I spent yesterday in Hannibal, MO, exploring all the sites like the Mark Twain History Museum, Mark Twain's home, and so on. I took a riverboat cruise - about an hour of time on the Mississippi River. Then I took the tour through the Mark Twain cave, which was the most interesting of all the things I saw. Hannibal is a very small, quaint town that is part tourist traps and part monuments to history. I then drove the 45 minutes to the Mark Twain State Park - which took more than an hour because it was difficult to find the campgrounds. It is a beautiful place - many lakes and forests. The campground was quiet, wooded, and clean. The closest toilets were 'privies,' but they were clean. I was so tired and there was so little light that I slept in the back of the van, again, rather than go through the trouble to pitch my tent. The cot in the back of my van is fairly comfortable, especially since my brother loaned me a mat to put across it. It is actually quite cozy back there. I hope to eventually set up a gallery of photos or even photo essays about what I saw in Hannibal. I'm sitting in McDonald's at a rest area in Kansas, typing this, but need to get back on the road. I lost all phone service while I was in MO, but seem to have it back now, though I still can't access my voice mail. I don't know why.
The very long drive from Columbus to Hannibal, MO, was exhausting and stressful It took over ten hours because I had to stop often to walk around and stay alert. As I drove through Illinois, I realized that I was low on gas, but there were no gas stations for mile after mile. I finally spotted an ad for one, so exited the highway and drove along the small, winding, local road to find it. When I did (thinking "Whew - just in time" because the gas gauge was almost on empty), I discovered that both pumps were "out of service." The small store the pumps belonged to was still open, so I went in, panicked, and asked if surely at least one was working. I was told that no, they were being serviced. The next closest gas station was back the way I had come, about 8 miles, or another about 17 miles in the other direction. I didn't think I would make the 17 mile away one, so I drove along the back roads, desperately hoping I would make it. The gas light went on about half way there, but I did, finally, make it. THIS station was open and functioning. After gassing up the Patty-wagon, I drove back to the highway and continued on, even more exhausted.
Hannibal, MO, was closer than Mark Twain State Park, which would have taken about another 45 minutes to get to once I had arrived in Hannibal, so I opted to camp at a campground near Hannibal - the Injun Joe campground. The weather was cold and wet - it had rained for much of the trip throughout the day, and was still lightly raining. I opted to sleep in the back of the van on my army cot I put there for that purpose, rather than set up a tent. The site I was given was uneven, which made my head much higher than my feet while I slept - good for my acid reflux, but not so good for my swollen ankles. The showers and toilet stalls were dirty, and since the campground is located right next to a local highway, I heard trucks passing throughout the night. Still, I was exhausted so I slept fairly well, but I left pretty early in the morning and headed to the city of Hannibal to see all of the sites related to Mark Twain. I am sitting in Java Jive, "the first coffee shop west of the Mississippi," a lovely coffee shop with wonderful local art work on the walls and delicious coffee and muffins. As soon as my laptop is re-charged, I am heading off to explore the Mark Twain sites. Columbus is definitely an interesting city. In the morning, my brother and I had breakfast at a wonderful, little German café called Juergen’s, in Germantown. It looked, smelled, and sounded just like some of the small bakery cafes I went to when I lived in Germany. Even the small, red-brick building looked like it had been transplanted from some small town near Munich or Heidelberg. Inside, the bakery display case showed off fresh baked bread, rolls, and pastries, including a ‘sweet pretzel’ (a pastry that looks like a soft pretzel, but it is made with sugar and pastry dough of some kind) and elephant ears (the pastry, not the animal, of course). The menu offered German breakfast, including omelettes and a wonderful pancake that was like a crepe, but a little thicker. We had a wonderful breakfast, and I left with several brioche rolls, a couple of small elephant ears, and a large loaf of whole wheat bread (for the Dominican priests and brothers as a thank you for letting me stay in the guest room).
