Here When I Can Be (posted by Tomcat)

I’ve only been able to join for about half of this 50 States Trip. Flying back and forth throughout the adventure. “Forth” being wherever Curlytop and the 3 kids happen to be that week. “Back” being home…aka work. Someone’s got to actually pay for this 50 States thing.

Prior to the beginning of the trip, I’d been to 44 of the 50 states. I’d made a goal to get to all 50 by the time I hit 40 years old. And the clock is ticking on that, so this idea of this road trip is certainly convenient.

Flying into Minneapolis a couple of weeks ago for the MN, WI, MI, IN, IL leg was excellent. Chicago was cemented as one of my favorite cities anywhere and I’m anxious to get back and see more.

Something that road-trippers in the US often remark on is how diverse the land is in America. I’d moved almost a dozen times by the time I was 20, so I’ve always felt like I had a pretty good sense of the great distance of this place and the variety of what one can see by traveling across that great distance. I'd not thought about that for a really long time. So, it’s so excellent to be reminded of that as part of this adventure, and for the kids to begin that awareness now. One of the goals of this trip is to continue to build these kids into travelers; help them become people who have seen interesting things and are filled with an eagerness to see more. They’ve each traveled a fair bit already for their respective ages. But it’s really fun to be see them start what I hope will be a lifelong journey and love of travel.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

I read the Little House series when I was a young girl and watched the TV series as faithfully as I could. Do you remember the scary episode when the creepy guy is hiding in the bushes watching the girls walk to school? That scarred me for life. Anyway, it wasn’t until Peanut and I read the series together that I truly learned to appreciate them.

Ma is who I now aspire to be, and I have a long, long way to go. She was so full of wisdom and patience and she invented the word resourceful. Her resilience can’t be overstated either, when all those other women were going loopy from the Prairie winds. Maybe she survived so gracefully because she had Pa, a nearly perfect male specimen in my opinion. He was a hunter/provider, carpenter, musician. He adored his family, was always eager to see his kids in the evening, even rounding them up with his fiddle and songs. He rarely showed anger and respected and cherished Ma. These two had good old-fashioned American grit.

I guess Laura did well with Almanzo, too. We already know from The Long Winter that he was courageous and a man of integrity. But did you know the guy could weave? He designed and wove the two rugs on the parlor floor of their home, not to mention making the beautiful craftsman style furniture! Remember he also farmed, hunted and apparently made the best flapjacks for breakfast. Or was that his brother Royal? Anyway, good pioneer stock, these Ingalls/Wilder people.

I haven’t finished The First Four Years, but apparently when Laura and Almanzo lost their infant son and then their house to fire, they’d had it with De Smet, SD and headed to Mansfield, MO. This is where they lived until they died and it’s also where she wrote all of her Little House on the Prairie books. How conveeeenient that we needed to drive right through there on our way to Arkansas today!

I have to say the people working at Rocky Ridge Farm were a bunch of grumpy Prairie Women, apparently forgetting that the people coming to visit were likely to be around 8 years old and Laura devotees. This place didn’t give off a kid-friendly vibe, which baffles me still. (I wish we could have gone to Walnut Grove, MN.)

But hey, we got to see Laura and Mary's sewing (wow!) and Pa’s fiddle, which was worth the price of admission!

Consider Me Spanked

Grandma said I shouldn’t post this, but I promised to deliver both the good and bad on this trip. Also, I can admit when I’m wrong and this time I blew it.

We got stopped AGAIN for speeding. I had just seen the sign change to 60mph and noticed I was going 80-ish. You know how you register things like that about a minute too late? Well, yeah. I guess the ish looked more like 90mph when he clocked me.

Peanut’s adrenalin rushed through her as she launched into the details of yet another encounter with her mother and a traffic cop. Hush! It was different this time. We weren't in North Dakota with the wonderful people anymore. This was Missouri! And I was going ridiculously fast. It had just gotten really dark. I wasn’t on a well-lit road. Etc. etc. Essentially, I was doomed.

Here’s how it played out: The cop took both Grandma’s license and mine and came back to our car hours later – well, it was a long time. Then I had to get out of the car and I was sure he was going to make me touch my nose with my finger or something like that. Instead, I saw he had another officer there to watch the car and then he proceeded to "counsel" me. He brought me outside the car out of respect and said he didn't want to fill my daughter's head with ideas. (Thank you!)

He said in a very Montessori way that he didn’t really believe in punishments (like giving me a ticket), choosing instead to counsel people like me. People like me. I wondered precisely what he meant by that but didn’t ask. (I didn’t ask to take a picture of him either.) In the state of Missouri, going 30 miles over the speed limit would require an in-person appearance in this particular county, at some future date, clearly cramping our road trip style.

