the davenport trail – day 8

I didn’t remember to get a picture of P in her accommodations at the Columbia, MO Hampton but she was in the giant king size bed with us by early morning.  The funny part was when I opened my eyes and realized that I was looking her in the eyes as she had managed to end up sleeping on her side.

 

She looked pretty comfy.

Our “task,” if you will, for the day was to venture off the interstate for the Missouri Cache Across America and make westward progress, of course.  The cache actually led us to a really cool place in Marceline, MO called Walt’s Dreaming Tree and Barn.  I didn’t realize until after we got there that the Walt in question was Mr. Disney himself.  So the story goes, the Disney family moved from Chicago to Marceline when Walt was a young kid and settled on a farm which would later provide inspiration to Walt for his characters.  He spent many hours dreaming under a cottonwood on the property and would return here whenever he was in Marceline visiting.

The barn was a little farther down the path and is a recreation of the original barn which Walt had already had reproduced on his property in California that had been the root of Disney’s Imagineering.  The barn that stands there today was built in 2001 for Walt’s 100th birthday.

Miss P was our picture proof for the CAA. 

Will putting the cache back. 


Inside the barn, visitors are encouraged to sign the walls and ceiling. 

Will leaving our mark. 

We stopped by the town of Marceline which is supposed to have inspired Main Street, USA at Disneyworld and Disneyland.  It’s fallen on hard times and hardly anything was open even though it was Saturday.  We were hoping to find the book, Walt’s Happy Place, that was mentioned at the barn but it’s out of print now.

We continued through Missouri making a quick stop outside of Kansas City for diapers.


Crossing the Missouri River.
 
Yay! Kansas, our last state before hitting Colorado!

We skirted Topeka, the capitol of Kansas.

But mostly Kansas looked like this:
 
Corn, Corn…

and more corn.

But then there were grasslands…


Where the buffalo might roam.

But you don’t care about this stuff, you want gratuitous pictures of the baby.



She and Sophie are going to be best friends any day now.  Once she completely figures out what her hands are for.

Medicine time!

Oh yes, this happens in hotel rooms now. 

Accommodations for the night: Hampton Inn Manhattan, KS.  She did end up perpendicular to this by morning.