Day 3

I slept well last night. I fell asleep listening to the cicadas and woke up to birds. The highway noise didn’t bother me. And the RVs were so quiet, I wouldn’t have known they were there if I hadn’t seen them. No generators, no loud people. This morning, I still don’t see anyone, only another tent camper a reasonable distance from us. I love waking up near water—even if it is brown and looks stagnant. While G3 showered I broke down the tent. Too bad we aren’t staying another day. I really like it here.

While I was in the shower, G3 bought me a cup of coffee at the coffee shop. I thought that was really sweet of him. It turns out he bought me a cup of coffee because he got himself a mocha. He thought I would be less likely to object to him drinking coffee if he got one for me too. I chuckled.

G3 doesn’t want to leave the campground. A cat recently had kittens and G3 is happily sitting on the porch of the coffee shop petting them. He wants to take one home. I don’t think Kati would object, but I am allergic to cats.

When I could finally pry G3 away from the cats we drove 15 minutes to Hannibal so that we could visit the home of one of Missouri’s most famous people. Years ago, when G3 was about four or five years old, we went camping in Connecticut. While there, I was very excited to take G3 to Mark Twain’s home. In preparation of the visit, I taught G3 a bit about Twain and even read him a couple of chapters from Tom Sawyer. However, I neglected to tell Gary that Mark Twain’s real name was Samuel Clemens. When we got to the tour of the house, the tour guide said that we were going to learn about Samuel Clemens. G3‘s face fell, “Who’s Samuel Clemens? I thought this was Mark Twain’s house.” The tour guide laughed but cleared up the confusion and G3 was happy again.

Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens’ pen name. It comes from Twain’s days as a steamboat pilot. Before modern navigation tools, to know how swallow a river was in a certain place they would drop a rope, with a weight tied at the end, into the water. The rope had knots to designate various depths. The term ‘mark’ indicated 6 feet. ‘Twain’ meant two. Therefore, the knot at ‘mark twain’ meant twelve feet which was what a steamboat needed to pass safely. Safe water. It’s an interesting pen name for a man whose writing has become so controversial.

The house in Connecticut was palatial in comparison to Twain’s boyhood home. The house here in Hannibal is tiny—and after thirty years of wanting to see it, it was a bit anti-climactic. The town was not. Tom Sawyer was based entirely on Twain’s childhood. St. Petersburg is the real life Hannibal. Becky Thatcher was Laura Hawkins. Aunt Polly was based Twain’s mother and Tom’s cousins were Twain’s siblings. If it were not for Twain, Hannibal would probably be a rundown forgotten speck on the map. As it it, it is a quaint historical tourist town. I thought we’d be there an hour or two, I was wrong. We were there all day.

The tour of the house was self guided. I don’t like self guided as much as when tours are given by a guide. Self guided requires me to read. I do that all the time. I enjoy listening to stories and having conversations with someone who knows more than I do about someone or something. I also like being able to ask questions, and I always seem to have lots of questions. Even though the tour was dry—reading quotes and information on the walls—I did learn a few things.

Twain was born in Florida, Missouri and moved to Hannibal when he was four. His parents owned six slaves but needed to sell all but one because they were poor and needed the money. Twain’s father died when he was eleven. Twain was good friends with Laura Hawkins and they remained friends throughout their lives. She was proud to be known as Becky Thatcher and even had that name—and her own—carved on her headstone. My dad always liked Becky Thatcher. I think he would have found that bit of trivia interesting. Before becoming an author, Twain worked as a typesetter, steamboat pilot, silver miner, and reporter—experience that is all evident in his writing. While Twain was raised in a slave state, in a society that saw nothing wrong with slavery, his own views changed over time as he traveled and talked to people. In 1874, he met a formally enslaved woman and listened to her story about how her kids and husband were torn from her. He wrote and published her story in the newspaper. And if you’ve read Hick Finn, you know the novel is a commentary on the evils of slavery as told from a child’s perspective—a child raised to think slavery was proper.

At the Twain museum we saw the original Normal Rockwell illustrations for Twain’s two most famous novels. In 1935, Rockwell was hired to draw pictures for an upcoming publication of the books. Before beginning the work he traveled to Hannibal to get a feel for the setting, He also sketched pictures of the cave—while sitting inside of it—in which Tom and Huck find the treasure.

