The Mark Twain house and Museum

Hartford, CT has been a town on our list of Places to see for a while now. Not knowing what to do in Hartford, we did a little research online and found that the 2 places to visit were the Mark Twain house and the Old Capital building.  I’ll cover the Capitol Building in a separate blog.

From the pictures online, the Mark Twain house looked like a very cool old place to go. Seeing as how this was supposed to be a historical adventure and learning experience for the second grade drop out (she was pulled out of school for this long trip), this seemed like a good place to visit.

When driving through Hartford, I must admit, we almost didn’t make it to the Mark Twain house. A few misdirected roads took us down some fairly scary areas of town. However, once we found the house, the environment was quite different. Just don’t leave anything too valuable in the car.

We expected to walk into the house and pay our entrance fee at the door, just like at the Newport Mansions. We were however, pleasantly surprised with our experience.

You enter through a museum building and while waiting for the tour to begin, you are able to wander through a room with a detailed timeline in the life of Samuel Clemens, aka, Mark Twain. Across from this room is a theater where you can watch a video summarizing the life of Samuel. I do recommend that you take the time to watch the video, either before or after the tour.

Our tour was lead by Al, who instructed me to refer to him as Benny if I did not like his presentation. I could have not been more impressed with his knowledge of the home and its occupants though, so he’ll definitely be referred to as “Al” ;)

Al was able to explain so many details about the home and the family, you truly feel like you knew them by the time you leave. There is stenciling done throughout the house on the walls and ceiling, contracted out by Louis Tiffany himself. Designed to mock mother of pearl, leather and gold, the stenciling is detailed and ornate. There is also Tiffany tiles around the fireplace in the dining room which I could not keep my eyes off. The details in the home are absolutely amazing. Paintings, vases and other trinkets around the house were duplicated straight from images taken in the home during the families stay, giving it a quite historically accurate view into the world of Mark Twain.

 

They run a tight ship at this museum, which helps maintain the integrity of the artifacts in the home, as at least 1/3 of the furniture and décor is original to home when Samuel and his family resided there. You are not allowed to eat, drink, chew gum or think edible thoughts when walking through the home. Ok, you can think about eating, but seriously, skip the gum, you do have to spit it out before you go in.

 

Our experience at the house was much more impressive than we expected. If you are in the area, take the time to check it out. Tickets for an adult are priced at a very reasonable $14 per person and children, ages 6-12 are $8. 

Allentown, Pennsylvania, Finally....???

I don’t recall where I heard it from, but someone told us that we should visit Historic Allentown, PA. So, after a good several hours of sleep, we all piled in the car to go get lunch in the town that put us through Hell to come see.

As we approached downtown Allentown, we ooed and ahed over the beautiful architecture, noticing that these building must have been very old, because they appeared quite run down. As we drove and drove, up and down streets our "oo" and "ah" turned to “What the…“ and “Lock your doors.”  We continued to look for a place to eat, but that was now a back burner thought to, “How do we leave Allentown?” So, we stopped to buy hot dogs for the grill and headed back to the camper. Even with no cell service, it is still the more appealing option, but that could be the 4 hours of sleep talking.

 

Next time you accidentally find yourself in Allentown, roll up your windows, lock your doors, and drive quickly to the next town over, Hamilton. They have quite the impressive amusement park there.

Click the title to visit the Dorney Park website.

May 4th

May 4^th. The day that will survive the trip as being the most entertaining, frustrating, stressful, exhausting day EVER! (fingers crossed)

The day began with a trip into Hartford to see the Old State Capital building and the Mark Twain house and museum.  We stopped in Downtown Hartford for lunch at Woody’s, a cute little hot dog restaurant located at 915 Main St. in Hartford. I can’t say it was the best hot dog I’ve ever had. However, they did have great selection of hot dogs, hamburgers and a few sandwiches. Todds Philly Hot Dog very tasty.

On from there, we toured some quite scary areas in Hartford and then headed back to the Cabin to get back on the road. The trip from Connecticut to Quakertown, PA was to be the longest so far, 4 hours on the road. So far, we have been visiting our destinations during the day and then driving at night. It’s worked out well up until this point. Last night changed everything.

We arrived at our camp ground in Quakertown just before midnight. We learned 2 things on this leg of the trip that we will never forget. First, our camper is definitely not 12’. While holding our breath we passed through a wooden covered bridge, definitely true to Amish country imaging, which stood a maximum height of 12’1”. As we quietly inched under the cover, Todd and I leaning out our windows, we had a great sigh of relief when we realized that we would not be spending the rest of our night being the stuffing of an old Amish Bridge.

The second lesson of the night was, Pennsylvani,a as beautiful as these green, grassy rolling hills are… they are not ideal for parking a trailer after 3 days of rain.  As we were parking our trailer, Todd pulled into the slot in front of ours to straighten the camper. Well, as it turns out, this slot was left empty for very good reason. The soil in this area of the park is the same consistency of  cake mix. Watery cake mix. We spent the next 5 hours in Hell. If you can imagine, moving 8-9 tons of weight out of cake mix, while it’s raining is not an easy or enjoyable task.

I watched in amazement as the man of the year raised the truck, digging out cake mix from under the tires and wedging boards under the wheels to give traction. We were able to roll the truck about 1-2 feet at a time before each side had to be repositioned. After 5 hours of playing in the mud, we decided maybe this was the night we would stay in a hotel.  Of course, there was 2 problems with this idea. First, we’re in Amish country, Hotels are not on every corner. Second, the problem with hotels is they want you to check out at 11am or pay for another night.

As we drove around in what seemed like circles through Quakertown, the clearings and parking lots started to call our name. After all, we drive with our house behind us and any parking space would have sufficed at this hour. After finding no sign of hotels, (which now makes sense), we decided to try another park located a little north of our destination. We raced the sun in reaching our bed as we pulled in to the park at 6am. Still holding true to his Man of the Year title, I watched, blurry eyed, as Todd hooked up our camper to all the necessary connections… which apparently included building a Coax cable to hook up. Apparently after the night he had, there was no way in hell he would be going to bed without watching some of his beloved news. By 7am, the sun was officially peaking it’s head and we were finally able to craw under the sheets for a brief nap as the cats were also able to come out from hiding.