Sunday, July 12, 2009

Hannibal - Day 2





"Hannibal has had a hard time of it ever since I can recollect, and I was "raised" there. First, it had me for a citizen, but I was too young then to really hurt the place.
- Mark Twain - letter to the Alta California, dated April 16, 1867; published May 26, 1867

Who do you think of when you hear the name Hannibal, Missouri? Most people would say "Mark Twain", but another famous person born in Hannibal was "the Unsinkable Mollie Brown".




Hannibal is a quaint town on the bank of the Mississippi. It is known as "America's Hometown". It has such a friendly atmosphere with neatly kept old homes and a waterfront area reminiscent of days long gone. The day we were there, a lot of shop owners were hanging bunting and flags in anticipation of the Fourth of July. it made me wish I had a flag to put in the front of my home!




This pretty lady was so friendly and helpful with times of the trolley and information about what to see and when. Unfortunately, I didn't get her name.





I really wanted to stop and get coffee. I am a coffee nut and I absolutely abhor the swill you get in most restaurants and fast food places. Some are passable, but most are not. That's enough of that rant! Suffice to say, I would rather have plain water than some amber liquid that is reportedly coffee but tastes like day old cigarettes!! :(





There are a lot of neat little shops in the waterfront area. We were there a little early and I could only get some storefront images, above and below.





Even the clock shop has an unusual display!





How's this for a band!! Could this be the Froggy Bottom Boys? Hah, I know, pretty lame!





I would like to have gone into this shop. Looking in the window, I think you could find some rather unique and interesting gifts.





They have tours and fence painting days during the year. You can meet Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher here too. There's also a theater that has a Meet Mark Twain presentation. We wanted to go to that, but we didn't come prepared with nicer apparel. After all, we were planning on just bumming around. :)





The Mark Twain Museum looks very interesting and is one of the "must see and do" on anyone's list.




This looked like a fun place to have a meal, but we were on our way to other places and never got a chance to eat here.





I picked up this gentleman along the way and decided to take him home with me. Ok, he's my dear sweet husband and he has a nice camera! :)





If you go up past the lighthouse up to Cardiff Hill, you have a fantastic view of the river and possibly a steamboat. :) It was pretty hazy and cloudy. There are some very nice homes in this area too.





The night before, we saw a sign for "Lover's Leap", but it was too late to go up the hill. We decided to try the next day. I did not see anything about any lovers that leaped, but there was a memorial for three boys, Craig Dowell and brothers Bill and Joey Hoag, who disappeared when they went to explore Murphy Cave.




One of the places we drove to was a "lock" not too far from Hannibal. We saw one of the big barges coming in. You can't get into the lock, you can only view through a chain-link fence.





I didn't see Ben Alan, but he definitely left his mark!








We were going to visit the Mark Twain cave and saw this huge burr oak tree, The Liberty Oak Tree. I had to make a panorama to get the entire tree





After lunch, we took a trip to Wakonda State Park. The park is very nice and well maintained. We never did find out what these structures are for or were. Maybe a bridge that was taken down? I don't know. Let your imagination run free, anything is possible.






The swimming beach looks nice, not too crowded on this hot, sultry day. Where is everyone??





The camping area looks nice, but there were some areas that needed a lot of improvement.






Fishing anyone! Where's my boat...uh, that's a different trip!!





There is a wildlife in this area, but we couldn't find it. Oh well, the trip was nice.



We were on our way home the next morning. The trip was nice and the company was great!!







3 comments:

  1. About time is correct. I'm the one who anonymously left a post. Couldn't figure out how to leave my name. Will try again...if I can't, well it's your sis-in-law.JQ

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  2. JoAn, I have problems leaving comments too. When I make comments on David's blog, I comment as "Name/url" and type my name in the little box. Then I select Preview and then post comment. For some reason, if I just select Post Comment, I get a response of "Your request could not be processed. Please try again", and I have to click on Post Comment again for the comment to post. If I preview first and then post, I don't get that message. Sounds convoluted, I know. So if you click Post Comment and get the "Please try again message" just click post comment again.

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