The river at sunset. Flooded, but not dangerously so!

After exploring all things Mark Twain we continued into Illinois and camped along the banks of the Kankakee River near Bourbonnais, IL, south of the Chicagoland area. Very green and lush from lots of rain!

A spot called Lover’s Leap overlooking the Mississippi River on the south edge of Hannibal.

A tugboat down at a dock on the river.

We boarded the Mark Twain Riverboat for a dinner cruise on the river.

We had a great cruise and a beautiful view of the sunset on a balmy evening.

We visited the tiny town of Florida, Missouri, the birthplace of Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain. It is surrounded by the waters of Mark Twain Lake now, but in young Sam’s day it was surrounded by forests and fields where he lived the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn on his uncle’s farm.

Family misfortune warranted a move to nearby Hannibal, Missouri where Sam and his family endured more hardships. It was common to lose siblings to accidents and disease, floods and weather extremes affected all townspeople, slavery was brutally practiced, but Sam remembered all these conditions and incorporated them in his later writing that installed him as “the father of American literature”.

The Clemens home in Hannibal.

I swear the Clemens’s have the same stove we have in Itchy’s!! Behind a plexiglass barrier here.

Common Ailments of the 1800’s that resulted in “You DIE”! Vaccines people, Vaccines!!!!

Our travels resumed, heading north into Missouri to visit Mark Twain’s childhood homes. We stayed at Mark Twain State Park on Mark Twain Lake, created by a dam built on the Salt river between 1966-1983.

There was wonderful hiking through forests tinted all shades of spring green, with splashes of summer flowers interspersed. This was the day after Summer Solstice!