We woke up pretty early the next morning so that we could get back on the road and on our way to our next destination. We drove south out of Nauvoo and over the Mississippi River to Missouri.
Right on the other side of the River, about an hour from Nauvoo we stopped at our next adventure, Hannibal, MO. Hannibal is the birth place and hometown of Mark Twain. It was here that he wrote his books Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He based those books on his life here in Hannibal. We thought this would be a fun and educational place to see.
On long road trips we like to listen to audio books rather than the radio all the time. During this long trip, we knew we were going to visit Hannibal so we decided to listen to two of Mark Twain's books, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The kids really seemed to like the stories as we drove. They especially got into Tom Sawyer. While we were in Hannibal, they remembered different parts of the books and pointed out details and things to us as we went to each of the sites.
Our first stop in Hannibal was the Mark Twain Cave.
This was a really fun cave adventure. The kids loved it and it was one of their favorite things of the day.
This cave is supposed to be the actual cave that Tom Sawyer explored in the book. It is the cave that he and Becky Thatcher got lost in and the cave that Injun Joe hid his treasure and eventually died in.
Some other cool things about this cave is that this was believed to be one of Jesse James' hideouts. On one of the walls, Jesse James wrote his name to mark his place for his money. One of the caverns was called Jesse James hideout.
Other names and things were written on the walls in the cave including a portrait of Mark Twain. They don't let you write on the walls anymore though.
Our tour guide was really good. He was full of cave related puns and lots of stories about Tom Sawyer and the cave. The room we are in in the picture above was called the living room. The rock formations in this room looked like furniture. The rock we are sitting on was a couch and the long flat rock in the middle of the room looked like a grand piano. The guide told us that the "piano" only played 'rock' music!
The formations in the other rooms and areas of the cave were pretty awesome too. Some rooms were called Aladdin's Palace, the Rainbow Falls, and the chapel. A wedding actually took place in the chapel room a few years ago.
One scary room was in the middle of the cave. The tour guide didn't take us there because he said weird things happened in that place. A long time ago, a scientist or doctor set up a laboratory in that back area and performed experiments on people. He did it in the cave so that no one would know. One of his specimens was actually his daughter that had died. When she died, he took her body to the cave and did experiments on her body to try and bring her back to life or something. The guide told us that her ghost haunts that part of the cave which is why we didn't go there...
Finally, we came to the place where Injun Joe hid his treasure. The number two under the cross. If you look closely at the picture, you can see a cross on the ceiling of he cave and the rock formation that looks like a two under it. Then below it is the treasure box! It was pretty cool. The guide also showed us where the cave was shut up and where Injun Joe died because he couldn't get out according to the book.
We love hiking this cave, seeing all of the awesome formations and hearing the fun stories to go along with them.
After leaving the cave, we headed into the middle of town to the Mark Twain Boyhood Home.
While here, we got to walk through a museum full of artifacts and information about Mark Twain's life. Then we walked through his childhood home and the home he based Tom Sawyer's home off of. Then we walked through Huck Finn's house. It was cool to see the places we read about in the books.
Outside Tom's house was the fence he tricked all of his friends into white washing for him. The kids really enjoyed pretending to white wash the fence like Tom Sawyer.
Across the street was Becky Thatcher's house.
Emily liked Becky's house because she was a girl. Inside Becky's house was an interactive museum that told us all about the real live people Mark Twain based his characters off of. We also learned about the different classes of people and how they lived back in the time of these books. It was interesting to learn about what different people had to do to survive.
After walking through the museum, we hiked up to the Mark Twain Memorial Lighthouse.
We hiked up 244 stairs to get to this lighthouse and in the humid heat of Missouri, that was a feat. This Lighthouse is not an operating lighthouse it is just a memorial to Mark Twain and was placed here on his 100th birthday. This was the place where Tom, Huck, and Becky ran around and played. When we got to the top, we could look out over the whole city of Hannibal as well as have a great view of the Mississippi River.
At the bottom of the 244 stirs, there is a cool statue of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Even though these were fictional characters, they were based on real people and are a symbol of Hannibal.
The hike up the stairs made us tired and hungry so we stopped at a park for lunch. While we were eating we were stopped by a pan handler. The whole time we were eating, I was thinking how different Hannibal was from Nauvoo. Hannibal is really fun but there is a worldly atmosphere whereas Nauvoo was a different kind of fun and the atmosphere was so spiritual. It was like we were in a bubble or something there and we had just left that bubble.
We continued to have fun though and after eating, we headed to the docks to get on the Mark Twain Riverboat.
This boat ride was so fun. We cruised up and down the Mississippi River on an actual steamboat like the one Mark Twain was a pilot of. We sat on the top deck so that we would be able to see everything we could. The only bad thing was that it was really hot and humid.
Our boat captain was a really great tour guide and told us all sorts of stories about Mark Twain, and the River.
As we cruised the Mighty Mississippi, we passed under one of the highway bridges, went passed the Lighthouse and the "Welcome to Hannibal" sign. We also passed by Lover's Leap which is a cliff overlooking the River. The reason it is called Lover's Leap is because of the story that goes along with it. Many years ago Indian tribes roamed this area and were constantly at war over the fishing grounds and territories and things. One tribe's chief had a daughter that was in love with a brave, named Falling Rock, from another tribe. The daughter was forbidden to see Falling Rock because they were enemies but she refused. The couple met each night at Lover's Leap. When her father found out, he went up there to kill Falling Rock. When they saw the Chief coming, rather than be split apart, they decided to die together and jumped off the cliff together. This is why it is called Lover's Leap. I think that should have been the end of the story but later the tour guide told us the rest of the story. Falling Rock and the Indian girl didn't die they ran off together. The Chief knew this and searched the rest of his life for them. He even got some help from the federal government to find Falling Rock. That is why where ever you drive in the US, you see signs along the roads that say "Watch for Falling Rock." I am pretty sure that last part is false but it did make us laugh and it was a great end to the story.
We also cruised passed lot of tug boats floating down the River. These tug boats are basically like Semi Trucks on water. These barges haul as much as 1,500 tons. This is equivalent to 58 semi truck trailers. The barges are usually in 15-barge tow. This means that these barges are like 1,050 trucks and if they were driving down the highway, it would be 34 miles long. These tugboats and barges really help with the transportation of goods and gets trucks off the highway.
On our way back up the River, we cruised passed this Island in the Mississippi. This was Jackson Island from Huckleberry Finn. This is the island that Tom and Huck went to pretend they were pirates. This is also where Huck Finn plans on living after he runs away from home. It was cool to see the actual island used in the book.
We loved riding on the Riverboat. It was definitely the highlight of our day in Hannibal.
After getting of the boat, we wandered around the town looking in shops. Charlotte was so tired she fell asleep. Then we went through the Mark Twain Museum Gallery.
Here we got to learn even more about Mark Twain and his life. We saw different things from his books and the kids were able to touch and play with everything. They pretended they were riverboat drivers, stagecoach drivers, and even riding on the raft with Huck and Jim. They had a blast.
As we left, Russell saw this cool hydrant and had to take picture of it:
We decided to hit the road again because we had a few hours drive to our next destination. Our next stop was Mansfield. MO, 4-5 hours away.
As we drove, we passed over the Missouri River.
Passed Lake of the Ozarks.
And up and down a bunch of rolling little hills. It was a long drive but we did finally make it to Mansfield. We loved our time in Hannibal and it was fun to do some of the adventures that Tom and Huck did in their book. Another great day.
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