When we finished all the stops on the self guided tour, we walked around town. G3 wanted visit some of the shops. Walking into Nobel Wares, he had a near religious experience. The store sold mostly swords, but also historic guns, knight’s armor, shields, Roman armor and more. The swords were historical replicas—he recognized some from forged in fire and others from what he’s learned about Samurai swords. They were also replicas of swords found in literature—a half a wall was dedicated to swords from Lord of the Rings, including Bilbo’s Sting. G3 loves weapons. He collects them. Therefore, he couldn’t resist buying a replica of a Civil War Cavalry Saber. (Thanks Mom for giving him money to use toward purchasing it.) When he asked if he could see it, the guy in the store looked at me and said, “It’s a real sword. It’s sharp.” I said it was okay because he was trained in how to handle a sword. The guy looked skeptical until I explained about G3’s involvement with Taekwondo. The moment G3 held it he was enthralled. First we visited Grant’s house, then he buys a Civil War saber. This kid definitely has a different relationship with history than most of his peers.

Before we left the campground this morning, the woman in the coffee shop told me that if we were going to visit Hannibal because I like Mark Twain, then we needed to go to the Mark Twain Cave. It was the cave Twain played in as a child and later immortalized in Tom Sawyer. She didn’t need to say more. I decided we were definitely going. We’ve been to a lot of caves but none with a connection to literature. But first, G3 and I ate lunch—he had meat tacos, I had shrimp tacos—in a local restaurant. Big mistake. I was super excited for the cave tour but half way through, I got seriously ill. The cave started to spin, my stomach felt as if I were being stabbed with a burning knife, and I needed to throw-up. The guide had to call to have me escorted out and I spent the next half hour throwing up. My guess is I had a bout of food poisoning from the shrimp. I felt bad abandoning G3, but he didn’t mind. We were the only two on the tour so while I was puking my guts out in the bathroom he had his own private tour. The tour guide was really nice. When he and G3 got back he took me into the cave again. He knew how intrigued I was and that I knew more about the cave scenes in Tom Sawyer than most tourists. I know G3 paid attention on the tour after I had left because every time the tour guide asked him to complete a story or share a fact he was able to do so. In fact, I think he enjoyed being able to teach me something.

On the tour the guide pointed out Samuel Clemens’s signature. Hundreds of people signed their names through the years but only two famous/infamous people. Now adding your own name is a Federal offense. Twain is not the only well known historical figure to walk in the cave. On September 22, 1979–and the signature has been authenticated by specialists—Jessie James wrote his name on the cave wall. He hid out in the cave 16 days before robbing a train in Independence. Being able to see his signature on the wall is not part of the tour—you need to be skinny-ish to fit through the lemon squeeze. Since it was just G3 and I, the guide took us. G3 thought it was really cool to stand where Mark Twain and Jessie James stood.

Missouri is apparently known as the cave state. There are more than 7000 caves in the state. The floor of the cave is glacial clay, a substance left behind when glaciers melt. In Twain’s day kids used to play in the cave all the time—without parental supervision. Before air conditioning, town hall meetings were held in the cave because it has a constant temperature in the 50s. The section of the cave known as “Aladdin’s Palace” was named by Twain. Injun Joe—like many of the other characters in Tom Sawyer—was based on a real guy. The real person was nice—nothing like the character and he resented Twain basing a bad person on him.

After the cave, I went another round in the bathroom. I dreaded the the long drive to Pomona State Park where we are camping for the next few nights. I feared I wouldn’t make it, but I did. We got here at sun set and had to race, again, to set the tent up before it got dark. G3 did most of the work since I was still not completely well. The campground is huge and mostly empty. There are a few RV’s but no other tent. The tents are removed so we are all alone—a little eerie. Once again we are right on the water—Pomona Lake. When I commented about how empty the place is, G3 laughed, “What did you expect. There are about three people living in all of Kansas.” An exaggeration yes, but most of what we saw was flat farm land. Few houses. Few people. Exactly what I had expected. I only hope we don’t encounter a tornado.

It’s late. I am tired. I need to go to sleep. Good night!