Yesterday we were in Iowa at McBride Lake State Park near Iowa City, and we woke to lightning flashes and rolling thunder in the distance. In a short time the rain was pounding down. Since we had no real schedule, we hunkered down and waited things out. By the time we started to hook up, blue skies were breaking out all over. Shannon heard a veery, and despite seeing hickory and sassafras mixed in with the maples and the oaks, it was pretty much like Minnesota except a lot of the leaves were still on the trees.

On Sunday we visited and spent most of the day at Herbert Hoover Historic Site which included his presidential library. We knew little about Hoover except I associated him with the start of the Great Depression. In an earlier life, we normally would not have gone out of our way to spend time with him. But life has changed, and now we can afford to spend time in places where we never thought we would. It was a good thing. We now know much more about Hoover and came away with a positive opinion of him.

Anyway, we left McBride SP under blue skies and headed to Missouri. We ended up in a commercial campground in Hannibal to do all things Mark Twain. The shock was the temperature and humidity. The temp was in the mid 80's and the humidity was off the chart. I was the only male wearing long pants. There were at least 3 other rigs with MN license plates. The party next to us was heading back to MN. Now, that doesn't make sense at all.

We just toured the Mark Twain Cave and will go into Hannibal's historic district this afternoon. The tour of the cave instilled in me the desire to download Tom Sawyer on my e-reader and re-read the book again. If I remember, I was in the 5th grade when I first heard the book read. It may have been the last time I actually heard/read the entire book. It's time again.