By Cheryl Lee Latter

From South Bend To North Bend – My Twin Peaks Trip Across the US

February 27th – On This Day in Twin Peaks – Laura’s funeral, Maddy arrives, the Bookhouse Boys are introduced.

It’s finally road trip day! I’ve been dreaming of this for 30 years!

I wanted to see the real America on this trip, and I definitely saw it on this first leg, 7 hours of it through rural Illinois!

We had a one night detour to this amazing B&B, the Garth Woodside Mansion, in Hannibal, Missouri. Driving up the long dark gravel road to find this at the top made us feel like we were in a horror film! It’s absolutely stunning, and the customer care and attention to detail were amazing. I had the Rosewood Suite, where the bed is insured for $55,000!

Despite looking like the Bates Motel, it didn’t feel at all spooky, except the fireplace turned itself on at 3.30am, which was a bit weird! Hopefully, it was the ghost of Mark Twain keeping me cosy. He used to stay here in the room across the hall.

According to Mark Frost’s Secret History, in 1892, Twain was scheduled to read his novel Huckleberry Finn at the Old Opera House in Twin Peaks, Washington. However, he cancelled this event and instead explored the forests surrounding Twin Peaks.

We had dinner in downtown Hannibal, at a lovely Italian place. As soon as we sat down, Pennsylvania 6-5000 started to play. I dared Carl to get up and spin and scream like Leland, but it’s probably wise that he didn’t!

In the morning from the breakfast room, we spotted alpacas and a llama. Naturally we had no choice but to recreate the moment in Dr Lyedecker’s office, with Carl playing Coop, and the llama playing the llama.