We then drove around Germantown for a little bit so I could see the quaint, old-world style homes. We stopped at a wonderful book store, The Book Loft. If you enter through the back (it opens onto two different streets), you walk through a passage lined with plants and flowers. You go up a few steps and there are several tables of books for you to browse through. Then you go toward the entrance, where there are more tables of books, and then inside, where there are shelves of books going up to the ceiling. The rooms are small, and you keep walking through thin passages lined with books from floor to ceiling. The passages zig-zag through the building, and you often have to climb up a few stairs and sometimes then down stairs to get to the rooms. It is a maze of rooms lined with books, and it is easy to get lost. Eventually you get to the last room, which opens out to the next street. I practiced self-control and only bought a few books, most of them gifts for other people. And suddenly it was lunch time! We went to the Northern Market for ice cream. We wandered around all of the different vendor’s stalls. It is a bit like Lancaster’s Central Market – a huge building with vendors selling all kinds of products, from candles to hot sauces, to meats and baked goods, and more. We spent a bit of time tasting the different, odd flavors of Jeni’s Splendid Ice cream’s, sorbets, ice cream, and frozen yogurts, then took our scoops of Yazoo Sue with rosemary bar nuts and saison with sunflower seeds and golden flax (my brother’s choices), brown butter almond brittle and Savannah buttermint (my choices) to the upstairs area with all the tables and chairs for dining there. The ice cream was different, but delicious. We left the Northern Market to see the James Thurber House. It is just one of many Thurber lived in while growing up in Columbus. Several stories of his are said to be set in this particular house. The organization that funds and runs this museum, known just as the James Thurber House, also offers the James Thurber prize for humor, and a month long residency for writers of children’s literature. The house was set up to look like what it probably looked like while he and his parents lived there, but also contained copies of some of his artwork and photos of him and his family, along with a few other artifacts from his life and work. (See the photo essay of my visit there – which I hope to have up soon.) We then drove over to the Westin hotel, downtown. It was originally the Great Southern Hotel, built around 1897, and the lobby bar displays many copies of Thurbar’s art work on its walls. We sat and drank iced tea (okay, and a cablecar – an interesting drink kind of like a martini, but not). We had dinner at a wonderful Thai restaurant, then went to the Ohio Theater. The theater first opened in 1928 as a movie theater with its own orchestra and organ. The opulent Spanish-Baroque style theater has 2,779 seats and a lavish interior. In 1969 it was slated for demolition, but the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts (CAPA) bought and renovated it. It is gorgeous and impressive. CAPA offers cheap movies (usually old movies) periodically over the summer in the theater, and this happened to be one of those nights. For $7.00 (total), my brother and I got to watch the movie My Favorite Year. The movie started at 7:30 p.m., but at 7:00 p.m., the organ rose up from under the stage, and we were treated to a performance of organ music, including old show tunes. It is a massive Wurlitzer, probably built in the 1930’s. The pipe's are hidden behind curtains and drapes in what were the old theater boxes for the rich. Then the organ descended back into the depths of the stage and the movie began. The movie was interrupted about 45 minutes into it for an intermission and more organ music. After the movie was over, the organist played again for about 15 minutes. I left Columbus the next morning for the very long drive to Hannibal, MO. More on that, later. Columbus, OH, is an interesting city. (Who knew?) It has a thriving downtown with many interesting cafes, restaurants, shops, bars, and nightclubs. The downtown district is laid out in a grid, so it’s easy to navigate. It’s a good place to walk around; much of its attractions and businesses are within walking distance of each other, especially its nightlife. There are many beautiful buildings with interesting architecture, such as the modern convention center, the over 100 year-old Lazarus building, The LeVeque Tower, the state capital and other state and federal buildings, the quaint, old houses, especially in German town, and St. Patrick’s Church.
Built by poor Irish immigrants 162 years ago, St. Patrick’s Church sits in a small lot on 280 N. Grant St., surrounded by old warehouses and a local community college. Though there is no longer a local neighborhood – no houses, no communities – it is a growing, thriving parish because of its history and the dedication of its parishioners. My brother, Fr. Michael Dosch, O.P., is the pastor at St. Patrick’s. On my first night in town, he showed me around the inside and outside of the large, red brick building with its two crenellated bell towers. The most striking features of the church are the paintings on the ceiling and walls of the church, and most of all, the stained glass windows. On May 28, 1935, a fire destroyed much of the old church. According to Fr. Michael, the firemen gave the priests a sad choice: save the roof or the windows. They chose the windows. Installed in the 1920’s, the church’s stained glass windows were created by a renowned German company, Franz Mayer of Munich, whose work was popular throughout Europe at the time. They are as beautiful and well-crafted works of art as much as any of the stained glass from that time period that you will find in Europe. The colors change as the daylight strengthens or dims through them, and then the glow of the outdoor lights, scattered around the church buildings for security, give life to the colors and pictures of the windows. A cross made from blackened ceiling beams burned in the fire of 1935 hangs on the wall of the shrine to Blessed Margaret of Castello (‘blessed’ means she is one step away from full sainthood), set in an alcove of the large church. The cross hangs in the middle of an elaborate, modern tapestry depicting scenes of the her life. A statue of the almost saint stands in the middle of the shrine, with the requisite candles around the base of it, where there also stands a traditional reliquary with a piece of her ‘incorrupt’ heart. Under the main altar of the church lies a fairly large glass bier containing numerous relics. There are more relics inside reliquaries displayed in a glass case at the back of the church, including one believed to be a piece of the wood of Christ’s cross. (How many pieces of that cross are in reliquaries across the world? There are many answers to that. Here are two: the Catholic one and the skeptical one [click on the highlighted words to see the links]). The original parish school was opened in 1854, but closed in 1959 because of too low enrollments. A high school was founded in 1905, but closed in 1965. The church is considered a local historical site because it is the second oldest church in the city, and the original site of the high school became Aquinas College High School, which closed in 1965; an historical marker sign is located near the front entrance of the church, just a few yards from the new marble statue of St. Patrick. The next day we drove around German Town, explored one of the most wonderful book stores I have ever been in, wandered around the James Thurber house, and sipped iced teas (okay, and an interesting drink called a sidecar) in the very old Westin hotel's lobby bar which displays on its walls many blown up copies of James Thurber's cartoons. More on all that later. Tomorrow I leave Lancaster, PA, for my big summer trip. First stop is Columbus, OH, to see my youngest brother. I hope to also visit the Thurber House, which is near my brother's home.
|
AuthorSee the About page under the Home button. Archives
October 2014
|