He also made it very clear that if I had hit a deer, assuming we all lived, I could have gone to jail for endangering my kids. As I stood there taking my deserved beating, he continued with two tales of recent accidents, one of which occurred exactly where he stopped me. A mom and her 9-year old daughter were killed after hitting a deer a week before. He looked deep in my eyes and said he sincerely wanted us to stay alive and to do that I needed to be able to avoid a deer or another car that nails one. To do that, I need to stay within 10 miles of the speed limit. I believed him.

So, it really sucked. I’ve never been one to break down under pressure, but I’ve been known to fall apart as soon I leave the scene. (That’s why I’ve always loved the scene with Emma Thompson in Love Actually after she opens her Joni Mitchell cd.) This cop was incredibly effective and I felt shame for the first time in a really long time. Incidentally, I’ve also slowed it down considerably.

Doodle's "Rainbow"

Isn't it something?

Trampoline Surprise

On our way back through Union Station, we came across 5 enormous trampolines. It’s called “Jump in the City” and Little Man and Doodle were begging to do it. I was sure they were too little but the weight limit was 22-200lbs. so up they bravely went! Little Man couldn’t stop shouting from 22 feet in the air, “This is awesome! Peanut you've GOT to do this!”

Immediately, Peanut wanted to go, so when their turn was up, the two of us jumped. I was able to do 2 back flips and then I remembered that my body requires Dramamine for tricks like this. Ugh. What a random thrilling thing to come across in St. Louis!

Reunited with Singer

Remember we taught English in Korea? Well, we’ve maintained Christmas card friendships with a couple of Canadian teachers and one of them lives in Missouri. The other day I wrote to see where exactly she is, and here she is in a suburb of St. Louis!

This gal never met an American she liked until us, and we always joked that we learned more about Americans from her, than by being one! She had all kinds of labels for us, and shared endless opinions of Canucks that we didn’t even know we had. But the most lucid memory I have of us in Korea, was the time we went to a Karaoke bar together. We were in a tiny, private room and she chose the new version of “I Will Always Love You.” I’ve always preferred the raw Dolly Parton version, but when she started to belt out those lyrics, we were all overcome. Singer had a talent that none of us knew about. Whitney Houston, move over. This Canadian can sing!

Years later, we got word that she was marrying a Yankee. It was all we could do to buckle over with laughter! Such irony! And now she even lives in the States. It’s too too much. I say this in jest because I feel incredibly lucky that we were able to hang out on such short notice with only one day here.

We met downtown at the beautifully renovated Union Station for dinner and I was so happy she’d brought her husband and darling little girl (who Doodle insisted on calling ‘Baby’). As she so accurately put it, being together in the same place after all these years, validates that our Korea experience was in fact real. Neither of us had positive experiences there, although we have good memories and many lessons learned. Strange, the turns our lives take, huh? I hear it’s really the people we meet along the way that matter most.

St. Louis, MO

Despite the seedy vibe of this city, we had a most incredible day.

First of all, it was the hottest day of the year, hitting 107 I think. Well, it’s too darn hot. We’re melting. Addressing the kids is like talking to a door. They have far-off dazed expressions and can barely move their bodies. Their cheeks are so red you'd think they were sunburned and if I hear, “I’m fwetty” from Doodle one more time as I’m giving her a piggy-back ride in this heat, I’ll just lose it. Air-conditioned rooms have become the Promised Land.

We took another Riverboat tour on the Mississippi because we couldn’t help ourselves. Grandma has been on Cloud 9 all day – the focus of the boat tour being St. Louis history was the icing on the cake!

Our hotel is right across the freeway from the Gateway Arch. Never did I imagine it to be so beautiful and so large. It’s actually the tallest national landmark, beating the Statue of Liberty, Washington Monument and even Mt. Rushmore. A sleek example of architecture before its time.

Did you know there’s a tram to go up inside the arch? I never would have guessed this was possible and never even noticed the tiny windows from the outside. You climb into a pod (think Star Wars) and it carries you up to the top, in a confining rickety sort of way. Doodle at one point raised her arms and said, “Look, no hands!” just to give you an idea. But at the top it’s similar to being in a submarine. There was enough room for people to cram into the tiny window space on either side and a couple of lines of people to walk down the aisle.

It’s built to be able to sway 18 inches in 150mph gusts, and just the tiny bit of swaying we experienced had me feeling light headed. The occasional scent of body odor wafting through the tunnel wasn’t helping. Claustrophobics or those with sensitive sniffers beware! Then you line up, climb into another pod and down you go. We opted to watch the ‘Building of the Arch’ video and much to my surprise the kids were enthralled. What a masterpiece of design and construction!

