=========================================================== COOL TRAVEL MAIL'S S T R A N G E D E S T I N A T I O N S The Best Vacation Spots This Side of The Other Side! =========================================================== http://www.CoolTravelMail.com Tuesday, May 15, 2001 Today's visitations include: * MOMO: THE SHOW-ME SASQUATCH * TIME-TRIPPING WITH TWAIN * CAVES OF WONDER ------------------------------------------------------------ MOMO: THE SHOW-ME SASQUATCH ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Pacific Northwest doesn't have a patent on hulking, hairy hominids. Folks around Louisiana, MO, have told stories of fuzzy wild men of the forest since the 1800s. In 1972, sightings of this Midwestern Bigfoot attracted national attention and led to the recording of a regionally popular country song about the beast.. They call him Momo * short for Missouri Monster. During the '72 flap, this unusually aggressive ape-man (He was spotted carrying a dead, bleeding dog and reportedly stole a peanut butter sandwich from some picnickers.) was glimpsed all along Louisiana stretch of the Mississippi River, from St. Charles County north to Hannibal, according to author William Stage. (http://www.n2.net/prey/bigfoot/creatures/momo.htm) For several years after the rash of sightings, Louisiana * a slow-moving Mississippi River town of about 4,000 * celebrated Momo Days, where fun-loving residents put wigs on backwards and walked around in public. (Hey, what do you expect from a town of 4,000, Animatronic floats and gorilla suits?) Although the celebration has gone the way of the neanderthal, interest in the monster was rekindled late last month, when an investigative team from the International Society of Cryptozoology visited to look for Momo clues. The expedition was led by Billy "Bigfoot" Riley, a native of nearby Hannibal, and one of the key Momo witnesses during the '72 sighting spree. Riley, who didn't go public with his story for six years after it happened, said he was walking alone at night along Route B near Louisiana when he was startled by a stampeding herd of cows. Behind the animals, silhouetted in the moonlight, he saw a 9- to 12-foot-tall figure. A stench like "sulfur and rotten flesh" turned his stomach and a "god-awful" scream/roar split the still night. The shadowy figure moved toward him, and Riley started to run. He made it to a nearby farmhouse, but not before the creature got close enough for Riley to see that he was covered with human-like hair and had glowing red eyes. Riley went on to form Bigfootbusters.com (http://www.bigfootbusters.com), an organization committed to "the search for truth and verification of the existence of Bigfoot." It is also, apparently, dedicated to collecting $20 membership fees, selling T-shirts and caps with the Bigfootbusters logo (Minimum order: $45) and advertising camping equipment and night goggles. Riley's site details his frightening encounter and offers some equally frightening photos of himself, circa 1972. (Yes, I had flare pants and bushy hair that year too. I never said you should hold it against him.) The site also offers reprints of coverage of his recent expedition by the Louisiana Press Journal, the Bowling Green Times and The Quincy Herald-Whig. As far as I can tell, the expedition made $3 a head for delivering a lecture on the scientific search for Bigfoot, but didn't find any new evidence. That would be a disappointment from last year, when Riley's visit to Louisiana turned up a 13-inch human-looking footprint on Star Hill, a hairy hominid hotspot in 1972. To learn more about Momo, I recommend a report by Loren Coleman, a cryptozoological expert, university professor and author, posted at http://www2.truman.edu/~adavis/momo.html. If you're short on time, there's a concise item detailing Louisiana's summer of '72 available at http://www.theunexplainedsite.com/momo.shtml. ------------------------------------------------------------ TIME-TRIPPING WITH TWAIN ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Louisiana is a sleepy Mississippi River community known for stately, Civil War-era homes, and Missouri's most intact Victorian streetscape, according to the city's homepage: http://www.louisianamo.com/index.html That's fine for some. Some like sleepy. For the rest of you, I recommend driving about 20 miles upstream to Hannibal. Hannibal has historic houses, but has the added tourist highlight of being the birthplace of Samuel L. Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. It's haunted, sort of. Not with the traditional lost souls of the dearly departed, yada, yada, yada, but with the ghost images of the cultural icons Clemens created in his hometown. Most Americans have grown up reading about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. At a minimum, they've seen one of the many television or movie adaptations of the books. Tom's fence-painting scam, and his and Becky Thatcher's adventures in the cave running from Injun Joe are chiseled on the American psyche. It's part of our culture. Those stories were basically set in Hannibal. In recent decades, the city has recreated itself to tap into this literary common bond * one of the few left since they stopped using Dick and Jane in first grade reading classes * by renovating sections of the city to remind visitors of the Hannibal Tom, Huck and Becky lived in. A six-building museum tour takes visitors to the boyhood home that inspired "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", complete with whitewashed fence. The Twain Museum on Main Street has a permanent display of 15 Norman Rockwell paintings used to illustrate special editions of Clemens' books. There's also a replica of a riverboat pilot house. Truly enthusiastic Clemens fans can spin the pilot wheel and sound the steamboat whistle. Hard-core fans can yell out "Mark Twain!" while their traveling partners melt, red-faced, into the anonymous crowd. There's a good description of a day with Clemens' literary ghosts available at http://www.todaysseniors.com/travel/hannibal.shtml. Or, you can punch up the city's tourism site at http://www.hanmo.com/. If you're planning a Momo hunt in the area, you might want to time your vacation to coincide with National Tom Sawyer Days, a family-oriented downtown festival Hannibal has celebrated for nearly half a century. This year, the event runs from July 4 to 7, according to the city's events list. (http://www.visithannibal.com/events.html) It features the National Fence Painting Championships, a frog jumping contest, mud volleyball tournament and a Tomboy Sawyer competition. Bed and breakfasts are definitely the way to go in any historic town, and Hannibal is no exception. One proprietor seems to manage a lot of cozy-looking properties. You can check out the accommodations at http://www.lulabelles.com/. Of course, if you're a serious sasquatch spotter, you'll probably want to spend your nights in the woods. There are at least three campgrounds that would welcome both you and your infrared binoculars. Check out: http://www.visithannibal.com/camping.html. While you're in Hannibal, make sure you take a ride on a riverboat (http://www.marktwainriverboat.com/) and check out the caves that inspired the exciting finale of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (http://www.marktwaincave.com/) ----------------------------------------------------------- SCREAMING JOHNNIE'S ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are tales of REAL ghosts in Hannibal, but the details are sketchy. An American Ghost Society report on Hannibal notes that "strange things" have been reported in the part of Mt. Olivet Cemetery filled with Civil War graves, but doesn't give specifics. (http://www.angelfire.com/il/ghostsociety/han.html) That same report talked about an unsettling visit to the ruins of an old church known locally as Screaming Johnnies, but doesn't offer any hints about where to find it. It is a broken shell of a building desecrated by spray paint and beer cans, the investigators said. While the investigators were there, they had an uneasy feeling, walked through several cold spots and noticed slight movements on their electromagnetic flux readers. The area around the ruins used to be a pasture with an open well, according to the report. One day, an 8-year-old boy named Johnnie fell down into the well and drowned. After that, families living near the well began to hear the screams of a young boy coming from the well. They would investigate, but find nothing. Fearing another child might fall into the well, local residents filled it with dirt and sand. Despite that, the screams are supposedly still heard on quiet nights. In 1856 a church was built on top of the well and a cemetery established behind it. When the church caught fire a few later, firefighters spotted a young boy standing among the gravestones. One of the firemen tried to coax him out, only to have the boy turn and disappear into the darkness. The church was abandoned. ------------------------------------------------------------ If any of you have any more information about Screaming Johnnie's, please let me know. It sounds like an interesting place to visit after last call. As always, you can contact me at: <a href=" mailto:fred@CoolTravelMail.com ">Email Fred</a> Until next time. Your editor, Fred ************************************************************ TELL-A-FRIEND about CoolTravelMail! Visit: <a href=" www.CoolTravelMail.com/friends/ ">Tell-A-Friend</a> Feel free to forward this, in its entirety, to others. (c)2001 CoolTravelMail. All rights reserved.