There is no unhappiness like the misery of sighting land (and work) again after a cheerful, careless voyage.

Sunrise over Virginia City. I guess it should have been a sunset for my last blog post but in my mind it may be just the beginning.

My Mark Twain adventure is officially over. I’m really sad but I have a feeling I will be “twaining” again soon.  I met a man in Virginia City who told me of a jumping frog contest in California and you can rent a frog to join the competition. He said the rent-a-frogs win sometimes even though they are against professional frogs. So hopefully I will get out to there for the competition. Of course my next dream trip would be following Twain’s footsteps in Innocents Abroad…so if anyone wants to foot that bill, let me know!

I had such a great time traveling and meeting such wonderful people. To say everyone I met was kind would be an understatement; they were unbelievably nice, beyond generous and made this journey so much more enjoyable.

Virginia City and Hannibal have become such special places to me and I’ve become so attached to their spirit, history and wonderful people! When I was in Hannibal we watched a video and one of the teachers in it said that the only way to know American history is to go to Washington, DC…I think I disagree. We have beautiful monuments, a rich history and museums with all the artifacts but we don’t have the same charm and character as Hannibal and Virginia City. They ooze real American history not by being the home of the power or the place where history is kept but by just being themselves. There is nothing fancy about either place and there are no grandiose marble statues but their stories will no doubt be better than ours everyday of the week. If you are ever near either of those places, please visit!

As for Mark Twain…I am not quite finished with him yet. I’ve just scratched the surface and I want to continue learning more about him. He is one of those amazing individuals who managed to be at the right place at the right time and made the most of those moments.  It is hard not to envy his life for his childhood, travels and experiences but he also had heartbreak and tragedy that defined him and his work. He is best known for his quips and humor but some of his descriptions of places are written so beautifully and so perfectly, I really believe no one could have said it better. Twain speaks truths about human nature, which will always be relevant and he will never go out of style.  Like Hannibal and Virginia City, I’ve grown attached to him. He’s become apart of my life and I’m not ready to stop my journey with him.

Thanks for reading my blog and maybe next summer I can start it up again visiting other places special to Twain!

Ghost hunting in Virginia City

We spent our last night in Virginia City ghost hunting and we did have contact! The Washoe Club was the location of the Millionaires Club back in the 1870’s with guests including President Grant and Mark Twain. It survived the great fire that wiped out most of the city, so it is one of the oldest establishments in Virginia City. We went in hoping to hear a story but luckily the resident ghost hunter was there to entertain us for hours about the different ghosts who haunt the bar.  He let us listen to his recordings of ghosts saying things like “help me” and one mean ghost calling his wife a nasty name. The couple staying next to us in our hotel walked in the back of the bar and the man said he sensed a young girl around 9 watching him and he was right. There is 9-year-old ghost named Josie that haunts that area of the bar!  We were determined to get contact so we sat in the crypt and just talked to our new ghost hunter friend when all of a sudden rocks were being dropped on us. At least 4 small rocks fell and hit us from above…the ceiling is not made of rock and we were in the middle of the room.  Ghosts in the crypt are known to drop rocks on people, so the only logical reason a rock fell out of nowhere, was a ghost of Virginia City was saying hi! 

Ghosts have pushed people down these stairs.

The crypt

Leave me way up here, up on the mountain*

Mark Twain says it best!

"At last the lake burst upon us--a noble sheet of blue water lifted six thousand three hundred feet above the level of the sea, and walled in by a rim of snow-clad mountain peaks that towered aloft three thousand feet higher still! As it lay there with the shadows of the mountains brilliantly photographed upon its still surface, I thought it must surely be the fairest picture the whole world affords."

Looking in the rear view mirror driving out of Tahoe all you can see is blue because it's all sky and lake. It is amazing!

*Phish

There were military companies, fire companies, brass bands, banks, hotels, theatres, "hurdy-gurdy houses," wide-open gambling palaces, political pow wows, civic processions, street fights, murders, inquests, riots, a whisky mill every fifteen steps . . . a dozen breweries and half a dozen jails and stationhouses in full operation, and some talk of building a church.

