St Louis-Traveling With Mark Twain

Steamboats Come True

Life on the Mississippi (1883) is a powerful narrative by Mark Twain of his days as a steamboat pilot on the Miss R. before the U.S. Civil War, recounting his trip along The River from St. Louis to New Orleans.

Twain writes with both sincerity &irreverence, as in this lament--- 
"There is no unhappiness like the misery of sighting land (and work) again after a cheerful, careless voyage."

My  own restlessness requests "Anyplace but here" and " I want to be surprised" can be summed up with this quip---

 "All I do know or feel, is, that I am wild with impatience to move, move – Move!"

Twain speak close to my  heart on what’s important for adventures and  travel seekers with this quote---


"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

2008 Flooding on the Mississippi River

The river calls me saying “I can help you lose your baggage without going to the airport"

Ernest Hemingway said, 

":Don't travel with people you don't love" 

Mark Twain value adds as-

"I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them."

I'll never forget this Twain brilliancy-"The Coldest Winter he ever spent in his life, was a Summer in San Francisco."

In my blog, Hotel @nyware,  I often use Twain's quotes to inspire me to further writing.
 For Instance

"Go To heaven for the climate and hell for the company". 

• Liking  many people spontaneously and without effort is probably  my  greatest of all sources of personal happiness.
  
  
I am  inspired because of my travels, I think, therefore, that I should write some more about them. Sometimes I see what I see and other times I see what I came to see. Yet Sailing on a cruise ship is like granola. Take away all the fruits and the nuts and all you have left are the flakes . 

    The gravity of  travel is that it can be expensive  and   living on earth and doing nothing still gets each of us a round trip around the sun. The earth school kills all of its students, and procrastination is just suicide on the installment plan- If it wasn't for the last minute, however, nothing would ever get done.  No matter how many plans you make or how much in control you are, life is always winging it, especially, living and working on a cruise ship. Some people will say it is a "dream world".  I love sleep and dreaming. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake anyway.Read more HERE

Twain voyaged to South Africa and beyond.  In fact this quote inspired another blog post of mine when I was in the Indian Ocean on my 2011 World Cruise.

My own version of "Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain"

"You gather the idea that Mauritius was created first, and then heaven; and that heaven was copied after Mauritius". Mark Twain
Read more HERE

Rolling down the river makes me think of John Fogerty and Proud Mary- and its playing on the radio too now-cool. for real, as I drive back to St Louis. Another catchy tune is from his revival album, The River Is Waiting. 

I must do a revision of 

9 Cruises I had To Go On Before I Died

Traveling on the Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee Snake, Columbia Rivers are  now on my bucket list.