Epic RV Trip --> Iowa & Missouri

**SUN 5/12 Mother's Day DRIVE-->Iowa-->Hannibal, MO 216 miles
We weren't in Iowa long, just a few minutes out of our way so we could put the sticker on our map (*haha).  It was a unique and memorable drive though because we drove on a flooded highway.

Our thoughts of watching "Wizard of Oz" during a storm while in Kansas didn't come to fruition but we were able to watch it tonight.  This was the first TV the kids have watched in the MH in 2 weeks.  Glad we were able to expose our kids to this classic.

We also noticed lots of grain silos that had burst open at the bottom, and found out that happened because the dry grain expanded when it got wet.  Looks like quite a loss for product and major repairs.


**MON 5/13  HW and laundry in the morning, then into town of Hannibal.
These cords are a real mess! We don't normally have much for electronics when we are camping, but this trip is different.  The large monitor and the printer come out once a week for school and work.  The Chromebooks and our Surface's get charged every night so we can be ready to work the next day.  You can't see the tangled mess of computer cords here, and I wish we had a better way to store them, but we are always moving them around in order to accommodate the day's activities.  They are usually at the table or up on the front dash.

I wanted to show the kids Mark Twain's hometown.  I've never been here either and figured this would be one of our only chances to do it.   We've been reading a chapter or two of the novel "Tom Sawyer" each day or so and the kids are enjoying story-time with mommy.  We finished the book last night just in time for exploring the town.  Another classic we are proud to open our kids eyes to.

We took a riverboat ride, which happened to be the company's inaugural trip of their season--the river finally dropped enough for them to dock and open up for business.  The river was 10' higher last week.  Our timing is impeccable!

We learned about the adventurous Samuel Clemens and how he got his pen name Mark Twain (when he was a boat pilot, that's how boat pilots would call out how deep the water was and a mark  at "twain" (2 6' marks = 12') was safe water).  I like how the kids learned that other people didn't always live like we do.  I also like how free he was able to be at that age, but at the same time hope our girls didn't get too many ideas about adventuring about without the parents knowing where they are!

We found a little diner in town for dinner and then drove back to camp.  The kids had the tri-level play place to themselves while Chris did some work inside and Karen went for a run.  We are trying to make sure we prioritize exercise on the road.  We are getting plenty of walking on our touristy days, but we still need other types of movement to counter all our sitting on drive days.  This was a nice area to explore on foot, but I figured it would be smart to turn back on the muddy trail in the woods just before dusk.