Mark Twain was, of course a most extraordinary man. I would venture to suggest that there are as many, if not more, witticisms and wisdoms quoted and attributed to Mark Twain, as to anybody in our Oxford Book of Quotations. There are illustrations of many of these all around the walls of the Visitor Centre behind his house. It made me wonder whether he had actually sat down and thought them all out and published them, or whether he had said or written them in the course of his normal writing and conversation, and others had picked up on them. He was such a capable author, editor and entrepreneur, that it is quite possible that he developed such wonderful one liners as self publicity, but wherever they came from, and however they became published, there is no doubt that most are as relevant today as they were in the late 19th century when he first wrote or uttered them. Samuel Clemens, his real name, adopted the pen name Mark Twain in about 1863. He had been an ill educated but intelligent and some would possibly say, pushy, child, and had done many menial tasks in his early years, but upon experiencing a trip on a paddlewheel river boat, he resolved to become a riverboat pilot, which he did for some years. His trips up and down the Mississippi, and his beliefs in abolitionism later brought about the stories of Tom Sawyer. It is thought that he took the name Mark Twain from a bo’sun on a river boat whose nickname it was, the term actually indicating the two fathom depth on a sounding rope used to check the depth of the river from the bow of the paddle steamers. (But of course, you all knew that and I am just being a bit patronising here for completeness sake…sorry!)
When Sam Clemens was a young man, he married a wealthy heiress, having blagged his way past her Father, who took a liking to the obviously ambitious young man. It seems reasonably fortunate that the old man died soon afterwards, since Sam and he had very differing views particularly on abolition and free philosophies. His wife inherited a large amount of money and she set about building them the family home at Nook Farm, employing an architect who used some elements of European houses, and some entirely original, to produce a house which is described as architecturally picturesque. It is a magnificent somewhat gothic style
mansion of perfect proportions, in red brick, and it was built with all modern conveniences , far ahead of its time, and had warm air ducted central heating from a central boiler in the basement, and hot and cold running water, which worked on a warm water convection filling of a tank, from the back of the great kitchen range. Sam moaned constantly to the manufacturers of the furnace that it was never working properly . It even had flushing toilets. And was one of only four houses in Boston to have the newly developed telephone, which he also moaned about, complaining that the switchboard operators were always listening in. If they only had four lines to look after, it would have been surprising if they hadn’t. The décor was done by a young designer from New York, Louis Tiffany, who later became one of the great interior design and electric light designers and of course then was the founder of the great Tiffany’s of New York, a company renowned world 
wide even today. The décor is heavy and staggering, almost grotesque, but actually, in its setting intensely beautiful. The wood, much of it carved in India, and the Tiffany designed wall coverings and stencilled ceilings and upper wall dados are just magnificent. The house is probably not exactly as Sam had it in his day; he went bankrupt after a failed business venture and they had to sell all the furniture and their possessions, although they kept the house. After they had moved from there, they did not move back. They had lost one son there and their beloved daughter died there in their absence too, and she was buried before they were able to return from New York to see her. They could not feel happy there again. The upstairs billiard room where he wrote much of his work still does have his desk in the corner and some pieces seem to have been re-discovered and replaced. They had an amazingly loyal and sometimes efficient black butler named George, who used to have arguments almost every day with Sam’s wife and he was fired on many occasions, but always stayed on as he used to say that she couldn’t actually do without him, and it seems to have been fairly true as he always performed impeccably when the many guests arrived, although when the family was at home alone, he spent much of the time playing with the children or teasing or playing pranks on them, and the rest of the time being fairly idle! It seems possible that he may have been a model for Jim, the runaway slave who befriended Tom Sawyer.The house is odd in that it is placed round the wrong way in relations to the road outside, that is the servants quarters are at the front and the family areas at the back, but this was because his wife had decided to allow the family the good views over the countryside at the back and access for all the services to be from the road at the front, which seems quite sensible when explained.
