February Vacation: The Mark Twain House
Shall we continue with the travelogue of our February vacation? I should probably tell you about the very first thing we did on this trip.
We drove to Hartford. Try and contain your excitement over that statement.
Okay, we had an ulterior motive in visiting Hartford. One was a terrific hotel rate. And the other was visiting the Mark Twain House. This is something we had planned to do last summer and we just never got around to it. It was the perfect way to break up our drive to New York City and I’m so glad we went.
It’s a truly amazing location. The outside is brick and the patterns are beautiful. And the inside – well, I don’t have pictures but trust me when I tell you that it’s stunning. It’s warm and inviting and not pretentious at all. The tour we took was full of little anecdotes about Twain’s time while he lived here, about the stories he made up for his children, and about how the house came to be built.
The Visitor’s Center is also terrific. There is a film about Twain (made by Ken Burns so you know it’s good) and lots of his quotes are on the walls.
Of course we had fun taking some photos. Above is Dale posing as Twain. Can I just tell you that he loved the suit? He’s so disappointed that I won’t let him have one.
And here is Dale posing with a statue of Twain made entirely out of Legos. So cool!
We enjoyed our visit immensely and highly recommend this to all of you.
Allow me to close with my favorite Mark Twain quote:
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.
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We visited Hannibal, MO to learn a bit about where Twain came from when in the area. May I recommend a book to the librarian? Twain’s Feast was an interesting read about Twain, his travels and truly regional cuisine. And tell Dale he’s a pale imitation of Hal Holbrook, who shall always be Twain to me.
I think visiting the Mark Twain house would be pretty exciting – Hartford or not!
Mark Twain said it as it was and still is.
Good stuff Carole! And that quote…I know a few I’d like to share it with! 🙂
Dale looks to me like he could be a great Twain lookalike, but I guess we’ll never know if he doesn’t have the suit 😉 His house looks like a really interesting place to visit. I always associate him with MO and didn’t know he lived in CT.
Ooh, my connections to Twain are that my parents eloped to Hannibal, MO. We stopped back there on a trip north during the great flood of 1993. Everyone out on the interstate was sure the Mark Twain Cave must be closed, but we decided to drive down and see. It was open, but DH, our young daughter, and I were the only visitors. We got a “private” tour of the cave!
Saw a video feature on the Mark Twain House in Hartford on a This Old House episode. Wouldn’t you love to play pool in that top floor room, then go out to the turret balcony for a celebratory beverage?!
It’s pretty fun to see Dale channeling Mark Twain. He does a good job of it. The house is amazing. It could go either way–cost and inviting—spooky and disorienting. Glad it’s the former.
Love the lego statue. Very cool. What a mean wife not letting Dale have a suit just like that!
Mark Twain’s quotes, like Will Rogers, are still so applicable. I think every kid out of high school should have to live abroad for about two years (not the Mormon thing although that is good them). Just traveling and see that other people in the world want the same basic things out of life and that they have valid ways and means of leaving. Everyone loves their home. Okay I’ll get off the soapbox. (PS I ended up living overseas about 1/2 my life with my job. What a great thing.)
Beautiful house and awesome quote! I agree 100%. Trying to figure out a sneaky way to share it with others.
So much fun! I love the Twain shots of Dale. 🙂 Mark Twain has some truly wonderful quotes — and you picked one of the best.
…but did you get to meet Julia from Literary Disco? maybe not quite as exciting as Dale channeling Mark Twain, but still…inquiring minds need to know!
Carole, thank you! This stop goes on the June Itinerary.