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.