From Hannibal, we drove south, following the undulations of the Mississippi. We drove through tiny hamlets with posted populations in the double digits, and saw perfect little brick buildings we would buy, if only they were elsewhere. We drove out to levees and watched tugboats guide chains of barges downstream, three abreast and five long.
Before reaching Saint Louis, we veered inland and arrived at the Meramec Caverns. A cavern has the characteristic of being even more humid than the outdoor conditions, but about thirty degrees cooler, so we were prepared to overlook the moistness. This was a commercially run site, as opposed to the national or state caves we had explored recently, so it was more… commercial. The emphasis was much more on entertainment than on education or conservation. The cave was once the site of an escape made by Frank and Jesse James, and they played that little vignette for all it was worth, which wasn’t much. But still, it was a very nice cave, and a welcome respite from the afternoon mugginess.
We then drove to the Meramec State Park to camp for the evening. After such great success with campfires on previous nights, keeping anything lit on this evening proved to be extraordinarily difficult. Even cardboard burned in a listless, lethargic fashion, usually dying before half consumed. I would like to fault the humidity for even this, but it’s also possible that my beginner’s luck was running on fumes. Fireflies (or is it “lightning bugs”?) again flickered through the camp. If you listened carefully, you could hear that their brief flashes were accompanied by faint, muffled coughs as they flew through the smouldering failure of the campfire. Blink. Kef. Blink, blink. Kef.
While (or is it “whilst”?) in Hannibal, I bought yet another editor’s attempt at producing the autobiography of Mark Twain. So far, I’m enjoying it greatly, so much so that it’s probably coloring my writing in the day’s blog. Let me know if you agree. It’s not intentionally, but it seems to happen when I’m reading an author I particularly enjoy. Thus far, I’m only up to his late teen years when he was working as a printer on his brother’s paper. So, I’m not as far along as his travels out west. I’m looking forward to finding out if his principal motivation was escaping the Missouri summers.