Virginia City is a quirky town with a rich history of the mining industry in the 1800’s. During the mining boom, the town had so many millionaires they had their own club in one of the saloons. We toured everything in town on trolley, train and foot. We went to churches, mines, mansions, schoolhouses, opera houses, antique stores, Mark Twain’s office at the Territorial Enterprise, and ended the day with a “twain” of beers or two beers as someone told us at Mark Twain’s favorite saloon.  The saloon is also famous for their clientele…the multi-year winners of the Nevada Day Beard Contest! We saw the winners of the reddest beard, grayest beard, longest beard and fullest beard. They were cool enough to take a picture with us!

We also heard so many fascinating stories about the people of Virginia City. Everywhere we went someone had a story.  Our favorite story was about two feuding miners. One miner bought property to build his dream house and the other miner, to make his enemy miserable, built his house directly next door. His reason was to take away the cool summer breeze and the warm sun in the winter.

Love thy neighbor

Mark Twain's desk

I have more pictures to post but everytime the wind blows the internet goes out, so this process has become a little tedious! Also the strong wind up here has made all the buildings in Virginia City lean right.

The mountains are calling and I must go. *

We walked into town last night and I just wanted to share what we were seeing along our walk into downtown Virginia City. I don't know if you can tell but we are very high up looking over the mountains...beautiful!

*John Muir

Road Trip to Virginia City

I'm not sure what kind of desert this was but it was white and looked like salt...a salt desert?

We made it to Virginia City! Virginia City is on top of a mountain and the ride up was really steep and super scary! Thankfully we made it up in one piece but I am already getting nervous about going back down and back up again later in the week. The drive was really pretty! We had to make a few stops just to take pictures.

I think this is the Great Salt Lake.

Outside our hotel...on top of a mountain!

I'm out here a thousand miles from my home, Walking a road other men have gone down...*

My first stop today was Echo Canyon, Utah. This is Twain’s description of it and if highway 80 wasn’t in the middle of it I think it would have looked exactly the same!

Echo Canyon is twenty miles long. It was like a long, smooth, narrow street, with gradual descending grade, and shut in by enormous perpendicular walls of course conglomerate, four hundred feet high in many places, and turreted like medieval castles.

This picture does not do it justice.

When I exited the highway to get pictures of Echo Canyon, I stumbled across a Pony Express monument on the side of the road. It used to be the Weber Station for the riders of the Pony Express. The pony express was only in business about two years but Mark Twain managed to catch sight of a rider on his way to Utah. The rider he saw could have been going to Weber Station!

In a little while all interest was taken up in stretching our necks and watching for the "pony-rider"--the fleet messenger who sped across the continent from St. Joe to Sacramento, carrying letters nineteen hundred miles in eight days! Think of that for perishable horse and human flesh and blood to do!

My final destination today was the Green River. In Roughing It, Twain makes the Green River seem close to Echo Canyon…it wasn’t! I drove two hours this morning looking for the town of Green River, Wyoming and it ended up being kind of neat little place.  Twain had breakfast at the Green River on the tenth day of his trip out west. I wanted to have breakfast there but too many mosquitoes were already having breakfast there, so sitting wasn't really an option.   

“The only decent meal we tasted between the United States and Great Salt Lake City, and only one we ever really thankful for”

On the Green River, I went to Expedition Island. Expedition Island marks the area where Major John Wesley Powell started an expedition down the Green River and Colorado River in 1871. His expeditions covered the last large land area in the continental United States left unexplored by European-Americans. It also had plaques noting other explorers who began their trek to the Grand Canyon here on the Green River.

While today was exhausting and I have a long day of driving tomorrow, it was really cool to physically see the places that Mark Twain talks about in Roughing It and because almost exactly 150 years ago Mark Twain was where I was today. He went through the Green River on August 4th and Echo Canyon on August 5th 1861.


 *Bob Dylan lyric not Twain

It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.

Twain looking at the Mississippi

Mark Twain was born in this house

I bought a T-shirt with that quote and a picture of Mark Twain on it! I am going to look awesome wearing it around DC. I left Hannibal this afternoon and was sad while driving away.  I had an amazing week immersing myself in a small town and in the life Mark Twain. I can see why he based so much of his work on this magical little town. While wasting time before I had to get to the airport, I was sitting in the coffee shop when one of Hannibal’s official Tom and Becky’s came in for a drink. They were in their full costumes coming back or going to some official Twain event but it was a wonderful sight embodying the spirit and passion of everyone in Hannibal. I just loved it there and hope I get back there soon.

