Spelunking

May 22--Hannibal, MO

I slept well again last night, although it was rather warm to begin with, and then I had to rearrange myself around the cats a couple of times--I can't just shove them off the bed now, after all. When I woke up I got to read and relax a while, before going out to take a cave tour.

The Mark TWain cave is literally a stone's-throw from my campsite, and I got to go on a tour with only about nine other people, as opposed to going with a bunch of schoolkids. Well, we had two kids in our group who never learned to talk quietly when on a tour, and I had to shush them a couple of times when they were just yammering on and we couldn't hear the guide. I'm not sure what the grandparents thought, but then again I didn't care much. Our guide droned a bit, and had a limp that was so pronounced I wasn't sure he was going to make it to the end of the tour. I did try to take some pictures, although I'm not sure how well they'll turn out. I'll post them as soon as I figure out how to do so--I just tried and it didn't work, and I'll try again later when I'm not as tired.

I got through the tour and went back to the RV to see how the cats were doing. Puck was fine, but I couldn't see Nell anywhere, which worried me a bit, until I discovered that she had managed to get behind the couch again. I let her loose and then sat with them a while (reading, so it wasn't a huge sacrifice) then I wandered back down to see the other tourist traps nearby. It turns out the giant tourist trap across the street, Sawyer's Landing, is closed, so I had to make do with the candle shop (which did have some cool candles) and a gem shop, the highlight of which was a sluice where kids could pan through dirt that had been preloaded with some cheaper gems. The kids had a great time, and it did look like fun. I also got to chat for a while with the proprietor before the kids descended, who was a nice guy.

I came back, and Nell wasn't under the couch! She's getting better and better all the time, although she still scares easily. Heck, it's only been a couple of days, she's entitled. It turns out that there was lots of see right around my campsite, as the electrical company was here fixing some overloaded wiring that my RV was hooked to (oops!) and string some more wire to other sites that had no electricity (including to the sunny one I was supposed to be in, but they haven't told me to move, and since that outlet they just put in has to handle two sites, I'm not going to move even if they ask me; this site is shaded enough that I don't need the A/C, and I'd rather not rely on electricity to keep the cats alive when the electricity has been shown to be unreliable). Some people across the way have a two-year-younger version of the same rig I have, and we traded stories.

Then I read some more, watched some TV, and got on the Internet, whereupon when I'm done I plan to shower, maybe eat something (I've not been hungry hardly at all since I started this trip; I'm not sure if it's nerves or if it's just my body going back to equilibrium after the massive eating I did last school year--at any rate, I'm just drinking lots of water and going with it) and read some more before I go to sleep. Ah, the exciting life! I do plan to actually leave the campground tomorrow, so hopefully it will be more interesting. And try to get the pictures working, darn it--they're pretty cool!