Another COE Park and Mark Twain

We really like staying at the Corps of Engineer parks. Especially since, with the Golden Age pass we can stay for half price. The parks were we stayed on the Mississippi River cost us $9.00 a night. This park in Missouri on Mark Twain Lake is only $8.00 a night. They do have some full hook up sites here at Ray Behrens park, they would be $12.00 a night, but they were all full when we came in last Saturday. The parks are sometimes out of the way, we are about 25 miles from Hannibal, but they have all been well cared for, clean parks. I had bought the book RVer's Guide to Corps of Engineers Campgrounds before we started this life style and have just now started to look for these parks. I will be using the book a lot more now. You can make reservations through Reserve America, but we would rather just take our chances since they do have about half of the sites as non-reservable sites.

We have been touring the area for the past couple of days. Yesterday we went to Hannibal and toured the area of Mark Twain's childhood and today we toured his birth home in the little town of Florida, Missouri. Here are some pictures we took in Hannibal.


We toured the interpretive center, his home, and the museum. I never knew that Norman Rockwell did the illustrations for Tom Sawyer and Huckaberry Finn. His original paintings are in the museum. I think I need to go back and read his books. He never finished school, his father died when he was 10 and he was sent to work for his older brother is his printing shop.

He spent some years as a riverboat pilot. Years later he remembered how they measured the depth of the water. A lead weight attached to a rope was tossed out in front of the boat. A series of knots were tied in the rope at measured distances, A mark is the same as a fathom on the ocean - six feet. Twain means two. A knot at 'mark twain' thus meant twelve feet, a safe depth for riverboats. Thus he interpreted Mark Twain as "safe water ahead".

In Florida, his birthplace we toured the museum that actually has his birth house inside. The museum was designed by his only living daughter, Clare. It was built around the original house.

Mark Twain was born 2 months early in November 1836 with Haleys Comet in the sky. He died 74 years later in 1910 again with Haleys Comet in the sky!