Missourippi

As soon as we crossed the state line into Missouri, the black-top got blacker, the greenery got greener and the hills got a hell of a lot hillier. There was no doubt we were in a new state and we even had a soaring eagle and horse-drawn Amish woman to usher us in.
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> By the end I was really enjoying Iowa too though. We experienced a barn dance with square-dancing, line-dancing and circle-dancing. We explored an old opera house and slept in the big, old, haunted "Hoover" house. We learned about the wonders of transcendental meditation and the "flying" that goes on in the domes at the Maharishi University where a Texan oil tycoon pays $1million a month to 500 people to meditate every day. Overall Iowa turned out to be much more diverse than it had appeared at first glance.
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> Our first stop in Missouri was Memphis where we encountered Twila, our first denial for a yard to sleep in...she even called the cops. Luckily her neighbour was much nicer. Our second stop was Dancing Rabbit, a ten-year-old eco-village with 35 full members and 10 not-yet members. It's quite similar to what's going on at Prairie's Edge but 5 times as populated. Lot's of awesome little structures all built very close together, out of a variety of cob, earthen bag, and straw-bale. Someone even built a home in an old grain bin. They also have a big communal building with a wood-fired boiler and radiant flooring. There are two other intentional communities with slightly different focuses within walking distance. And the local mennonite-run all-purpose store in the nearby town of 150 folks, sells things like vegan burgers, agave nectar and goji berries...go figure. You gotta cater to the customers I guess. We spent a few nights and days that mostly rained so spent our time visiting, hiking around, reading and playing Settlers of Cataan.
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> From there we headed south-east towards the great Mississippi river and Mark Twain country. We stayed in Hannibal, his historic hometown with Cindy the librarian who took us out for supper and baked us cookies for the road. We travelled south along the Illinois side of the river from there because it was much flatter. We followed a winding road with the river on one side and tall limestone bluffs along the other...so beautiful. We stayed with trucker Jay in Mozier, Il who talked our ears off about his whole town and whole family which were mostly one and the same. In touristy Grafton we had our first taste of river catfish and sampled a few hard ciders at the pub.
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> Now we're in St. Louis staying with two cool girls we found on couchsurfing.com. We're going to stay for Halloween so we can hit up a party where I'll be Earth to Jess and Zoe's Fire and Water and Danielle will be a mime. We've been spending our time cooking, crafting, checking out free galleries, thrift-store shopping, and just biking around in the sunshine in this pretty bike-unfriendly city. We spent the day yesterday at the water front hoping to find a lift south on a boat of some kind. But it seems that our newly-acquired copy of Huck Finn will have to fulfill those desires for now. We haven't given up all hope yet though. I'll let you know how it all pans out. Hope all is well up north. St. Louis still hasn't had a frost yet.
> Bye for now.
> Love Sheri