I am a Motorcoach . . .

. . . well, two motorcoaches for this blog. Two Six Four here, with my long-time travel cohort, Two Six Zero. We want . . .

Thank you Four. A big hello to all you motorcoachblog passengers. And let me underscore what my distinguished garage-mate stated in my introduction there: long-time! In the passenger service industry long-time is an honorable qualification.

“Uh, I actually wasn’t meaning to introduce you, Zero. Just giving the usual opening to the blog. So, if I could continue without interruption . . . As I was almost saying, we want to address this distasteful business about end of service dismemberment – as in buckets of “spare parts,” and “basket cases” – and all such matters inappropriate for a coach industry blog but tastelessly mentioned at length by that youngster, Two Seven Three, in the previous two blogs.

Well stated Four.

Thank you. Now, admittedly, Zero and I are among the elder coaches in our fleet. But we take great pride in things like much experience, many miles, many passengers served, and many compliments on how well we still do all of this.

Amen to that! Heck, Four and I helped grow this industry to the proud, prominent place it now enjoys on the roadways of America.

Yes we did, we’ve been a part of that for sure. But, back to our point . . . which we thought we would demonstrate by sharing with you a couple of places famously esteemed for agedness to which we have delivered passengers recently.

And looked fabulous doing it!

Indeed!

But, I do prefer ‘time-honored status’ over ‘agedness.’ That is the point we’re making isn’t it Four?

You’re right. Time-honored Status . . . here it is:

Selfies

(which by definition means I’m in them . . . though you might have to look for me)

Me (Two Six Four) at Mark Twain’s boyhood home in Hannibal, Missouri. Long before becoming a famous author, Samuel Clemens lived here in this house built by his father in 1844. That white fence calls to mind Tom Sawyer getting his friends to do some whitewashing for him in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – vintage 1876. Look how nice and white they’re still keeping Aunt Polly’s fence. A clear case of values standing the test of time: “Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?”

Just down the road, and just outside the entrance to the Mark Twain Cave, stands a Burr Oak the Department of Agriculture listed among Famous and Historic Trees of the United States. It was a seedling in 1731.

And here I am (Two Six Zero) in Cole Camp, Missouri, where German heritage is inseparable from town identity. The layout of the town dates back to 1857, but it was in the early 1830s that German Immigrants – mostly “Hanoverians” (from Lower Saxony) began leaving their homeland and making their way here. This Immigrant Memorial at the center of town tells their story.

The districts that made up the province of Germany from which most of the immigrants originated are recalled here by thirty-eight district crests on the wall of the memorial. Across the street from the Immigrant Memorial my passengers (members of the Chor Des Deutschen Kulturvereins of St. Louis) participated in the annual Sangerfest (singing festival), celebrating time-honored German heritage in song.

MEETING THE NEWS on the roadways of America, first-hand, real time, real world news—going out and discovering the news . . .

SPOKEN NEWS: Plattdeutsch, spoken mainly in northern Germany and with beginnings documented as early as the 9th Century, is still spoken in Cole Camp, Missouri.

RELEVANT NEWS: The Wabash Bridge (most distant) is a vertical lift railroad bridge. It carries trains across the Mississippi River between Hannibal, Missouri and Pike County, Illinois; and when raised, it also allows river traffic to move up and down the river. Originally built as a swing span in 1871, the Wabash served trains, pedestrian traffic and wagons, later adding automobiles. It became a rail-only bridge in 1936 with the opening of a new highway bridge downstream. Renovation in 1994 converted the Wabash to a vertical lift bridge (that’s one year after I – Two Six Four – rolled off the MCI assembly line, and three years before Two Six Zero put tread to pavement exiting the Prevost assembly plant).

COMET NEWS: “The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes,” wrote Shakespeare in Julius Caesar. Perhaps that is why the later penman, Mark Twain, passionately wanted Halley’s Comet to escort him from this life. That Mark Twain was born in a year of Halley’s passing (1835) was certainly a contributing factor to his wish, which came true in 1910. From the first recorded observation of the Comet in 240 B.C. by Chinese astronomers to the identification of the comet’s orbit by Sir Edmond Halley in 1705, it has shown up every seventy-six years, with little variation. All those orbital travels (trillions of miles) . . . still dependable, still on time!

(Unlike selfies, these are not about me, but about travel discoveries I think you’d like to know about.)

If you are into “fests,” Cole Camp, Missouri is the place to be in May for Mayfest, early June for Sangerfest, September for the famous Cole Camp Street Fair, October for Octoberfest, and late November for Christbaumfest. And when in Cole Camp, (a half hour south of Sedalia on 65), the town museum is a treasury of regional history.

The Mark Twain Museum is a must see for its Mark Twain and Hannibal history as well as its many Norman Rockwell originals, illustrative of Mark Twain’s 19th Century classics about life on the Mississippi River.

Quote Of The Day samples

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” ― Mark Twain

“Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.” ―Mark Twain