop on a road trip.

Branson is a family’s Las Vegas, with great entertainment, good restaurants, and none of the booze and sex.  Between the shows and proximity to Table Rock State Park, we felt drawn to experience this area during our Missouri stop.

There’s no shortage of hotels in the area, but we always gravitate toward a home rental to spread out in. Old Branson is the way to go. Try to book somewhere close to a trolley stop and minimize the amount of driving needed. Branson traffic is insane and we weren’t even there in the high season.

We’d looked into a number of shows to see, and we settled on Samson at the Sight and Sound Theater, and we were not disappointed.  Perhaps they don’t draw the big name actors and actresses that Broadway attracts, but having seen shows in both places, Branson isn’t lacking, and the art and theater on display impressed us all.

We arrived early and had lots of opportunity to observe the theater and employees around us before the show, and Jenn leaned over to me saying, “This place is a cross between Chick-Fil-A and Broadway.”  No kidding.  The friendliness you experience in the drive-thru line at Chick-Fil-A is the same friendliness we experienced from all associated with the Sight and Sound Theater.

Dolly Parton’s Stampede was a different experience, but fun nonetheless.  I’m not sure Dolly has much to do with the show, and we were disappointed when we learned they’d dropped the word Dixie from the title a number of years ago.  The show was a lot of fun to take in between the horsemanship and the comedy, the service was very good, and the food, for being mass produced for a big crowd, was surprisingly very tasty.  The nickeling and diming was strong, from the “incentivized” drink purchases to the flag selling portion of the show, but it’s all part of the experience, and it made for a fun, memory-making event for us all.

As we work to incorporate learning experiences into our adventures, our stop at Shepherd of the Hills Hatchery & Conservation Center checked the “educational opportunity” box as well as the “wow, this is really cool!” box.  The hatchery supplies fish for the area waters, and it is quite the operation.  We saw trout from the smallest of hatchlings to the size we’d be proud to haul ashore.

To say it was hot and humid in southern Missouri at Table Rock State Park would be an understatement, but we took to the trail anyway.  The Gateses are hikers!  We didn’t have time to explore all that the Park has to offer, but we got a good look at the lake and some of the wooded areas.  Hiking in other states gives us an appreciation for both the particular state we’re visiting, as well as the many trails available to us in our home of Summit County.

As we drove north to Iowa, we passed by Ha Ha Tonka State Park, a place known for castle ruins and beautiful scenery amongst the Ozarks.  We enjoyed another round of Missouri humidity on our hike.  And…

A Missouri surprise for Jenn and for me that we only noticed once we’d arrived in Iowa was… chigger bites!  Holy cow, those things are itchy and misery-inducing.  Thankfully the kids didn’t experience them.  It only took a few weeks for them to fully disappear.  But we didn’t let this bother us in Iowa, which you can read about here.