Sunday 4-9 Starting Our Third Week

 

Starting our third week on the road

Today we started our third week on the road. We have been having a great time and we have visited 7 of the 10 states on the Great River Road.

Today was a super day. We woke up with a great view of the Mississippi River. The wind was still blowing but it was going to warm up to 80 degrees. Before leaving Alton Larry wanted to fill up the Minnie, while we going to get gas Larry remembered reading there was a statue of the worlds tallest man in Alton. We found the statue in downtown Alton. The gentleman was born in Alton, his name was Robert Pershing Wadlow, he was born February 22, 1918 and died July 15, 1940. He grew to be 8’11.1” , at the time of his death he was the worlds tallest living person. He was so tall he had a hard time fitting in a regular size chair so a gentleman built him a chair he could sit comfortably in. It was a cool statue.

                    Standing next to Robert Pershing Wadlow                                   His chair

Our next destination was Hannibal Missouri. There were two ways we could get there and either way we had to cross the Illinois River. We could ether take a ferry or bridge. We decided we would do the bridge but when we were real close to the bridge there was a sign that said you can’t be over 8’ wide. The Minnie is a little over 8’ so we turned around and went back to pickup the ferry. This was a lot more fun. The ferry was run by the state of Illinois so it was free. The ferry was ferried by a tugboat which made it more exciting. The crew were friendly and let Larry take pictures. It was a short ride but it was fun. Once across the river we were back on our way to Hannibal.

Riding on a ferry across the Illinois River

When we entered into Hannibal we had to take a bridge over the Mississippi River. The reason we decided to visit Hannibal is because it’s Mark Twain’s hometown. Hannibal is a beautiful town with shops, museums about Mark Twain, diners and brewers. You can tour Mark Twain’s boyhood home, we decided not to do the tour but we walked around the town for about an hour. While walking around we saw a great statue of Huck Fin and Tom Sawyer. After taking pictures of the statue we climbed 244 steps to the Mark Twain Memorial Lighthouse. They never used the lighthouse as a lighthouse. The lighthouse is 54’ tall. Once you climb the steps you had a marvelous view of the Mississippi River. Then we climbed down the steps. It we wanted to we could have drove up to the lighthouse but this was more fun. We then walked around downtown and went through a Native American store where items from different tribes from all over the country were sold. The owner was very friendly and explained where the items came from. He told us about different things to see in town. After walking through the shop we thanked him and continued on our way. We were getting hungry and Larry had read that the Mark Twain Dinette had great food so we decided to try it out. We shared a smoked pork sandwich plate that came with coleslaw and we ordered onion rings. They also were known for their homemade root beer. I ordered a root beer, it was very good and the refills were free so the waitress kept the glass full, I only had two glasses. When the waitress gave us our order the cook had put French fries on the plate instead of onion rings. Larry told her about it. She apologized and brought us the onion rings. We ended up having both French fries and onion rings. The meal was delicious. After lunch we walked through a nice park by the river that had a statue of Mark Twain when he was a steamboat pilot. We had a great time visiting Hannibal.

 

                  Huck and Tom Statue                     Mark Twain Memorial Lighthouse

                                      Walking up the 244 steps                                      Mark Twain statue                                  

Mark Twain Dinette

Our final destination was back over the river to Illinois. Larry drove another 60 miles to a town called Nauvoo, it’s an old Mormon town. We decided we were going to stay the night in Nauvoo at Nauvoo State Park.