Mark Twain's Hannibal

We drove up to Lover's Leap, a cliff that sits on top of Hannibal and looks down on the Mississippi River with vista views.  Pretty awesome.  Did see a tug with barges attached going up stream, but did not see any other traffic while up on the cliff.  Then we drove down into the town and went to the levee where Glascock's Landing is.  Pretty little park, dedicated to Mark Twain and his boyhood years spent in the city.  There we saw the Mark Twain paddleboat getting ready to head out on a two hour cruise along the banks.

Look down onto the Mississippi from Lover's Leap, barges anchored waiting

Town of Hannibal below

Drove to the levee 

Mark Twain taking on passengers (tugs waiting for traffic tied up)

Mark Twain, a pen-name for Samuel Clemons, spent his childhood in Hannibal, moving here when he was 4.  Across the street was a girl name Laura Hawkins who became Samuel's first love.  They remained friends until they died, but his timeas a young boy with a crush on Laura was his inspiration for the character Becky Thatcher in his Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn books.

And She's off

We were on a mission to look for a certain book that Mark Twain wrote and the first store/book shop we went to said it was sold out, go to such-and-so place where they probably will have it.  So we went to the next place - no, sold out, but while we were there we went through the museum which explained the writing history of Samuel Clemons  (known as Mark Twain).  The entrance fee allowed us to visit the boyhood home of Mark Twain which he used as his inspiration for Tom Sawyer and we also went into Becky Thatcher's home, saw the fence that Tom Sawyer had to paint (he paid Huck and friends to do), and the business location that Samuel's father who was a Judge practiced.

We remembered the picket fence and the row of old homes from our visit of 35 years ago but the National Park Service has invested in a lot of money to help with the restorations and we think that it will become under the protection of the Park in the near future as a National Historical Site.

When I think of the Tom Sawyer books, I think of the fence

Norman Rockwell paintings - a priceless contribution from Rockwell

The town of Hannibal is very connected to the tourist trade coming to see Mark Twain's life.  The American Steamship Company which owns a number of very large river boats, has made Hannibal a major stop - calling it the Mark Twain Cruise - that you embark on either near Minneapolis and travel down to Memphis or do the return trip - or - travel down and then travel back up.  Pricy - we were told in the Visitor's Center that if you do the round trip, cost would be about $11,000.  Wow!!!

American Duchess of the American Steamboat Company docked
it's a biggun!

Tom Sawyer's home (Mark Twain) and the famous fence

Last time here we saw Tom and Becky child actors - this time, no.

The architect in town is amazing, buildings are beautiful

Interesting to note - Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway were both cat lovers.  Found a couple of references to Mark's love for cats.  Oh, and we never found the books - but I did get the titles of them and found them on the internet.

I like Mark Twain!