Sunday, June 01, 2008
Mark Twain’s Hometown
[Be sure to click on the photos for larger views.]
This installment covers Saturday (May 31) and Sunday (June 1).
On Saturday, we drove from Mountain View to the Mark Twain RV Park in Hannibal, Missouri. The first part of the drive continued in the Ozarks. Fortunately, the road out of Mountain View was neither as steep nor crooked as the one on which we arrived. We did have to take a 10-plus mile detour when we unexpectedly ran into a “road closed ahead” sign. After a brief stint on the interstate we decided to follow our new GPS which routed us on a variety of smaller state roads and got us safely to Hannibal.
Today was the meeting of the Democratic Rules and Bylaws Committee to consider what penalty to impose on Florida and Michigan for holding their primaries earlier than allowed by party rules. We spent most of the trip listening to these proceedings on satellite radio and, during a break in the political action, were able to hear the launch of the space shuttle.
In the evening we went to a music/comedy show at the Spratt Family Theater in downtown Hannibal.
On Sunday we toured Hannibal. We started the day with a stop at Lover’s Leap, where legend says that an Indian brave and his lover from another tribe jumped to their deaths to avoid being killed by the princess’ father.
Next we visited the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum. This complex included an interpretive center, Clemens’ boyhood home, the home of the girl on whom he modeled the character Becky in Tom Sawyer, his father’s law office / justice of the peace courtroom, and a museum. In the museum we learned that the pen name Mark Twain draws on Clemens’ days as a riverboat captain. Dropping a plump line that measures a depth of two (twain) fathoms “marks twain.” The museum also included a number of Norman Rockwell’s original illustrations for print editions of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. During the visit I managed to get a picture of Carol with Tom and Becky.
In the afternoon, we took an hour-long riverboat cruise on the Mississippi. On the cruise we learned about barge commerce on the Mississippi and about the 1993 flood that covered the parking lot for the riverboat property in 12 feet of water. We also had a chance to see Lover’s Leap from the opposite perspective.
We are still suffering without house air conditioning in the RV. I think we have found (on-line) a place that we can get it serviced tomorrow with only a brief detour from our planned route to Moscow, Iowa. If not, our best bet will be in Lincoln or Omaha, Nebraska, where there are a couple of authorized service centers.
Moscow, Iowa is itself a maintenance stop. It is the home of HWH hydraulics, the company that manufactures the slide-out mechanisms on the RV rooms and the leveling jacks. We have a pinhole leak in one of the slide-out room cylinders and have a factory appointment early Tuesday morning to get the bad part replaced and to have a slow retracting jack serviced or replaced.
We will be camping tomorrow (Monday) night at the HWH factory and will spend Tuesday having the rig serviced. Thus don’t expect another post to the blog until late next week, after we have had some more sightseeing days.
This installment covers Saturday (May 31) and Sunday (June 1).
On Saturday, we drove from Mountain View to the Mark Twain RV Park in Hannibal, Missouri. The first part of the drive continued in the Ozarks. Fortunately, the road out of Mountain View was neither as steep nor crooked as the one on which we arrived. We did have to take a 10-plus mile detour when we unexpectedly ran into a “road closed ahead” sign. After a brief stint on the interstate we decided to follow our new GPS which routed us on a variety of smaller state roads and got us safely to Hannibal.
Today was the meeting of the Democratic Rules and Bylaws Committee to consider what penalty to impose on Florida and Michigan for holding their primaries earlier than allowed by party rules. We spent most of the trip listening to these proceedings on satellite radio and, during a break in the political action, were able to hear the launch of the space shuttle.
In the evening we went to a music/comedy show at the Spratt Family Theater in downtown Hannibal.
On Sunday we toured Hannibal. We started the day with a stop at Lover’s Leap, where legend says that an Indian brave and his lover from another tribe jumped to their deaths to avoid being killed by the princess’ father.
Next we visited the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum. This complex included an interpretive center, Clemens’ boyhood home, the home of the girl on whom he modeled the character Becky in Tom Sawyer, his father’s law office / justice of the peace courtroom, and a museum. In the museum we learned that the pen name Mark Twain draws on Clemens’ days as a riverboat captain. Dropping a plump line that measures a depth of two (twain) fathoms “marks twain.” The museum also included a number of Norman Rockwell’s original illustrations for print editions of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. During the visit I managed to get a picture of Carol with Tom and Becky.
In the afternoon, we took an hour-long riverboat cruise on the Mississippi. On the cruise we learned about barge commerce on the Mississippi and about the 1993 flood that covered the parking lot for the riverboat property in 12 feet of water. We also had a chance to see Lover’s Leap from the opposite perspective.
We are still suffering without house air conditioning in the RV. I think we have found (on-line) a place that we can get it serviced tomorrow with only a brief detour from our planned route to Moscow, Iowa. If not, our best bet will be in Lincoln or Omaha, Nebraska, where there are a couple of authorized service centers.
Moscow, Iowa is itself a maintenance stop. It is the home of HWH hydraulics, the company that manufactures the slide-out mechanisms on the RV rooms and the leveling jacks. We have a pinhole leak in one of the slide-out room cylinders and have a factory appointment early Tuesday morning to get the bad part replaced and to have a slow retracting jack serviced or replaced.
We will be camping tomorrow (Monday) night at the HWH factory and will spend Tuesday having the rig serviced. Thus don’t expect another post to the blog until late next week, after we have had some more sightseeing days.
