Cathing Up, Nauvoo Trip

For some reason my mom and sister decided that they wanted to make a quick run to Nauvoo before school started and they invited me along. For those of you who've driven it, you know it's a long drive. We also decided to swing north on the drive and hit Mount Rushmore. We left after midnight the Saturday before school started. Mom drove all night while Jen and I slept and then we took over the wheel and she passed out in the back.

Mount Rushmore was just as great as I remember but it was chilly. I wasn't too thrilled because we'd been driving all night and day when we hit the monuments so this is me with car-bed head.

We still had fun goofing off.

We weren't planning on it but we decided to swing by the Crazy Horse monument since it was right there. It was kind of expensive to get in but it was very cool. The head of Crazy Horse is bigger than the entire Mount Rushmore monument. So far they've only completed the face and they're working on the arm, hand and mane of the horse. The Lakota people want a monument that will show their great leader since we've put ours up in their home. They haven't accepted any sort of government funding on the project which is why it's taken over 50 years just to get this far. The funding for the monument come from the park entrance fee and private donations so the chances are that it's going to take another 100 years before they finish.

It was also very cold here.

This is a statue of what the monument will look like when it's finished. The actual monument is in the background.

One of the snacks we picked up at a truck stop. Between the 3 of us we ate the whole thing.

Our second night out we stayed in a hotel and made it to Carthage the next after noon. Jen is sitting in front of the window that Joseph Smith fell through after being shot.

This is the view from the courtyard where Joseph landed.

The jail is a really pretty and peaceful place even though it is where something so tragic has happened.

We made it to Nauvoo that evening but it was after everything had closed up so we just drove around and read all the plaques and visited the Smith family plot. It was really cool to visit on our own. It's kind of weird because most of historic Nauvoo belongs to the LDS church but the Red Brick Store, the Smith family cemetery, the Mansion house and the Smith homestead belong to the Church of Christ so if you want to tour any of those places during the day, you have to go through with their tours. It's really disconcerting to hear about so many familiar things from their church's perspective.

The next morning we woke up and headed back to Nauvoo to take the tours. We got to visit the Gun shop (Woot!), the Newspaper office, the Cultural Hall, the Bakery (another Woot!), the Post Office, the Brick Yard, the Blacksmith's Shop and the Family Living and Learning Center. We had a blast! It's the end of the season so we didn't have to wait to see anything and there weren't a lot of people around. Jen and I found these really pretty flowers outside the living and learning center.

As we were leaving we passed this little tiny high school that had a gigantic statue of a Viking that Jenesey just had to get a picture of. I don't know how tall the statue is but Jen is 5'3".

We ended up driving the rest of the day, all night, and finally made it to Logan around noon on Wednesday. Do the math. We left Saturday night and got back Wednesday noonish. It was a very long, very quick trip.

To top off a great trip my sweet, wonderful, amazing hubby had a bouquet of Lily's and a box of Alvey's chocolates waiting for me!

Isn't he sweet!!