040214 We Found Mark Twain.

The brilliant writer and humorist Mark Twain, aka Samuel Clemens, certainly put the small town of Hannibal on the map.  Currently, his name is darn near keeping the city afloat.  Tourism is the main industry, aside from the cement plant and every business either has his name or a character closely related to him in the title.  Can't blame them though.

These are two examples.  Three or more restaurants carry his name, as does the RV park we're staying in.  If a business doesn't carry his name, it'll have a likeness of Mark Twain in its window.

I will say they have done the Twain museum well.  There is the main museum shown in the 1st picture above.  There is also an interpretive center which used to be the main museum.  Plus the childhood home of  Sam Clemens and other buildings associated with Clemens boyhood life in Hannibal.

Across the street from Clemens home is the childhood home of Laura Hawkins who is Becky Thatcher in the Tom Sawyer novel.

Of course, the Tom Sawyer character is largely based on Mark Twain as a kid growing up in Hannibal, MO. The exploits of a few of his friends are also mixed into Tom Sawyer.  The Museum Foundation has reconstructed the home of  Tom Blankenship who was the inspiration for Huckleberry Finn.  However, this is probably in much better condition than the house Tom Blankenship lived in at the time.   From all I've read, and from reading Huckleberry Finn, Blankenship/Finn were from the lower socio-economic scale in Hannibal.  Samuel Clemens/Tom Sawyer, on the other hand, would probably be middle to upper middle class since Sam's dad was a lawyer.

Samuel Clemens father, who was a lawyer and justice of the piece, died while he was a boy.  His office was the only one that needed to be moved in order to complete the Hill Street complex of Twain related buildings.  We thought the admission fee was a good deal.

We are staying at the Mark Twain RV Park.  Associated with the park is the Mark Twain Cave.  This cave was originally discovered in 1820, and all the kids around Hannibal, including a young Sam Clemens, would explore in this cave system.  It figured greatly in Mark Twain's novels.

Obviously these caves are no match for other caves we've seen, especially Carlsbad Caverns.  They are note worthy because of who used to explore them, and because they are a back drop to a lot of Twain's stories. We thought the cave admission was a bit high for value received.

Here are a few more shots around Hannibal.  There is a steamboat sightseeing cruise but it didn't operate today.  Our luck continues on missed extra excursions.  In San Antonio, the river boats didn't operate the day we were there due to cold weather.  The cruise people do have a scheduled "cruise" tomorrow, but we will not be here.  We'll be crossing the Mississippi to Illinois.

There is a great spot to view the city called Lover's Leap.  An image of the city, then a view up river, and down river follow in that order.

We ate at the Brick Oven, which is not to be confused with the Brick Oven in Ashland, VA.  This Brick Oven uses wood fired brick ovens to cook their pizza.  The pizza was very good as was the Italian beer.

All in all, I'm happy we stayed and visited the city.

We'll be traveling the next two days.  We plan to cross over to Illinois tomorrow,  followed by Indiana to Ypsilanti, MI the following day.

See every one then.

Revised 4/20/14.  Minor corrections.