The base of the arch is loaded with classy tour options. We watched the Natural Geographic Lewis & Clark documentary. Without realizing it, we’ve traveled their path completely in reverse. It started here and ended at Ft. Clatsop in Oregon, one of our very first stops! In between was the Missouri River (which we played in) and the Hidatsu Earth Lodges (which we toured). The kids recognized this, a small epiphany for them, that we too, are explorers!

Kids' Posts Hannibal

Here's what the kids had to say about Hannibal, MO.

First Peanut wants me to write the joke she made up: "Can a ladybug ever be a grown up man?” Grandma answers, “No, a ladybug is a bug and can’t ever be a human.” Peanut chuckles, “No, it can’t ever be a man because it’s always a lady!”

So, we went to Mark Twain's Cave and we saw money from really long ago in a treasure box under a cross, carved on the ceiling. This is the cave where Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher got lost. We’ve been listening to the Adventures of Tom Sawyer on the cd so I knew all the answer that the guide had!"

Peanut asks CurlyTop to tell the part about Injun Joe:

According to the guide, Injun Joe was a real person and friend to Mark Twain, named Indian Joe. He was a really nice man, but Twain made him a villain in the story. After he wrote the book, Joe asked his friend why he made him such a bad guy. Mark Twain said, "Well, you were the ugliest person I'd ever seen and you scared us kids to death."

The guide told us he was considered ugly because he was 1/2 Native American 1/2 African American and in those days both sides of his family rejected him. In fact, the Native American side scalped him and left him for dead. A nice white family found him and adopted him, but a couple of years later he got smallpox! So when Twain knew him, he was a mixed race, scar-faced kid with a long red wig made of horse hair. He got revenge by living much longer than Mark Twain and get this. He didn't die of old age, he got food poisoning from pickled pig's feet. Wow, right?

Little Man adds that he wants to go on another bumper boat. They have this tourist trap called Sawyer's Creek and I let them choose a ride that would cool them off.

Littel Man continues, "I went to the cave where Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher got lost even though they’re not really real. But the cave was real. When Tom and Becky were lost in there they used real candles. The guide turned off the lights for us and that’s what it looked like when all their candles burned out. They asked if any of us wanted to scream and I said, “No.” Injun Joe died in the cave but not in real life. And there was a face of Injun Joe in the cave, too, but it was just a carving made from the drippy water.

Last night I went on a huge cruise on the Mississippi River. We danced to the music with the other people and there was a trombone and a French horn. I saw the real Jackson’s Island where they went to play pirates. That’s it.”

Doodle says:

“I went in the cave and I got an ornament with Tom Sawyer on it. And I danced.”

Mark Twain's Hannibal

Grandma says:

“I had forgotten how hot and humid this part of the country can get, but I still wish we'd had more time to spend in Dubuque and Hannibal. I loved them both.

I was very impressed going through the Mark Twain Cave. I’ve been through other caves and this one was so different. The floor was clay from when the river used to flood in it, and the walls were limestone mixed with other minerals. I couldn’t believe how they let you touch everything!

The opening of the cave was really narrow – I thought it was going to be a shallower cave with a wide opening, since Mark Twain and his friends used to play in there. I couldn’t believe that the adults used to let kids play in there with just candles. There were a million ways to get lost and the guide showed us just how dark it could get. When the lights went out all I wanted to do was STOP.

Some scientist had been working on an experiment to preserve dead bodies. When his own daughter died, he put her in a copper coffin thing, filled it with his special solution, and stuck her in the cave. She made it two years, when finally they had to bring her out. The local kids kept sneaking in there to tell ghost stories and such, pulling out strands of her hair! When they removed her, she was pretty preserved -- she seemed only 2 weeds dead. Crazy stuff that you’d think would have terrified kids, but just the opposite! Different day and age.

Something funny, is that we've listened to the cd of Tom Sawyer about 5 times on the road so far. We're all listening to the same story – the same one I’ve read before – yet Peanut and Little Man have to keep translating it for me. Peanut actually corrected the guide at one point. (There was as disagreement about who had the piece of cake: Tom or Becky.)

One last thing: We went on a 2 hour Riverboat cruise down the Mississippi River. It started in the day and moved into sunset which was nice. I was really surprised to see how smooth the river was as we were cruising. It was almost like a lake. I live by the Willamette which is fast moving."

Missouri – State #20

We’re getting good at multiple border crossings. Into Missouri, make a U-turn and head back for the Welcome to Iowa sign! Another U-turn and we’re on our way again! I'd hoped to get to Missouri earlier, but Little Man's bladder is ridiculously small and we got turned around a few times. First stop Hannibal, MO. I'll let the others tell you about it...

Missouri License Plate