St. Louis Trip - Part 4 Mark Twain

I knew before I left home for St. louis that I wanted to take a day to drive to Hannibal, Missouri to visit the hometown of Mark Twain an author that I am reading books by and about. It was a nice drive but I and a nice weather day for walking around when I got there. I first stopped at a Missouri visitors center to get some local information and then I stopped at the Hannibal visitors center to get additional information. I picked up "Traveling Twain" and they told me that if I took him to different places and then tweeted out his picture I would be entered in some type of contest. The first place that I took him was to the half marathon that we did yesterday.

After the visitors center in Hannibal I walked up the 244 stairs to visit the Mark Twain Lighthouse. There were good views of the town and the river from there and it was certainly a good way to stretch out the legs after the drive up.

After hiking back down to the town level I walked around to see the town itself, while there was a museum tour available I as well as a Hannibal trolley tour I chose to just walk and see what as I wanted. 

Then I walked down to the river to walk around. I am always impressed by the size of the Mississippi. It was interesting being at the actual place that Twain talked about in his book that I was currently reading.

I stopped in the Hannibal Museum where they had some interesting exhibits including some things specific to Twain. And of course I stopped in a couple of bookstores and had interesting visits with the people working there. I had the impression that they were the owners in both cases. When I left the town of Hannibal I drove to Riverview Park another local landmark. It was a large beautiful park overlooking the river. You can see on the sign that the park was established in 1909.

I had one more sidetrip to make before driving back to St. Louis. I wanted to drive to Mark Twain State Park and also visit Florida, Missouri where he was born. The visitors center at the park had a really good short autobiographical visit of Twain's life. It followed the autobiography that I recently read very closely. I don't always stop to see the videos at visitors centers but I'm glad I took the time to see this one. I toured the visitors center where the house Twain was born in is actually located now and then took a short hike on a trail near there before I drove a short distance to Florida.

It was an enjoyable trip and motivated me to go back and finish reading, Life on the Mississippi. And of course I did buy another of Twain's books while I was in Hannibal.