Quincy, Hannibal, and partlets.

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Vacation

We took a trip last weekend to Hannibal, Missouri, to visit the Mark Twain cave and surrounding area. We stayed in Quincy, Illinois, a charming little town on the Mississippi River. On the whole it was a good experience if you ignore the culinary scene there. We'll get to that in a moment.

I took an entire memory card's worth of pictures, the best of which I posted here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/billTheTailor/QuincyHannibalTrip#5510962402286737842

The cave was pretty neat, though not as awesome as Mammoth Cave that Michelle and I visited before the children were born. It was interesting, all the same. My one complaint was our tour guide: she was seventeen or so, "cute", performing a memorized script in a voice shrill enough to use as a sandblaster. In a confined space it was hard on the ears, like a 120db mosquito buzz.

With Weston just up the road a bit and Parkville even closer, Hannibal was nothing new, really. It was interesting in the way that all tourist-trappy small towns are, but like the "Wilkommen" signs all over the Amana Colonies, Mark Twain's name, face, and notable quotations got a little old after a while. I don't remember that much of it, frankly. It is the cave and lunch at the cemetery afterward that I remember.

Speaking of lunch, Saturday's noontime meal, taken at the back of our van on a steep hill in a cemetery overlooking the River, was the best we ate our entire visit to the area. 

There rest of our meals were bland...mouth-numbingly bland. We ate the first night at "The Pier", about as uppity as cuisine gets in Quincy. The food there was under-salted, but otherwise okay. It's hard to screw up prime rib and a salad. The side was green beans cooked with garlic - when we cook this dish at home, the beans are roasted; some of you have pleasant memories of this recipe. At "The Pier", they were merely boiled (I'm guessing, based on the texture) and then tossed with some minced garlic. No salt. No citrus to liven it up.

Saturday night, we ate at a place called Sprouts. Think late-70's, early-80's era family dining: brown paneling, red carpeting, wooden chairs, Formica tables. Three dining rooms, each one added in a different decade so the place rambles. Michelle got a french dip and sweet potato fries, and liked them. I got fried chicken and hash browns (for the record, they weren't hash browns, they were "home fries".) The chicken was - wait for it - bland: there was no seasoning at all in the batter; compounding the crime, the chicken was overcooked.

We hoped to redeem these experiences with breakfast on the way out of town at a place called The 18 Wheeler, a truck stop. Supposedly it was featured on "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" with Guy Fieri, but I've Googled for it and can't find it. Eggs, hash browns, chicken fried steak, gravy. Ok, dry, dry and bland, and bland, respectively. I had to load the gravy down with a massive amount of black pepper just so I could taste something.

And nowhere, not at the hotel, not at any restaurant, could we get butter. Margarine, sure. Buttery spread, sure. No butter. It was a hard place to eat naturally.

We ate best when we picnicked. Seriously. Cold sandwiches, chips, fruit, and cookies for dessert. Flavor: you never appreciate it until you don't have it. Michelle suggested as I was kvetching on the way home from Sprouts that I was a "foodie snob."

Damn right.

Our Saturday lunch - after the caves, before the town - was taken at a cemetery overlooking the Mississippi. We wanted to eat at a park called "Lover's Lane" because of its scenic overlook, but there was only one table and it was taken. We backtracked a little, drove up a very steep grade with very deep ruts, and found an open, shady spot of hill where we could see the river. It was beautiful. I saw graves from 1863 up to 2009, so it's got some recent use, but it wasn't well cared for. It wasn't mowed - they chopped down the weeds with a brush hog, and incompletely at that.

An interesting feature of the cemetery was the Jewish section, with its own gate and fenced area. I don't know if that segregation was at the aegis of Jew or Gentile, though I did notice that the maintenance was no better there than in the rest of the place.

Michelle enjoyed the museum in town, which featured, among other things, a collection of Norman Rockwell originals and Mark Twain's signature white coat. Unfortunately, by that time of the day, I was coasting on nothing more than simple parental inertia, and got little out of the place. She'll have to write about that part, if she has the time.

Children

Jami has reached an age where he is hard to control by any means. Couple this boy - possessed of a strong desire to assert his independence but lacking any conscience or impulse control - with an over-sensitive nine-year-old autistic girl, and you've got a combination that is only tolerable for a few hours. I don't see how Michelle does it every day. Katie speaks little except to order, beg, or shriek at her brother to stop speaking, an event which is rare enough to be remarkable. Someday, I keep telling myself, he'll grow out of it. That's as much a prayer as it is a hopeful assurance to myself.

You Know Who You Are...or at least, you should.

It appears that I have offended you twice with what I thought were innocuous comments in your LJ. That's enough of that, I figure: that's why I un-friended you, and there's an end to it. Nothing personal. Carry on.

Yes, I still remember how.

Broke the big serger out of the cobwebs tonight and made a couple of partlets for a Seamlyne order. I'd forgotten what a joy that thing is to sew with, how fast it is. Still a real pain in the touchus to thread, but even for all that it's a huge time saver.

Seamlyne is getting orders in, better than I had expected and as yet not too many to handle. The work is steady, and I'm grateful to see the orders coming.

Good night, and good luck.

More later, I'm sure. I'm beat. Time for bed.