ZZzZZZZZzzz

Tana, Becky & I left Guthrie shortly before it began pouring. After a short trip up the good ole I-35, we arrived at Pam's a little after 6. Packing the car was a little easier than we expected, though we didn't have room for the cooler. We hit the road and it rained. And rained, and rained some more. Us three Okies took various catnaps while Pam was awesome and drove. There was a few minute span where it was super cloudy and the sun looked like a solid white disc in the sky that you could look at and not feel like you were looking at the sun. It was freaky. Stopped for breakfast at McD's where all the cool people had McGriddles. Becky had a sausage biscuit. Ha, just kidding, Becky!

We continued on our trip to Hannibal, spotting all of our favorite spots from our trip to Bloomington (same route). Along the way, we amused ourselves by not always understanding what one another was saying. Hannibal is a really pretty, quaint city. It's on the river border to Illinois with some great upper elevation and lots of old houses and oh yeah, Mark Twain. Hannibal was made famous by Mark Twain, aka Samuel Clemens. Hannibal is very proud of Mark Twain. The Unsinkable Molly Brown's hometown is also Hannibal, but you have to look for notices about her.

We stopped in Hannibal and drove to the Mark Twain Caves. We saw a really steep road with a sign called "Lovers Leap" on the way and decided to stop by there later. At the Caves, we perused the gift shop








until our tour began. Luke, a senior in high school who thinks he is funnier than he is, was to be our guide for the Cameron Cave tour. After a "short walk" up a hill (we all agreed our definition of "short walk" is different than Luke's), we enter a building and sit in chairs in this room. Luke talks about himself and some about the cave and every other person grabs a battery-powered lantern and we go through an entrance at the back of the room and into the cave.

Pam freaks a little when she sees spiders, but I'm pretty sure they were crickets. We walk through this narrow tunnel, which was instantly 56 degrees and duck a tiny bat (Luke called him Barry, or Barney, or something) on the ceiling. Throughout the tour Luke stopped us at various sites in the cave to point out specific things, most of them related as food items, because apparently the tour guides only get 20 minutes a day for lunch and they are super hungry all the time. Don't ask me what they all where, 'cause I don't remember. There was a hole at the bottom of one of the walls that you could crawl through and come out another side. We opted not to get on our hands and knees and crawl through the cave.

We did finally see the place without the lanterns surrounding us. Very dark! The cave was super neat, though some of the paths were really slick and there were some formations on the floor that tripped us all up (hence the stumbling. We all kept running into to things or stumbling over cracks and raised spots in the floor).

Btw, one of Luke's jokes was about going through a short passage. He said "If you're tall like me, duck, or walk like one." And then he said most people didn't get it until he explained it to him, but then they thought it was funny.

There was a group of Amish girls in there with us. Pam noticed and wondered if she should tell them that when they held the lantern near their skirts, you could see through it. She didn't tell them. Tana got to pick the path (one of three, I think) at one point, and of course she picked the dead end. It was neat though, 'cause at the deadend was a really long drop. One part towards the end had a pool of water we had to go through or over while going through a narrow passage which was wet and uphill, which they did not want you to touch because it was living or something. Yeah, that wasn't very easy. After a little under an hour & a half, the tour was over, Pam braved the entrance/exit and possible spiders (crickets) and we came back to the surface.

We hit the bathrooms, loaded back up, stopped at Lovers Leap which overlooked the river. It was very beautiful. The story is that an Indian prince and princess were in love but were from feuding tribes. Their parents disapproved. They ran up the hill to try and escape and were cornered on the rock cliff. The princess knew the prince would be killed, but believed she couldn't live without him, so they embraced and jumped. After a few minutes, we piled back in, and crossed the river into Illinois.

Illinois is pretty for the first 45-50 miles, and then it's boring for the most part. And solid corn. To keep us entertained, aside from constantly misunderstanding one another, we've been playing the license plate game. When we loaded up at the caves, we grabbed Pam's dad's binoculars to help us out.

We had dinner at Chili's in Springfield (yum). We've decided to keep going since we arrived at Bloomington at 6:40, and there was lots more driving we could do. All throughout the day we've been saying how we can't believe we'll be in Canada tomorrow. Probably still won't believe it until like Monday.

Went by Joliet towards Indiana. Shortly before the IL/IN border it suddenly became a toll road and had very poor directions as to where you are supposed to go. Apparently it happens a lot since they have a sign after the toll that says you can pay the toll online. How about ya put up warning signs, k?

After the toll but before the border we see a HUGE quarry. Unfortunately it was near dark at this time so it was hard to see, but Tana got so excited and was looking at it through the binoculars. I look at them too, and right as they leave our sight I say "I'm impressed you looked at it, Tana, since we went over it." She didn't realize it was a bridge until it was too late, lol. She survived and laughed at it.

As we were about to cross the IL/IN border, there was a neat restaurant complex over the bridge, and there were fireworks off to the north for us. Probably not really for us, but we like to think our arrival was being celebrated. The IN welcome sign is on a big metal arch. Perdy cool, folks. Still driving at 8:46. I imagine we'll stop before ten, but I think we're all still a little wound and willing to go a little further.

Update: well, it's 10:47 our time, 11:47 Eastern, which is the time zone we're in now. Still no hotel. It's been an adventure. Initially we planned on Benton Harbor, but then we saw a neat hotel in st. Joseph, which is right next to Benton Harbor. Booked. Every hotel we find in either city (which was several) were completely booked, except for two creepy ones which we immediately vetoed. Traveled a little further east, saw a neat Ramada also called Surfari Joe's, which has stuffed animals (that look completely real) everywhere, and a couple slides from the 3rd floor to the ground. Booked, too. Called another place in Pawpaw, but they were also booked. He said to try Kalamazoo. So, we're headed to Kalamazoo, which is only like 30 more miles. Who knew getting a single room would be this difficult? We didn't think it would be this hard. Good thoughts though, we're just that much closwer to Canada, and that means a shorter drive tomorrow. We're on the phone to a couple of places in Kalamazoo, so we're hoping to get something soon! We really didn't think it'd be this hard, lol.

Update #2: Found a place in Kalamazzzzzzzzz