Tom and Becky my Mark Twain

Yesterday we had a sleepy morning since we were recovering from the long day before. We each got about 9 hours of sleep and then went to lunch at Osage Cafe at the Bowood farms close to our project site in CWE. It was a spectacularly beautiful day, cool, breezy, and sunny, and we sat by a window in front  of a planter in the giant greenhouse/warehouse while we ate. Saori ordered a delicious tomato risotto with shrimp and andouille sausage, and Yoshiko-san and I both got the 'Brie L.T." which was essentially an open sandwich with smoked canadian bacon, melted brie, and covered with arugula. Pretty good potato salad too, with a mix of red potatoes and dijon mustard.

Afterwards, we picked up Zhuli, a friend of ours from studio and drove out to Hannibal, about a 2 hour journey by car. Hannibal, birthplace of Mark Twain, is a small town with a few walkable streets in the old main street, and nearly every store and restaurant makes a reference to the author. There's a massive "Hotel Mark Twain," several musuems, dozens of stores selling books, rotating figures, and everywhere are placards and posters for Tom and Becky competitions, Mark Twain Live, Tom Sawyer steamboat adventures, and lantern tours of Mark Twain cave. We did actually want to take a lantern tour, but unfortunately we came too late in the season: the bats were already beginning their hibernation for the winter. We were able to do the regular tour of the Mark Twain cave, however.

I was kind of expecting a cave cave, like the amazing caves they have in Arizona and New Mexico, with phenomenal caverns, stalactites and stalagmites everywhere. This was a pretty staid cave. Only a few stalactites, basically a crisscrossing network of slots through the limestone. It was more of a historic cave rather than a geologic cave. Supposedly, the adventures of Tom Sawyer was semi-autobiographical and that the cave described towards the climax of the book was this actual cave, and references landmarks within the cave. Apparently, parents in the town let their kids play in the caves all the time- when the kids would go in, they would write thier name on a slate at a certain point of the cave, and when they left, they would erase it to let the rest of the people know that they got out safely. It would have been a lot of fun to run around with my friends in the darkness of the cave with nothing but a candle.

Anyway, after the cave, we drove the 2 hours back to St.Louis in the drizzling rain and enjoyed dinner at LuLu's Chinese food, which was actually pretty good.

Carnival Splendor: The Fun Ship

Sunday, we caught a Carnival cruise line out of long beach on board the Carnival Splendor. If you love the Olive Garden, you would probably like this cruise. There was tons of food, a party atmosphere, and the waiters danced almost every night. They were almost, but not quite, as good as the stage performers. The ship decoration was very different and exotic. I've never seen such a wide range of materials, colors, and finishes. It was even more wild than Las Vegas!

They really cared about you on the ship. Although there were only a few water fountains for the 3,000 passengers on board, you could pick up your room phone and have room service. In less than an hour, they would bring you a cup or water or a hamburger, completely for FREE. They even showed the USA world cup game against Ghana on the big screen above the pool. That was the most important one, so it didn't matter that they didn't show any of the other matches or post scores.

The theme of the ship was "the Fun Ship" and they made several fun announcements every day to tell you where you could find fun bingo games, the fun dining options, or what the latest fun revue show was. All the other passengers were enjoying their fun too. On the one sunny day we had at sea, it was almost impossible to find an open deck chair, and buffet lines were like huge conga lines. All the announcements were made by the Cruise director, a wacky guy whose nickname was "Goose." He was really full of fun!