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.