Nauvoo and More

Monday: Quite an adventure! The Chicago temple is closed for cleaning. When we finally got there, luckily the cleaning people had the gate open, so we could take pictures. The adventure part is that someone put Chicago in the GPS instead of Glenview where the temple is. It took us to the right address in the wrong city which was in a less than stellar section of Chicago. I didn’t even remember to take pictures because I was helping Dan navigate the city streets. Large city streets make for the worst type of driving especially with an RV.

Tuesday: Nauvoo! We drove around town a little, and went to the temple. It was an emotional session. Three of my ancestors took out their endowments in the original temple. The statue is of Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum on the way to Carthage jail.

Wednesday: More of Nauvoo. We went to the Land Records office, and I found information on 4 of my great-great-grandparents! I can hardly wait to dig into the CD, but that will have to wait until we get home. Too bad there aren’t any streets now where their property was, or we could have driven by. They had a bagpipe band that marched all afternoon, stopping at each venue before the performances.  Our stake president was right in telling us we should go to the Nauvoo Pageant as well as Palmyra. The reader may ask which one I liked better. I liked one as much as the other. They are both spiritual experiences in different ways. The Nauvoo pageant draws the audience in—like you are there, and Palmyra has more dramatic special effects.

Thursday: The highlight was following the Trail of Hope. During the pageant weeks, they have vignettes along the way. We also saw actors portraying some of the early apostles with stories of their missions to England. We also took a carriage ride to Inspiration point. The guide told stories of the early saints along the way, very inspiring. He was wise when he said, “You won’t remember the stories you’ve heard today. Remember how you felt.” All in all a thrilling 3 days.

Friday: We drove from Nauvoo—at last on freeways—to somewhere in Missouri. We attended the St. Louis temple then went on our way. We don’t like driving in large cities with our RV, and there wasn’t anything to see on the outskirts. The St. Louis temple is bigger than the small temples we’ve been visiting, and there were more patrons. We wanted to get out of the metropolis area.  The first 2 Wal-Mart stores had No Overnight Parking signs so we kept going. Around 8:00 we finally stopped. (Okay, they also had signs, but nobody bothered us.)

Saturday: Drove to Bronson, MO. As soon as Dan plugged in the electricity, I turned on the AC. It’s hot and humid. Reminds me of Thailand. Tonight we went to the Baldknobbers show. The comedy inserts were hilarious, and the country music was great. I’m not a country music fan, but when in Rome .... While we were driving through town Sunday, we saw a little of the remaining damage from the tornado that swept through town February 29th. The town pulled together and cleaned up most of it.