Day Three-- Nauvoo

We left Amana and drove for only about 3 hours to arrive on the banks of the Mississippi River. The bridge to cross in Ft Madison, Iowa was only 2 lanes wide with no room to spare. It's one of those old metalwork bridges that look like it's so corroded it might fall if too many people are on there at once. I was driving and thought it was pretty cool because you can see through the railings on the side to see the dam and the whole river. G'ma was freaked out and didn't open her eyes until we were safely in Illinois.

We arrived in Nauvoo around noon and spent the rest of the day there. We went on a carriage ride through the countryside just outside of the city where the missionaries guiding the horses told us stories about the landowners of the areas we passed. At one point, we stopped in a grove and we talked about the imporance of groves in Church history and we sang, "I am a Child of God" and I totally teared up. We went on a wagon tour around old Nauvoo, including going up Parley's street- the street everyone lined up on before crossing the Mississippi River one last time.

The rocking horse in John Taylor's house has a great story: The Taylor family left Nauvoo and had travelled for three days and their little boy wouldn't stop crying the whole time. Finally, the dad pulled the son on his knee to find out what was going on. The son said that he had to leave his horse behind and it made him sad. The dad then got on a horse, rode back to Nauvoo, got the horse, and it rode all the way to Salt Lake tied to the side of the family wagon. How cute is that?!

I'm always touched to see the graves of Joseph, Emma and Hyrum. Also, there's a memorial to all the people who died crossing the plains. I wished I remembered to ask my mom the names of our relatives who did because it wouldv'e been neat to see their names. On my mom's side of the family, both sides (g'ma and g'pa) come from Pioneer stock.

G'ma and I wore our matching "grandmother" "granddaughter" shirts and got lots of fun comments about them. I thought I'd be embarrassed about it, but it actually was sort of fun. When g'ma found out I'd made the shirts she was all impressed-- I just used iron on letters but they do look pretty fun!

In the evening, the missionaries put on a show called "Sunset by the Mississippi" or something like that. It's a cute variety show where tons of the get involved singing silly songs ("I'm my own grandpa", for example) and playing banjos and blowing into bottles; it was just a lot of good ol' fashioned fun!

After the show, we had to make our way to Keokuk, Iowa for the night. I loved the drive because the road we were on was right along the Mississippi River and in the moonlight it looked still and dark and oh, so peaceful. There were places where, no joke, the road was probably less than 5 feet away from the water's edge. It made me think of Huckleberry Finn riding along.

Keokuk is straight west of Carthage and only about 14 miles southwest of Nauvoo-- but on the Iowa side. Some people have never been on the other side of the Mississippi from where they were born but we crossed it twice in one day!