I am in Utah now! I am driving to Wyoming on Sunday morning to see the Green River and have breakfast on the river just like Twain did almost exactly 150 years ago and then Colleen and I leave for Virginia City on Monday morning.

Here are some pictures of my last few days in Hannibal.

 

 

Injun Joe's grave

The graveyard from Tom Sawyer...still looks exactly the way it was described in the book.

Sunset on the Mississippi

This just made me laugh because on this poor woman's grave her husband wrote she never shirked her duties.

The Mississippi again...so pretty!

This is the inside of the bus we took to Florida, Missouri...it was a weird tour bus with mirrored ceilings! Hilarious!

I did not realize the steering wheels were so big on riverboats!

Quick update!

Sorry I didn't write yesterday but I didn't get home until late from the riverboat ride! Things are wonderful and I am having a perfect time. I sat on a boat last night and watched the sunset on the Mississippi River and it was maybe the best moment of my summer! I have been everywhere in Missouri or MissourA, as they call it here, that has to do with Mark Twain. I will post pictures tomorrow of the house he was born in, the cemetery where he based scenes from Tom Sawyer, amazing river views and a dorky picture of my steering a pretend wheel of a boat!

Off to music under the stars in Hannibal!

Commenting...

I'm not sure why people can't comment on my blog...but you can email me and I will answer your questions. For instance to those who were wondering these things - the Mississippi is as mighty as I imagined but much more beautiful, no I have not had the Mark Twain fried chicken but still kind of want to, and no I have not gone in the pool in the lobby! 

Piloting on the Mississippi River was not work to me; it was play -- delightful play, vigorous play, adventurous play -- and I loved it...

Mark Twain's house as a child.

The workshop is so great and I am already plotting how to come back next year! Yesterday was spent going over Sam’s life in Hannibal and then a brief biography of his life. We ended the day going to the Mark Twain Cave for a night tour. I had never been in a real cave before so it was a new experience to me.  It was, I assume, like most caves but I can now say I have been in the same cave that Mark Twain played in as a child, Jesse James hid from the law in and Norman Rockwell sketched in…so beat that other cave dwellers!  

Today was spent walking along the Mississippi, visiting Cardiff Hill, which Sam played on as a child, visiting Mark Twain’s boyhood home and the homes of the inspirations for Becky Thatcher and Huck Finn. It’s really interesting how fiction and non-fiction blur so much in this town and in the writings of Mark Twain. It takes a second sometimes to remember that Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are characters in a book and not real children who played in this town!

Tomorrow night we go on the riverboat!  

FUN FACT: Wile E. Coyote is based on the description of coyotes in Twain’s Roughing It.

From the spot where the Mark Twain bridge use to be.

Inside the cave...the guide turned off the light for a minute and it was so scary! I've never been in complete darkness before and I did not like it.

Hannibal has had a hard time of it ever since I can recollect, and I was "raised" there. First, it had me for a citizen, but I was too young then to really hurt the place.

Mississippi River

After a 3 hour plane delay, getting lost in the St. Louis airport and missing my exit to the highway, I finally made it to Hannibal. Once I figured out the road I needed to be on it was smooth sailing. The drive was easy and there is something so great about listening to certain songs really loud on endless highways!

I wanted to post a few pictures to show the charm of Hannibal from my first walk through town. It's cute and I can't wait to explore more tomorrow! My favorite picture is the Mark Twain fried chicken.  I have always associated Twain with fried chicken.

The pool in the lobby of my hotel...the lobby!

 

 

Advice to Little Girls

Author and illustrator Vladimir Radunsky has created a picture book based on Mark Twain’s short story “Advice to Little Girls.” It is adorable and I want a copy! This is my favorite quote because I can only imagine the trades my siblings and I did when we were little and I’m sure the youngest siblings were always on the losing side of the deal. Also, I think the idea of an “obtuse infant” in “financial ruin” is hilarious!