One of the many things that I certainly did not know about Mark Twain, was that he travelled quite extensively in Europe, although I believe he only came to London on one occasion. He wrote several travelogues, which I think may be interesting to read when I return, but in general, with his wit, he was pretty rude about our side of the pond, making comments concerning our living on the glories and the history of the past, but just read my blog, you old ghost, your side of the pond is pretty odd in many ways too! You’ve had to make your history, and a lot of that you have already ripped up or burned down. In your time you took virtually no notice of it, and now, thanks only to the current generation, you yourself are part of it! Our problems are that we have so damned much of it we don’t know where to put it all! Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
I did not have the time afterwards to visit the next door house of Harriet Beecher Stowe, but I have to confess, that although I know her name, and know that she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, I know little else about her, which is probably dreadful, but there it is and I apologise to the classicists amongst you. ( I am still assuming that there are some blog readers out there, but I actually only know of four of you and none of those are likely to know much more about her than I do, so I feel a little vindicated!)
From Hartford, I rode out south west, this time on the correct route, on the 84 headed as far as I could get before nightfall. Again I rode straight into bad weather before I had a chance to camp, and in increasing rain, pulled into a motel near Danbury on the western edge of Connecticut. Spirits were a bit low by this time, as over a week had gone by and I had only had two days of reasonable weather. My plans to camp were going awry and the cost of lodgings was escalating. I tried not to get despondent, and slept well, pleased to have the shower facilities at least and a comfortable enough bed, working out in my head the enormous cost if this should continue and trying to think out how long I would have to work for to pay off the VISA card bill. But eventually, I fell asleep after convincing myself that, at the very worst, with a motel every night, it would only take about four months to sort it all out again! (Actually not very accurate, but I had to accept that I was in for the whole journey now, and there was no going back on it all. I have ridden 1464 miles since I left Montreal.
On the following morning, Sunday 15th July, at 6.00o’clock, I set the Satnav for Niagara Falls. It told me I had 457 miles to ride. My itinerary had arrival there set for today, so I was a day behind due to the two day set back at the start. I was not concerned however, other than in regard to the weather which was still overcast and cloudy when looking westward, and the first part of the ride was in good weather as I entered New York State south.
The route was not really much different here from what I had seen already, following the
Interstate and then smaller U.S. Routes, through small towns with their white wooden clad houses lining each side of the road with their large gardens. The American town seems strange to and Englishman. Very few have proper town centres. One enters past a messy conglomerate of eating houses and shopping areas, MacDonalds, Dunkin’Donut,,Wendy’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken and numerous other nameless fast food diners, interspersed with a petrol station or two and places such as Walmart, Dollar General, drive “thru” pharmacies and hardware stores. Around and behind some of these are “tire and muffler” shops, selling tyres and exhausts, and paint shops, which do bodywork repairs on trucks and automobiles. Then, one comes into the town, as described above, usually successions of crossroads, or “intersections” with traffic lights and pedestrian crossing lines at each one. It is hard to know when you are in the town centre (center?) but you know when you are leaving because you go through a similar sprawl of 
corporates and small trading places until you hit open country again. Almost every town looks the same, and although they vary a little in size, they are generally very clean, bright and white, with gardens and tree lined streets, a central office area, and then out again. The fields, when they are present grow maize, or corn as it is locally called and not far away are heavily forested rolling hills.Gradually, I neared the Hudson River and crossed it, veering off at Newburgh for the 17k, a back road through towns such as Bullville, Bloomingburg, Wurtsboro and on via Monticello to White lake and on Hankins and Long Eddy. This road is through the southern tip of the Catskill Mountains, it’s twisty and forested and good to ride, with the small town interruptions for petrol and coffee stops. By noon I was nearing Binghampton. The weather was looking bad up ahead and I feared more heavy rain. It had been fine and dry, and intermittently sunny all the way so far, as the clouds stayed ahead of me, indeed my arms and legs were getting quite burned, but , then as I turned north on the 79 to by-pass Binghamton it started to drizzle. Through the woods it rained and then poured, and I got very wet in my shirt, shorts and socks. I cursed that I had not put on my rain gear. I descended from the hills to a sharp left hand bend at the bridge across the River at Chenango Forks. It was still pouring with rain, I was soaked and my helmet visor was covered in rain spots, as I turned onto the bridge and found to my horror, and with no prior