American Queen

American Queen Steam Powered Riverboat, Hannibal, Missouri, USA (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1 Mark II, 12-100mm f/4; PRO lens @ 38mm; 1/ 640th sec. @ f/8; ISO 200

My wife and I entertained out of town relatives all Thanksgiving weekend and I really didn't have an opportunity to write a blog post for today.  My apologies.

Instead of a regular blog post, I thought I would post this image I made during our recent road trip.  This image was made in Hannibal, Missouri, the birthplace and home of Mark Twain, the noted 19th century author of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer and other classic American novels.

Twain was enamored by steam powered riverboats as they made their way up and down the Mississippi River, making stops at Hannibal, which is north of St. Louis.  In fact, at age 23, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Twain's real name) received his steamboat's pilot's license.  He piloted steamboats for two years until the American Civil War stopped riverboat traffic.  It was while working on the riverboats that he picked up his moniker of Mark Twain, the notation called out when the depth of the water was two fathoms.

Today, the riverboats still exist, mainly as cruise boats ferrying passengers from the upper Mississippi all the way to New Orleans.  The day we visited, the American Queen was docked at Hannibal's waterfront.

I wasn't able to capture the entire riverboat as I was blocked by a set of railroad tracks, fences, etc.  It was a beautiful early autumn day and the sky was as interesting as the riverboat itself.  So, I decided instead to capture a representative piece of it both, I think, with a bit of artistic value.  You may disagree, but that is okay.

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Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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