You ought never to take your little brother’s “chewing-gum” away from him by main force; it is better to rope him in with the promise of the first two dollars and a half you find floating down the river on a grindstone. In the artless simplicity natural to this time of life, he will regard it as a perfectly fair transaction. In all ages of the world this eminently plausible fiction has lured the obtuse infant to financial ruin and disaster.

Guess I’ve got that old trav’lin’ bone, cause this feeling won’t leave me alone.

I leave a week from today for the second half of my trip! First stop is a week in Hannibal, Missouri, and then it’s off to Utah to see the Green River and Echo Canyon and finally Virginia City, Nevada and Lake Tahoe.  Also in Utah, I have to pick up my trusty sidekick sister! I am so ready and so excited to be traveling again and back to learning more about the places of importance to Twain. Check back next Sunday and hopefully I’ll at least have a picture of the Mississippi River!

The blog post title is a lyric from a Creedence Clearwater Revival song not from Mark Twain.

Washington’s news on July 12, 2011 by Mark Twain

Some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship God, & over these ideals they dispute & cannot unite--but they all worship money. 

Prosperity is the best protector of principle.

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

When a person is accustomed to 138 in the shade, his ideas about cold weather are not valuable...In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy. 

School teachers who can’t spell = circus freaks

P.T. Barnum once asked Twain to drop his name in an article as free publicity for his circus before he merged with Bailey to create “The Greatest Show on Earth,” Twain said no, but eventually did write Barnum asking for the letters he received from people wanting to join the circus.

It is an admirable lot of letters. Headless mice, four legged hens, human handed sacred bulls, “professional Gypsies”…deformed human beings anxious to trade on their horrors, school teachers who can’t spell, - it is a perfect feast of queer literature! Again I beseech you, don’t burn a single specimen, but remember that all are wanted & possess value in the eyes of your friend. *

Parts of the circus fascinated Twain and at one point he had an idea to write a story inspired by two of Barnum’s earliest stars, Chang and Eng. Chang and Eng were Siamese twins conjoined at the liver and the fathers of 22 children. Twain’s idea was about Siamese twins where one drank, one was sober and they were both in love with the same woman. I’m not positive but I don’t think he ever wrote the story.

While I loathe the circus for a myriad of reasons, P.T. Barnum did say a great line applicable to my always-misspelled first name!
 
I don't care what you say about me, just spell my name right.

*This information can be found on pages 369, 371 and 543 of Mark Twain: A Life by Ron Powers.

Mark Twain would hate emailing with me!!!

Mark Twain showed up in The New York Times on Friday in an article about the overuse of exclamation points in emails. I personally love the exclamation point. The hardest part of writing this blog is not using one after everything I find interesting and exciting! 

In an essay published in 1895 called “How to Tell a Story,” Mark Twain chastised writers who use “whooping exclamation-points” that reveal them laughing at their own humor, “all of which is very depressing, and makes one want to renounce joking and lead a better life.”

Richard Artschwager, Exclamation Point. I saw this in the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford!

Drat this German tongue.

Lego Mark Twain

My blog was read five times by someone in Germany! I was so excited to share my experiences, travels and stories with someone in Germany…unfortunately they stopped reading it. If they do come back, I feel it is my obligation to tell them Mark Twain was not a Germanophile.

Clemens traveled to Germany in 1878 with the hope of finding inspiration and a peaceful place to write. Upon arrival in Germany, he marveled at the beauty of the Rhine Valley but the charm of Germany eventually wore off. He did write 2,041 pages of A Tramp Abroad during his time away but included an appendix titled “The Awful German Language”. Below are list of Twain’s grievances while staying in Germany!

The German language:

Some of the words are so long that they have perspective.

Sounds of Germany:

The hatefulest thing in the world is a cuckoo clock.

I hate the very name of opera – partly because of the nights suffering I have endured in its presence, & partly because I want to love it and can’t.

Drat this stupid yodeling.

Church bells are usually hateful things…still that ringing goes on. I wish to God the church would burn down.

Baden –Baden:

See Naples and then die. – but endeavor to die before you see B.B.

Random FYI – The cuckoo bird lays its eggs in other bird’s nest. If the other bird removes the cuckoo’s eggs, the cuckoo takes revenge. Oliver Wendell Holmes once compared Americans to the cuckoo bird. “We Americans are all cuckoos. We make our homes in the nest of other birds.”

