An easy trip today, 124 miles. I wanted to take the highway running closest to the Mississippi River, State Highway 79. I thought that we would see the river for most of the run until Winfield. I was wrong! Leaving Hannibal, the highway led us through a series of hills, with only an occasional glimpse of the River. We passed a couple of “Scenic Overlook” signs and pulled into one of them. As you can see from the picture below, the trees obscured most of the view. Eventually, the road flattened out and ran closer to the river.
It was little disappointing from the photographic perspective. However, we got a taste of small town America. We didn’t see any significant non-agricultural industry on the route until we got to O’Fallon and I-70. The area outside these towns was farm land and the corn and other crops looked good to us “city folks.” The small towns were sad, a lot of closed and abandoned store fronts. How far do people in these towns have to go to get groceries and other needs? Where do they get quality medical care? I don’t know the answer.
Our first and only stop was in Ferguson to meet Scott Bonner, the director of the Ferguson Municipal Public Library. We first met Scott at the 2015 American Library Association Annual meeting in San Francisco. Scott was awarded the Lemony Snicket Award for Noble Librarians Faced With Adversity, for his action in keeping the library open during the period following the shooting of Michael Brown. We first met him in San Francisco and crossed paths with him at other ALA meetings. After spending some time with him, we headed to the hotel in St. Louis.
This evening we met with Susie’s cousin, Susan, for dinner. The two had never met because the two fathers were estranged. We also hope to meet Susan’s sister Kathy in New Orleans.