Miriam McFate Travel Journal - 1926

Fri, Oct 22, 1926

Ready to travel 7:30. Drove thro a very hilly stretch. Lots of corn in the shock thro this district. The farms are close together. Buildings very small. Pears thro here .50 cents a bushel. Every farm has a small pond. Lots of timber thro here. Good paved roads from Palmyra to Hannibal Mo. Hannibal is some city. It has one of the largest shoe manufacturing plants in the world. Is built right in the bluffs. The street we came down, every house has from ten to twenty steps before you could enter the door. Nice large houses, most of them are new. Lots of negroes here. Stopped here to find out about the roads. One dose of having to drive back is enough. Changed tires. Had one rim cut. Population is 19,306. Left Hannibal 10:00. Hills and then more hills. The road here winds around thro the hills.

Little land that would do for farming here. You can look out any direction and see timber for miles and miles. Don’t know what they are making a living from. Mostly cows and chickens, I think are their main stave. Lots of people living along the roads here just the same. Had our first blow out just outside New London Mo. Most everybody in Mo. raises geese & ducks. Lots of chickens too. Got our first glimpse of a real rock bluff. The roads thro here are very good. Mostly rock and gravel. Got dinner while the Boys fixed the tire, discovered it had another leak so had to take it off again. Left at 1:00. Over one & a half miles of new road just opened. Of course our luck isn’t all good luck. So into a chuck hole we went. Had to push out. Got it started and on again. Soon drove unto pavement. This makes us feet better. Drove over pavement for about 3 miles, then on to detour right round and round the sharpest corners, twist and turns. This road took us out into the Ozarks again. Came around one corner and over a bridge so sharp it was almost an impossibility. The roads are well marked and its a blessed good thing too because it would be all most impossible to avoid serious accidents if it was not for these warnings.

These roads are full of sharp rocks. People here call them cobble stones. Had more tire trouble with the same tire. Nothing more than expected this time. Had to change tires again, Had a dickens of a time this time. Boys are getting disgusted with our tires. So it won’t be long before we hit each bump twice. (Hard tires see) their getting pretty sour over the matter, so I’m making a little chocolate fudge to sweeten up a little, when the trouble is over.

Fixed at last. Drove on. Luck follows most fools and so it is with us. We came upon a construction gang putting in new pavement. And O boy of all the bumps and thumps we did get. Things our of the cupboard and cabinet just flew. Luck was with us nothing broke. But Oh! what a mess. Had to stop and straighten things around. On again into Frankford, Mo. Stopped here for gas and oil.

Have a detour from here to Louisianna Mo. Won’t make much mileage today. We are 120 miles yet from St Louis. These detours sure do take in the miles over everything. This state is chuck full of rock. Never did see so many before in all our lives. Lots of people living thro here, but guess they don’t know there are lots better places to live. All a fellow has to do is get away from home to realize how big this world is and how little of it we have seen. Gone again. Went thro a chughole before we got out of town. The spare tires drug till the strap broke so had to stop again. Made another effort to remove ourselves from this God forsaken country. Didn’t have any better luck this time. Had to push. But that didn’t do any good. They monkeyed with the engine and finally found we were having timer trouble. Cranked it, and the little old Ford rambles on once more.

When you’re not going up you’re going down in this state. Go two miles to get one. On we go up hill and down, round and round. We have all of Missouri we care for. Thump, thump down goes the tire again. This is the third time today. Don’t think we’ll get much farther today. Changed to another tire. Maybe this one will take us into camp.

On we go. Have 5 miles to go before we reach a campground. It is growing dark. It soon overtakes one in these hills. Drove up one grade a gradual climb for one mile before we entered Louisiana Mo. Got dark and we had quite a time to find camp ground. Finally got settled for the night. 6:

We saw the old fashioned rail fences to day. On our whole days drive have seen very few desirable places to live. The only place we see any corn was in the lowlands or along the bottom of some creek or river. You can see along these where water has been very high. As for thrills Missouri has some as you can’t see very far ahead at a time and lots of time you come unto unexpected curves.

Lots of narrow bridges. There was hardly a cross road entering on the road we traveled. Don’t know how these people reach this one and only main road. They told us in Frankford Mo. we couldn’t miss the road and I guess we couldn’t as it was the only one. This has been a bright sunshiny day, but cold in the wind.