Day 3: Chicago, IL to Topeka, KS

A field of corn in western Illinois...



















This is the town of Hannibal, the first town west of the Mississippi. Also the "boyhood home" of Mark Twain (along the road from Illinois through Missouri to Kansas, there were a ton of "boyhood homes". Where are all the "girlhood homes"?). The town seemed to be thriving on Mark Twain's fame, but really it was very cool to be there. The town was sleepy, run down, but charming, and there was an interesting mix of the south and west that we hadn't felt before. We were really getting into frontier land...



















We should have got a close up here of the Mississippi, which you can make out in the distance in this one. A huge barge carrying all kinds of water-travelled goods passed by. There was a quaint Mark Twain ferry pulling out of a dock to give visitors a taste of Tom and Huck's river ride, we guessed. After Hannibal, we took a meandering route through Missouri. Same feel of west and south, and again more frontier...we ran into many spots that Lois and Clark had first "discovered"...



















And here is our lovely view from our hotel in Topeka, Kansas. Topeka was by and large the sleepiest and most deserted city we stopped by. We only spotted one actual restauarant, which was open, but completely empty. We almost went in the doors, but it seemed too strange to eat in a huge deserted restuarant on an empty street. It felt like ghosts haunted the main street! We found signs of life (and our only dinner option) at Sonic. This dinner continued our growing trend of bad eating habits (beginning the day before with Taco Bell, carrying over to Peqoud's deep dish pizza in Chicago, combined with some pretty sorry breakfasts at our hotels) and while it was interesting to view one of the social centers of Topeka, it left our stomachs a little achy.