warning, that the road surface of the bridge was actually nothing more solid than a heavy metal grill. Such surfaces are absolutely lethal to motorcyclists, they have no grip. It was too late to stop, the bridge was right on the turn. I rode the clutch and the throttle hard and back-braked gently to get more traction. The tyres took the grating and we juddered safely across the 50 yards or so of slippery, biker mincing, machinery. A third of any biker coming off on this bridge would have been minced (ground for American readers) beef for the fishes. (Take note Chenango County Highways department! It may make an excellent mountain road drain, and may make grip in the snow better, but it is potentially lethal to motorcyclists.) I was glad to still have three submariner’s turns left on my underpants. The experience was unnerving, and despite still having half a tank of petrol left, I pulled up at a “gas” station 200 yards after the bridge to fill up, and have a coffee and get out of the rain. But, of course, within a few minutes of stopping, and before I had finished my coffee, the sun was out again, the road steaming and, back on the bike again with 90 degree sun, I had dried out by the time I reached Whitney point at the intersection with the 81 North to Syracuse. I was hungry and pulled in for a sandwich at a café on the road side on the outskirts of Whitney Point. A bunch of bikers were pulled up on the forecourt and I pulled up a little away from them. Like so many people before, they were a friendly lot, and it was not long before one of them came over to ask me where I had come from because of the Union flag I was flying. Always a good starting point, the flag! They were the Salt City Riders. We chatted for a while as they waited to get all their group together before riding on., Just before they did so, we had a photo together, and afterwards, one of their members,
Rick, came across to ask if I would have a photo taken with him by my bike. Rick Gary, gave me his card. It seems is the co-host of a morning breakfast local TV show, called Bridge Street with Rick and Julie, which I assume is very much like the Richard and Judy show with even more adverts! He said he wanted to put it on the Thursday morning show. Personally, I have my doubts whether anybody would be remotely interested in a photograph of him with a lone biking retired English G.P., but he seemed pleased. We said good-byes and they rode off and I had my much needed pee and a sandwich.I had intended to make it to Niagara today, but after another hours riding felt really tired, and
so, when I got to Ithaca, I sat in a park to contemplate where to stay and looked up campsites on the Satnav within easy distance. There was one within 10 miles at a place called Taughannock Falls, so I set off to find it. Taughannock Falls is on the West coast of Lake Cayuga, one of the eleven, so called “Finger Lakes” which run north-south from the southern shore of Lake Ontario. They themselves are pretty much as big as any we have in The Lake district at home, so it rather puts into perspective the comparative size of what Bill Bryson called, our “Small Island”. Taughannock Falls is a small
State Park which runs up a wooded hillside from the south west shore of Lake Cayuga. At the top of the park are the falls, pretty high, but, despite what I felt was a lot of rain in the last week, with a fairly small single fall of water from the mountain valley atop. The campsite was in the woods below the falls, and I was soon setting up, using my small Microfast tent for the first time. It was an absolute cinch to do. A spiral, integral frame, sprung open a welcoming yellow inner with groundsheet over my sleeping roll. 
Four minutes later, and the outer cover was attached and pegged down. I unloaded some of the things from the bike and made a salad for supper which I had with some rather stupid fizzy cranberry drink I had got in a sudden weakness at Dollar General, and followed it with a “peach” yoghurt which had probably just about seen milk, but certainly hadn’t ever met peaches. I sat and started to write some blog. A couple drove into the slot next to me and started to set up camp. As before, very friendly. He introduced himself as Mike, and her as Sherri. Mike was an estate agent (sorry he was “in Real Estate”). Later that evening they gave me some sachets of coffee as well as making me a cup and Michael gave me a packet of “granola” a mixture of oats, and honey and Sesame seed oil with dried fruit, which he had made and which, after being baked in a slow oven is eaten as a breakfast cereal like muesli, but a lot better! I slept very well indeed in the woods that night and enjoyed my granola in the morning. They mad me another cup of coffee and gave me some more coffee sachets and another bag of granola to take with me. As yet, I have not been able to fill up my mountain stove with petrol, as the hole in the top of the flask is too small to fill from a petrol pump, so the hot coffee was welcome. Thank you Mike.Now, I have written enough here, and I really should end up with an appropriate Mark Twain comment, and when I have time to crib one from the internet, I may do so, but, at the moment, after the experience on the bridge at Chenango Forks, I think the goodbye from the bikers of The Salt City Riders is more appropriate.
“Keep the rubber side down Man!”
Best wishes,
Doc.
P.S. If any of you can get to see the web site of News Channel 9, abc at WSYR. Syracuse, which is at http://www.bridgestreet@9wsyr.com/, you may see me on the telly! Wow! Fame at last1
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