Weekend events

First of all, in case you have not heard, Mt. Redoubt in Alaska has been erupting almost daily since my last entry. Updates and many cool pictures can be viewed at the Alaska Volcano Observatory site: http://www.avo.alaska.edu/.

Second, Kris has had spring break break this week. She has had fun despite a migraine, a bout with the flu, and working on experiments for science fair.

Third, Karen had a heavy run at subbing this week at For Friends Preschool at St. John's Lutheran Church. She got good news on Friday when she found out that she passed the Early Childhood Content Test that she took in Bloomington a while ago.

Fourth, Peoria got stunning 4.9 inches of snow overnight, so spring has had a bit of a setback. It is melting, though. We missed some of that around here because...

Fifth, we took a short overnight trip for fun to Hannibal, MO (the boyhood home for Samuel Clemens). On Friday evening the road itch was hard upon us (and we did not have Sunday school to teach) so we came up with this trip. Saturday morning we drove the 3 hours to Hannibal. The cold, rainy view was not all that great along the way, so I read aloud our one Mark Twain book, a (heavily) abridged childrens' version of Huckleberry Finn. We finished the book before we arrived. We then drove to the south of Hannibal for our first visit, the Mark Twain Cave. This is the cave that Samuel Clemens played in as a kid and was used as the inspiration for the cave in Tom Saywer. As caves go, it was pretty good. It was a labyrinth of crisscrossing narrow (but tall) tunnels. The cave was much drier than outside (thought there was a bit of wet flowstone formations in one area toward the end), and warmer. The walls were very ledgy (for lack of other words). There were a number of places where I could have "canyon walked" by stradding a narrow passage using those ledges, but of course that would have been frowned upon. We saw a couple of cute little bats and a number of soot signatures - the cave has been visited for over 100 years. The tour guide did move us along too fast - and you could tell that she has done the same monologue over and over again.

After the Mark Twain Cave we stopped at a Mississippi River overlook, went back to Hannibal and ate at the Mark Twain Diner, and then went to the Mark Twain Museum. This was a series of restored houses belonging to Samuel Clemens' family and some of his neighbors (who were the basis of characters in his novels). There were also a couple of musuem buildings covering his life, literature, and other efforts. (Did you know he filed 3 patents, including one for a board game that he invented?) It was pretty well set up, but of course museum fatigue sets in after a while (and there was that cold, pouring rain).

After that, we went to a hotel to warm up, swim (in a cloverleaf shaped pool of all things) and play games (pool, pingpong, foosball). Missouri does not have the "kick people outside to smoke" laws that Illinois has, and I have to say that I like the Illinois policy. The smoking area was off to one side of the pool, and you could smell it when you were swimming. There was a small wedding there, and the bride just did not look pretty dragging on a cigarette. And another thing, what inspires people to drive around randomly giving other people the bird? Some idiot teenager did that to me downtown - maybe he has tourist issues.

Anyway, the next day the rain had turned into about an inch of snow. Kris and I squeezed in a short swim and we went to church in town. As I listened to the readings, I could not help but realize that I was listening to a "Hannibal lector". We stopped at another viewpoint (there is a lighthouse on the Mississippi River) and then headed back home with clear skies and a late March snow on the ground. There is still high water along the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. We saw an amazing number of turkey buzzards this weekend on the way there and back - those birds are huge!

It was a short, fun trip that we all enjoyed. I don't want to upload too many pictures at once, so for now I'll add a few from today.