A Photographic Journey through Hannibal, MO

    After leaving the Gateway Arch Laurie and I spent a couple of days in Hannibal, MO. After nearly two full days driving or sleeping in the car, having three nights/two full days in one place felt like a godsend. Hannibal is famous for one reason, it was the boyhood home of Mark Twain. Thanks to the young Twain (Samuel Clemens was his real name) Hannibal is a tourist town on the Mississippi River ninety minutes north of St Louis. 

   There is a lot to do in Hannibal and if I wrote and explained every attraction this would be long enough where you'd stop reading or scroll down and get overwhelmed and never start.  The first night we stayed in a Motel 6 where we were happy for beds and a hot shower. The next two nights we stayed at a campground at the Mark Twain Cave complex. The cave and campground are three miles from downtown Hannibal. Since the campground is private, it was fairly expensive. I think we paid forty dollars a night for a tent site. There are plenty of motel options in town.  

   Probably the biggest attraction in town is the Mark Twain Cave. It was the first thing we did. As a boy, Twain played in this cave. It inspired many of the scenes in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer". Tom and Becky got lost in the cave and Tom saw Injun Joe in the cave. 

One of the minor things on my bucket list was to
go to a place Jesse James had been. I hadn't realized
Jesse used this cave as a hideout after one of 
his robberies. His name is signed in the cave.

   The cave complex is definitely for tourists. There is wine tasting which we did not do. There is a trolley that you can take through town and there is a Mark Twain Impersonator. We did the latter two. Mark Twain was really the first stand up comedian. He travelled the world with his routine. The impersonator was awesome. He talked for fifty minutes. There were parts I laughed uncontrollably. No photos. 

   The trolley ride was great. We went to multiple parts of town I didn't know about including Lover's Leap and Riverview Park. 

There was a cruise ship in town that I thought was going to make the crowds unbearable, but I hardly noticed the passengers. They would be transported from ship to sites by bus.

One thing we really looked forward to was a Riverboat ride on the Mississippi. Mark Twain was a Riverboat Pilot for many years on the river but had to stop when the Civil War broke out. Photos are much better looking at a Riverboat than being on a Riverboat. I took the photos of it the day before our trip.

A grain barge on the river

One of the more interesting places to go is the Mark Twain Boyhood Home. Twain lived here for most of his childhood. Friends of his lived next door that would later become characters in his stories. 

Mark Twain's boyhood home. Not my finest photo.

The real Becky Thatcher's house.

The real Becky Thatcher.
Her real name was Laura

The real Huckleberry Finn's house. His real name was Tom.

If you pay admission to the boyhood home, it includes the Mark Twain Museum a few blocks down. The bottom of the museum is dedicated to books Twain wrote. The second level is artifacts and about his life. There are multiple Norman Rockwell paintings depicting "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" 

Norman Rockwell

Twain's top hat

The man Injun Joe is based on. Apparently
he was a nice guy and not a murderer.

   Another minor thing I have always wanted to do was eat a food that Mark Twain ate. I assumed this would mean apple pie or fried chicken. However, Twain was a foodie and in one of his books he listed all of his favorite foods. The list was over one hundred items long so eating something he ate was pretty easy. In his list he gets as specific as a species of duck (Canvasback) but also included are biscuits, butter, and even cold water. We went to Mark Twain Diner and split a meal of fried chicken, potatoes with gravy, and a biscuit (with butter). We had Peach Cobbler for desert. The diner is famous for homemade Root Beer. I was Twain for an hour.

The best Fried Chicken I've ever had

   One thing I have always wanted to do was catch a catfish and if I could do it out of the Mississippi like old Huck Finn all the better. On our last day I got a few hours fishing in. I bought a one day Missouri license and some worms. I hoped to catch sunfish with the worms and use them for cats. This should have been pretty easy. I didn't need a fifty pounder, just something bigger than a bullhead. I didn't get any catfish but caught two stripers! The one species I can catch in saltwater was the one species I caught in the river. 

A guy snagged a Gizzard Shad and gave it to me. They are great catfish bait because they are oily. I didn't catch any catfish but did take a photo because seeing it was a lifer fish.

Touching the Mississippi

We bought tickets for the cave, trolley, Mark Twain Impersonator, Twain Boyhood Home, and the riverboat. We went out to eat twice getting breakfast at Becky Thatcher Diner on our second day. However, in-between attractions we spent a lot of time walking around town. The town is very quaint. There are many shops dedicated to tourists. There are many bars and restaurants. You can go into the general store and get a FREE ice cream. There is a Tom and Huck statue and a lighthouse you can walk up to climb.

There are many murals around town. They are listed in the Visitor's Guide along with each address. We didn't see them all but saw most of them.

This is probably the most famous mural. 
The boy is Huck Finn. The woman is the
Unsinkable Molly Brown

Molly Brown was from Hannibal. We didn't tour her house but took  a photo of it. She did meet Mark Twain on his last visit to Hannibal.

    There are other famous people from Hannibal. There is a street with murals of all of them. I'll spare you all of the photos I took. There was a baseball Hall of Famer, the first woman to vote, and the voice of Jiminy Cricket

At the opposite ends of town are two views of the River. The north one is Riverview Park. Interestingly, there is a black mutation of Grey Squirrels that live in the park. We saw some but I couldn't get a photo. From the view you can see the island that Tom Sawyer spent three days on. Also in the park is a statue of Mark Twain.

The south view is at Lover's Leap. So named because two young Indians from waring tribes plummeted to their death instead of being apart.

Lover's Leap

As you walk the streets you will see many quotes from Mark Twain or characters in his books. For the life of me I don't know why my photos of them came out so terrible.

 

 I loved Hannibal, MO. I enjoyed every single thing we did. If I ever went back, I'm not saying I'd do everything again, but I'm glad we did everything once. I'd do the cave again for sure. I would get the fried chicken at the Mark Twain Diner multiple times. I had a great time.