Fun Fall Roadtrips

This past weekend, Kenny and I decided to take a much needed road trip. We forgot the digital camera, so unfortunately there are no pictures to share. However, as usual, we always seem to encounter wonderfully stupid people and find ourselves in such exotic locals as Iowa. But I digress, so without further ado, here are the highlights.

We left Washington on Friday afternoon, hoping to make Quincy, IL before nightfall. Around Troy, we decided we were hungry and found a Burger King so we could purchase the lovely Italian Chicken Sandwich. We placed our order without any complications until we pulled forward to pay for our meal and obtain our food. The payment part was no problem. A very polite young lady took our money and gave us our change. Then she disappeared somewhere in the back of the restaurant. Meanwhile, we are patiently waiting in the drive through lane for our food. Approximately 5 minutes pass. She finally returns to the window, pops her head out and says, "Are you all waiting?" Kenny and I look at each other, then I'm sure we gave her a look that said, "Surely you can't be that stupid." In a strangled voice, Kenny told her that we were waiting. Then she wanted to know what we were waiting on, and we once again repeated the order. Then she said, "Did you guys pay yet?" Keep in mind that she was the one who took our money and we were the only customers at the restaurant, so it's not like she had 50 customers to wait on. Again, Kenny told her, slowly, "Yes, you took our money." We finally got the sandwiches and left without cracking up or making a mean "Here's your sign" joke ala Bill Engvall. However down the road, Kenny said he wanted to say, "No, we're just driving real slow." in response to "Are you waitin?"

We made it to Hannibal where we decided to stop and make some purchases from the Fresh Ayre pottery shop. While browsing in some of the other stores along the main street, we noticed that the Mississippi Queen was docked at the river front. Having not really paid much attention to the news lately, we didn't think anything about it until we were in one of the stores and this guy comes in looking really panicked and asked the sales lady if the Chamber of Commerce had called her yet? She told him she hadn't recieved any phone calls from the chamber. He told her, "Well, they're calling everyone telling them to disinfect anything the boat people touch because the ship has docked because they're all sick and throwing up!" They both turn and look at me and Kenny, to which we both yell, "We drove up in our car!" Deciding that with our luck, we'd catch whatever the cholera steam boat had carried into town, we quickly leave and as we're driving out of town, we see store owners everywhere armed with cans of Lysol spraying everything in sight.

We made it into Quincy with plenty of day light left. We had read an article about a month ago about scenic fall drives to take and it listed Quincy as a place to visit, due to it's six historic districts and approximately 2,000 homes/buildings of architectural and historical significance. Neither of us have ever visited Quincy, so our plan was to visit the visitor's center to pick up a city map and information about what to see. The visitor's center was closed. No problem, we decided to check into a hotel and then find somewhere to eat and make it back in time to catch the baseball game. We figured we could come back in the morning and pick up the info then in time to go exploring. After an exciting World Series win, we had a wonderful night's rest and breakfast. Heading out at 8:45 for the visitor's center, we hoped we would find the information we sought. No matter what time we tried to go to the visitor's center, it was always closed. Our hotel had no brochures or information about the historic buildings either. We drove around for a while, and saw some interesting buildings but since we weren't really sure where anything was, we decided to head out to Navoo and check out the restored Mormon settlement.

I assumed the restored Mormon settlement was run by the Illinois Conservation Department, much like historic sites in MO and other places around Illinois, such as the Old State Capital or New Salem. OH WRONG! This place, while very pretty and neat to visit due to it's historic nature, is completely run and staffed by Mormons and apparently the majority of visitors are Mormon. We have decided that Navoo is like Mormon Disneyland. Approximately 90% of the cars had Utah license plates. The elders and their wives were very nice, always answering any questions and were very friendly and welcoming. However, they kept asking us if we had found our ancestor's in the family and land records and as we were touring some of the buildings in the old settlement they kept talking to us about Mormon history and religion and asking us questions like we knew what they were talking about! Outside of what we learned about the Mormon exodus to Utah in some history classes, neither of us know the detailed history of the Mormon faith. We weren't really sure whether or not we should tell them we weren't Mormon, just keep our mouths shut and play dumb, or what to do. All of the people who worked there and all of the other visitors were Mormon and they automatically assumed that we were Mormon too. But as we had both had a deer in headlight look, you could kind of see some of the elders and other church members trying to figure us out. Basically we think they thought we were the worst Mormons they had ever met! As Kenny said, he now knows what non-Catholics must feel like when they go to Rome! However, if you're interested in history and historic preservation sites, this is a neat place to go. The rest of the town was apparently bought and settled by a French Icarian community when the Mormons decided to head west to Utah. So, on the west side of town, you have the restored Mormon settlement where all you can buy to drink is spring water or root beer. On the bluff heading into downtown Navoo, you have the Catholic Church and the restored Mormon Temple side by side, separated by an alley. On the east side of town, there is a Casey's and a winery. Kenny and I figured out that if you want to get hooch and caffiene, you have to head to the east side where all the French Catholics settled! Still, it's a neat place to visit.

After an afternoon of dodging religious questions that we had no idea about, we decided that we were hungry and quickly found out that Navoo only has two places to eat and nothing opens up until like 5:30 in the afternoon. We decided to venture into Keokuk and find food since it's really close to Navoo. We finally found food and drove around Keokuk, finding the statue of Chief Keokuk, which has his remains in the base, in a park overlooking the river. Keokuk is kind of a sad town. You can tell that it was once really prosperous, but it's kind of depressed now. We did find a lovely Catholic church, All Saints, which is on the national historic register, and attended Mass there. Since we were tired, we decided to spend the night in Keokuk. After checking in, we decided to go find supper and quickly realized that outside of fast food and a questionable looking Chinese restaurant, Keokuk has very little in the way of restaurants to choose from. We decided to venture on to Fort Madison where the information in our hotel room said that there was a casino. Neither of us like to gamble, but casinos typically have a buffet. Since Kenny is fond of buffets and I like to have a variety of vegetables to choose from, we figured this might be a nice change from a burger and fries. Once we got to Fort Madison, we couldn't find the casino. We finally stopped at a gas station and they told us that the casino was up in Burlington for six months. Northward to the buffet! We found the Catfish Bend Casino, and the best thing I can say is the rolls and the scalloped potatoes were good. Plus there is a Wendy's in Burlington, so I was able to purchase a Frosty which I haven't had in a long time since most of our Wendy's in the St. Louis area have closed.

On our way back to Keokuk, we saw the funniest sign of our trip. It was a large billboard advertising "Visit the Hellmart in Farmington, Iowa for all of your gift needs!" What a name for a gift store. On Sunday, we returned to Washington after enjoying another one of our nerds unite road trips!

In the spirit of road trips to find strange, weird, or just unique things to see, my friend Joe Glenn sent me a wonderful website for locating the many oddities and roadside attractions to see in every state! Good fun, it sucked up about an hour and a half of my evening last night. I'm now wanting to plan a trip to North Dakota, since they appear to have a large number of large homemade things like a giant turtle riding a snowmobile and people made out of bales of hay! Here it is for your time-wasting pleasure: www.roadsideamerica.com Enjoy!