Road Trip Day 2: Saturday

when we woke up this morning, the air was thick with moisture. we had stayed the night at a hotel that sat along the mississippi river. very, very humid. we all showered up, ate our packed yogurt and bagels for breakfast, and headed out. we really had such a beautiful drive today. for most of the way, we drove along the river, and then finally across. we just had to stop and take a "quick" family picture near all the mississippi lilly pads. we turned on an old country road, hopped out, and made sure none of the kids fell in. whew, and they didn't. after our little photo shoot, we continued on towards nauvoo, il. nauvoo was actually our target town yesterday, but since we fell behind, meh. it was such a cool little town though. we drove down main street oohing and aahing over the quaint country shops. and then suddenly, the bright beautiful temple just seemed to pop out of nowhere. we stopped and walked along the temple grounds reading some of the history behind it. we also drove down the hill to old town nauvoo. we visited the grave sites of joseph smith, hyrum, emma, his parents, and other family members. it was actually quite sobering. i have to admit, rather ashamedly, that i had never really given much time to researching church history before. i have read the biography of joseph smith jr. told by his mother. but, other than that, nothing. but being here and reading their stories, they seemed to come alive and i realized these were real people with real hardships, trials, triumphs, joy, sorrow, etc.

we went out of our way to visit carthage jail next, where joseph smith and his brother, hyrum had been shot and killed. again, a very great and humbling experience. i am so glad we took the time to stop and do a mini church history tour. with all of the walking and sweating in the hot humid air, we built up an appetite and just had to stop at a place called porky's. good bbg, and they even had frogs legs on the menu. i wasn't feeling that adventurous though.

we had taken up so much of our day around nauvoo, that when we arrived in independence, missouri it was dark. we drove up to the lds visitor center at 9pm....just as it was closing. we did get to see the massive church of christ "temple" across the street though. we didn't walk in, but we did hear that it is like a huge chapel with an auditorium. on the outside, it looks like a hershey's kiss wrapped in it's foil cover.

while we were driving out of independence, sam had a huge hankering for some bbq that he had seen on the travel channel. we typed in the address, and raced there as fast as we could, only to find that it had just closed up. luckily, before sam could get too put out, we spotted a similar joint with a similar menu just across the street. hallelujah!  he ordered his burnt ends bbq, it was pretty darn good. and all was right with the world. the kids were done sitting, and we were done driving for the night. it was a pretty awesome day.