Hannibal

**I started this blog post a couple months ago but never posted it due to rural internet unpleasantries.  Since then, a couple things have changed.  One, we no longer have chickens (of any magnitude). Two, the reference of how often we get thirty degree days in December has been answered this lovely, beautiful Christmas season!  And three, our rural internet unpleasantries have been solved! Just read it as though it were actually posted in September when it was written and posted then... had my internet speed pleasantly allowed it.**

I make very few requests from anyone in this life we live.  Family and friends can attest to that.  But a couple years ago, I requested of Josh that we take an overnight trip once a year.  He always ALWAYS has work to be done.  Whether it's cattle, crop or maintenance, he stays busy early morning to well after dark 6 1/2 days a week.  So it's really nice if we can get him away from the constant work so we all can focus solely on family and fun.... even if for just a day and a half or two.  Yes, I know life isn't all fun and giggles; the other 363 days of the year proves that for us.  But we do take the better part of two days and make it just that: fun and giggles.

The catch is finding the when.  It's not as simple as just picking a day and taking it off from work.  Or taking off and asking someone to feed the dog for a couple of days.  Well, we don't have a dog.  We do have chickens though.  So I guess I should say: ....asking someone to feed the chickens for a couple of days.  We have to work around harvest and calving, both of which no one can sub for.  

Calving starts in February and lasts all spring, taking (essentially) late January through July out of consideration.  And we also fall calve now, taking the early fall months out of consideration, too.  Why?, you ask.  Well, because the calving I'm referring to are heifers (first time mommies).  Heifers have a tendency to not only have trouble calving because they are smaller and first timers, but also because they are dumb.  D.U.M.B. dumb.  They pop a calf out (hopefully it's as easy as that)- and then wonder what in the world to do with the thing that they know they just plopped out.  And if that happens, it's much easier and less stressful to have four arms (both men) around to manhandle, doctor and teach the confused new mamas rather than someone doing it by themselves.  The older gals are much less worrisome since they're larger and more experienced, though we do keep a constant eye on them during their calving season, too. By the way, with a late January and two February birthdays in our family, we've had many a birthday plans cancelled due to this, too!  Such is life.  It has made the kids very understanding to the term "plans are subject to change at any given notice...if any notice at all".

I love my kids.  They're just great.

Harvest, for us, starts in May.  Triticale, oats, hay in the spring and all summer long.  Then corn silage and grain harvest throughout the fall.  Then stalk work.  Between ours and family and friends that we work with, harvest is pretty non-stop from May until whenever we get the final corn stover chopped and bagged and last corn stalk bale rolled.  So that essentially takes the months of May through.... November (if we're lucky) out of consideration.

And who wants to travel in December and January?  Bleh.  This beggar can definitely be a chooser when it comes to snow, ice and subzero temperatures travel.  Well, actually, sub-thirty temps.  I'm okay once the red hits 30.  But how often does that happen in Iowa in December and January?  Anyhoo.... rabbit trail ended....

So what we do is narrow down dates.  If we're amid a big calving batch, we don't even think about going out for pizza, let alone going out of town.  We even hold our breath at church and don't make any plans that aren't necessary that's farther than five minutes from the herd.   We can cross off the seeding and planting and spraying and cultivating weeks (which were already nixed because they overlay with calving). By mid summer, we can kinda plan out hay cuttings weeks.  Josh and Loren can take a cutting from a field and then tell you almost to the day when the next cutting will be. Multiple fields each getting multiple cuttings (to either be baled or chopped)... and then throw in more cultivating  and side dressing (it's a corn thing)... And before we know it, spring/summer haying is overlapping with fall corn silage and then things get really busy.

Are you starting to get an idea just why it's so hard to pick a day, never mind TWO days, to get away? This is how it's always been done for as long as I've been part of the Van Zante crew.  And I know before that, too.... I just can't witness to that!  I wasn't around.  Josh even somewhat planned our wedding date and honeymoon trip, which was two months after our wedding, around the haying and farrowing schedule of three hundred and some sows.  That's back when we farrowed sows, which even added more chaos to the planning process.  So this wait-and-see planning-things-last-minute thing is nothing new, by any means.

Now I'm sad.  And nostalgic.  I miss pigs.