*This information can be found on pages 418-419 of Mark Twain: A Life by Ron Powers.

When England in 1848 invented stamps, my feelings were decidedly anti-English...

Is Mark Twain everywhere or is it just me? On Saturday, the U.S. Postal Service is unveiling a new Mark Twain stamp in Hannibal, Missouri. I can’t decide if Mark Twain would like his face on a stamp. On one hand, I think he liked pictures of himself. He once ordered 1,500 copies of one picture because he looked good in it! On the other hand, he may not like to be on a stamp because the price of stamps are so expensive. In 1907, he met with the British Postmaster General to lower the cost of sending mail from the US to Great Britain to 2 cents but I also can’t tell if he was joking! I'll have to save the stamp questions for Hannibal but until then support the USPS and buy his stamp!

There is something good and motherly about Washington, the grand old benevolent National Asylum for the helpless.

Back home! I am sad this part of my journey ended but getting more excited to head out west next month! It has been awesome walking the streets Twain traveled and seeing the places he lived. His life in New York City was the start of his career and towards the end of his life when he was a beloved American icon.  Hartford was the place he found the most happiness being a family man and writing the novels that are so important to us today. This week has given me more insight into his life and I can’t wait to learn more!

This trip would not have been half as educational and fun if I didn’t have Angela to travel with me! Adventure and travel are always better with a best friend! I learned so much more when I had Angela and Jill to discuss the interesting parts of the walking tour and when Angela asked random questions to the guides at the Mark Twain House. If you were wondering, the banisters in Mark Twain’s house would not pass building codes today because they are too short and you could fall over them. The architect of the house designed them short on purpose because it looked better. You can all thank Angela for getting that little nugget of architectural history!

Thank you New York City, Hartford, Angela and Jill!

Mark Twain in today’s news!

Is Jon Stewart today's Twain?

When I wrote my proposal, one of my ideas to implement Twain in the classroom was to compare what Jon Stewart does every night to Twain’s quips about the government and political leaders. On Sunday, Stewart was invited to be a guest on “Fox News Sunday” and the conversation turned to whether Stewart’s higher goal was to be like Edward R. Murrow or Mark Twain - a journalist or comedian. He answered Mark Twain. Chris Wallace’s response was that Mark Twain did wield political influence. I do not know enough details on Twain and politics to say that Twain’s words did or did not influence government on a local or national level but I have not read anything to suggest he aspired to be in government or even play a major role in politics. I do know he had a lot of opinions on the government, politics and political leaders!

On government:

The government of my country snubs honest simplicity, but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two.

On politics:

An honest man in politics shines more there than he would elsewhere.

The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet.

On Roosevelt:

We are insane, each in our own way, and with insanity goes irresponsibility. Theodore the man is sane; in fairness we ought to keep in mind that Theodore, as statesman and politician, is insane and irresponsible.

If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.

So Hartford…um…its a city. I will not elaborate on the positives or negatives of the place where Samuel Clemens had the happiest years of his life or the birthplace of my namesake, Katharine Hepburn. I will only say when Angela and I went looking for a place to have lunch there were no signs of life. Nothing was open and we didn’t see one person walking around. I was pretty sure the rapture had taken place and we were the only ones left behind. It was really creepy!

Mark Twain’s house was AMAZING! The architecture, the wrap around porch, the balconies, everything was just interesting and beautiful. Clemens wanted the exterior bricks to be painted a black and orange pattern throughout the house and it was different but it worked. You couldn’t take photos inside the house but picture heavy mahogany everywhere, ornate upholstery, Steinway piano, large and detailed fireplaces and in most rooms stenciled pattern wall treatments. The house had a lot of the families’ original furniture including Sam and Livy’s bed. The bed had angels carved in the woodwork in both the headboard and footboard. The Clemens’ slept at the footboard so the angels could look down on them. In the library there was a massive floor to ceiling fireplace mantel, which Clemens first saw in a castle in Scotland, decided he wanted it and had it sent to Hartford. It is no wonder they went broke in part decorating this house.

Overall, I think the coolest part of being at the Mark Twain house was it really transported you back in time. It was so easy to imagine Twain in the billiards room, writing at his desk or sitting on the front porch smoking a cigar.