Life on the Mississippi

 Monday, August 30, 2021

Today was planned to be mostly a driving day--we are heading for Milwaukee in earnest now. But I did want to stop in Hannibal, Missouri, to check out Mark Twain's childhood home and Museum. We'd also planned to follow the Great River Road again, but it seemed like we didn't do that-- our GPS put us onto US 61, but north of St. Louis that's a divided highway with a straight shot north. So we let it take us until we did reach Hannibal, right on the river.

Downtown "historical" Hannibal is a very cute little town, with a lot of Mark Twain-themed store names in the old buildings. We found a place to park on the curb right outside the museum, and after eating lunch, we went in. The Museum encompasses 7 buildings. The first, main one, was a history of the Clemens family, and Twain's boyhood in Hannibal, and went through the rest of his life using a timeline. Of course we read

Statue of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn

everything--it was disappointing not to have time to watch the 90 minute video which was running continuously as we read the panels in the museum. After that, we saw the Huck Finn house behind the Museum. I had never known that Huck Finn was based on a real boy who was, like his fictional doppelganger, a river rat with a drunkard for a father, who was feared by the parents of other boys, and hence admired by the boys themselves. Huck's house (supposedly the house of this real boy) was actually larger than I would have thought, although quite simple, with only two rooms. It had been reconstructed just a few yards away from the museum.

Inside the Museum

From there, the path led us to the Clemens house itself. It was a nice-sized cottage with several upstairs bedrooms, and a kitchen, parlor, and dining room downstairs. Small, but cozy. I hadn't realized that the Clemens family owned slaves, and there was quite a bit about slavery during Sam's boyhood as well as his anti-slavery stance once he had grown up and understood it better. Both the Museum and the house were filled with quotes from Twain's autobiography, as well as from speeches he made later in life which cast a light on his boyhood. Quite famous in his own time, his life and its similarity to the life of Tom Sawyer (as well as to quotes from the book which sounded exactly like episodes from his own life) must have been as interesting to contemporary audiences as they are today.

Parlor in the Clemens House

After the house, we decided not to go into the three small buildings which were "Becky Thatcher's House," the Justice of the Peace office, and Grant's Drug Store. The Justice of the Peace was significant because Twain's father, although unsuccessful in business throughout his life, was elected to be a Judge, and was much respected in that regard. Joe and I opted for the Becky Thatcher Ice Cream Emporium instead, but of course a town so small did not have no-sugar-added ice cream for Joe, to our disappointment. I had a small scoop of chocolate ice cream, but that was it. And we decided not to walk the three blocks to the last building, the Museum Gallery. In retrospect, I realize I have no idea what might have been in there! 

Joe whitewashing the fence

Instead, we decided to get back on the road, realizing that it was already after 3pm, and we had almost 150 more miles to drive for the day. We arrived around 6:30 at Shady Creek Recreation Area, a Corps of Engineers park in Iowa, right on the shores of the Mississippi. It is absolutely beautiful here--the Corps parks seem to be a cut above many others we've been to. The only problem when we arrived was, there was a camper in our reserved space! This doesn't usually happen, but the camp hosts (two nice women) helped us find a different space which actually had a nicer river view. The people in our spot are nowhere to be found--it's a trailer and the tow vehicle was not here last night and is still missing. Joey says the husband's body is inside, and the wife took off in the SUV, but I'm hoping it's something less nefarious than that! In any case, we are happy in the spot we have, and tomorrow we have to leave anyway, to continue our journey to Milwaukee. Tonight, it's gotten much cooler, and we don't even need the AC, our exhaust fan is pulling cool air right over our bed. Sadly, we will swap this gorgeous area for another urban parking lot, but it's our best option to accommodate both some sightseeing and proximity to Natan and Ruby's wedding on Thursday.

Mississippi at Dusk, with barges passing by