But usually by mid summer, we can start getting an idea of when things will start to "slow down" a bit.  We can tell whether our overnighter will have to be late fall after harvest is wrapped up or if we can squeeze in a day between cuttings before things get hectic again and know if it'll be before or after corn silage and/or grain harvest.  Two years ago, we went to the circus in November.  Last year, we were able to make our trip correlate with the State Fair.  This year, Josh foresaw an open couple of days at the beginning of August.  So when he brought up the idea at the beginning of the week to make a little trip, there was no complaints of not having time! We hurry fast quick last minute planned a little trip to......

Hannibal!  Wow!  A WHOLE four hours away and out of state, even!

Without further ado (and explanation, because honestly, I was starting to annoy myself with the rambling....), I present to you....... the 2014 Van Zante Overnighter.

The was one of our favorite spots.  This is Lover's Leap.  It's a giant cliff jutted out over a steep embankment going down to the banks of the Mississippi River.  Legend has it, two young lovers from opposing Indian tribes ran away together.  The were eventually cornered on this cliff and rather than being captured and torn away from each other for all eternity, leaped to their deaths.  Tragic.

A view towards the river from Lover's Leap.

And a view towards town from the same place.

It was a rainy couple of days when we were there.  I think some of Sarah's fondest memories are of using the umbrella.  Forget the cliff and the caves and the riverboat.... Shucks, none of that beats the excitement of an umbrella!

A monument of the legend.  Josh and I visited Hannibal on our way home from our honeymoon and took a picture almost exactly like this one, with me standing in the place of the kids of course.  My how nine years can change things!

There are two cave systems in Hannibal that we got to tour through.  The first one we visited required a trek uphill to the entrance... in the rain.

Inside the cave.

The kids were pretty nervous at the idea of being deep in the middle of the caves, but after a few minutes going through and having many reassurances that we wouldn't get lost or attacked by bats, they started to loosen up and enjoy it.

The caves were amazing.  To see such magnificent structures underground was a pretty special opportunity to remind us that the beauty and awesomeness of God's creation doesn't end at what we're used to seeing on our normal day to day basis.

Of course, Hannibal is the birth place of Mark Twain and the home of all the stories of Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher.   Thus being, we couldn't pass up a photo op!

Another highlight was our ride on the Mark Twain Riverboat.  And by "highlight", I mean it was ninety minutes of fun for the rest of the family but ninety minutes of stomach churning unease for Mama.  I'm not a boat person.  But the kids LOVED it!

The bridge in the background raises and lowers to let boats cross under.  We just happened to be able to see the bridge rise and lower when we were on our ride, to which Josh was pretty impressed.

A view looking up to Lover's Leap from the riverboat on the Mississippi.

The boys really enjoyed watching the barges working while we were out.

I'm used to not being in pictures because I'm taking them (which is how I like it), but there's a reason I'm not in this one: there was no way I was getting that close to the railing.  Uh uh, no way!  

They have no fear, though.  The edge of the boat and the deep deep waters of the Mighty Mississippi was right there at the tippy of their toes!

More barges.

There was also a model train museum right smack the middle of historic downtown Hannibal.  There were model trains of all sorts, antique train equipment and interactive tracks the kids could play with.  It was pretty neat and Caleb was on cloud nine!

The next attraction we visited was the Lighthouse.  But first, we had to climb stairs.  And lots of them! If memory serves me, there were something close to 250 steps.  The kids will whine about taking the five minute walk up the hill to the silo, but give 'em 250 stairs with a lighthouse at the top and they can achieve anything!

Finally to the top of the climb was the famous lighthouse of Tom Sawyer.  

A view looking down onto town.

He loves history!  And was the one who read the whole presentation board to give us a run down of the history of the lighthouse.  Most of it, honestly, I don't remember.

Then back up to Lover's Leap.  We timed it so that we could take a picnic lunch up to enjoy when one of the riverboat trips were out and about so we could see how small it looked from the cliff.  It's pretty tiny!

Finally on the way home, we had one tuckered out little boy...

...that Mommy took full advantage of!

He finally woke up when Sarah and I started stacking all their reading material on his lap.  He wanted to be mad, but he just couldn't hold back the smile!

We had a fantastic time.  If you're looking for a decently close, family friendly, fun place for a little trip, Hannibal is your place to go!  There are several places to visit in downtown Hannibal that we didn't stop at.  Any place mentioned in Tom Sawyer has a place to visit.  Some day when the kids are older, it would be fun to read and do a study of Tom Sawyer and Mark Twain and then go back to visit all the places we read about!  I'll put that on THE LIST!