Nauvoo: Day 1

This post, or rather series of posts, is LONG over due. If your really interested in reading it all, more power to you! These next few posts about Nauvoo are more for me to remember everything that happened...except that it was a MONTH AGO! So I need to get this written down pronto. So if you're in for the long haul of this week long trip, let's get started.

We left the lovely state of Utah around 530 in the morning and began this lovely trek to Nauvoo-a 19 hour trip we had decided to split up into 2 days. The destination on this first leg of the trip was Omaha, NE. Everything started without a hitch, until we started driving up Parley's canyon. This was the lovely view we had.

I was a little nervous to say the least. A traffic jam, up hill, driving a small little civic with only a 4 cylinder engine. Luckily, it only lasted about a mile or so then it was smooth sailings.  Caitlin was pretty much drugged out the entire drive on Dramamine. Poor thing gets so carsick and I could not find the "less drowsy" kind of Dramamine.

We got to Wyoming, and immediately set the cruise control to 5 mph over and I could NOT wait to get out of there. If you're wondering why, read the first part of the Yellowstone trip and you will understand my paranoia for Wyoming and their highway patrol officers. I made the comment to Dan after we had crossed state lines into Nebraska that I did not see a single police officer through the entire state! It was so crazy windy through all of Wyoming and Nebraska. Not my favorite at all.

So like I said, we drove through Wyoming, and made it into Nebraska!! My Grampa made sure to tell us a few days before to look for mile marker 1/Exit 1 for Kimball Nebraska. When he and my uncle were driving out to Cleveland, they had a tire blow out right there at mile marker 1. Long story short, he told us to take a picture as we drove by.

I was looking forward to driving through Nebraska to see all the corn fields! That is all Dan talks about whenever Nebraska comes up in conversation. He sold there one summer and he loved it. Well...there was no corn to speak up. Not even planted yet! I was so disappointed. The fields haven't even been plowed since last season. We did have this lovely view to drive into.

Fortunately, the storm was not bad at all and had little to no rain coming down. When we got into Omaha though, the clouds were so dense!!! We could not see the sky! And it was super cold! THAT I was not prepared for. It was freezing!!! And wet. We stayed at a Super 8 that night and lucky for us, the heater worked.

This was a super cool bridge we saw driving through Nebraska. Huge, bright, and colorful. Love it.

In the morning when we were leaving Omaha, we could not even see the sun because the cloud cover was so thick. It was pretty depressing to say the least. We crossed into Iowa and the state sign, you know that whole "welcome to blah blah blah...," well in Iowa it's on the freeway! I missed it. I was ticked-it had been my goal to get pictures of all the state signs (besides Wyoming...hate it). It literally took me the entire trip to finally get a picture of the stupid Iowa sign.

Iowa did redeem itself though. Iowa in a nutshell: hilly, green, farmland, beautiful. That's it. Now you've been to Iowa. I loved it though. There were huge barns and farm homes everywhere, but with so much space still in between the different homes. It was picturesque, like the kind of farms that get pictured in calendars. Anyway, it was love, and if it wasn't so far away from Arizona, I would consider moving there.

One of the highlights on this trip was seeing the Mississippi River. It's something I've always wanted to see. It did not disappoint.

This was right where we started to cross the river at Burlington. Caitlin and I both were so stoked to see it that Dan slowed down so we could take a million and a half pictures. There was no one else around, so the slow moving civic driving across the bridge was not a safety hazard! We drove through a few little towns before we got to Nauvoo, and it felt like you were getting transported back through time. The homes are old, haven't been restored on the outside and the towns have probably less than 500 people living in them. There was something serene about it though, and it almost put a quiet peace over the entire area.

We got to Nauvoo, checked into the hotel, and waited for everyone else to show up. When my grandparents arrived, we drove over to town and stopped at the temple and drove around the town a bit. We stopped every 5 minutes to get more pictures of the temple from different views.

It is a gorgeous view though, from all places. We drove down Parley Street which empties into the Mississippi River, and I stepped into the river! It was cold! But, I've been in the Mississippi. One more thing off the bucket list.

There was a huge rain storm heading in, and I have it on good authority that when it rains out there, it comes down in sheets. We headed back to the condo and crashed for the night.

This statue depicts the brothers beginning that fateful journey to Carthage. Not far from this location by the temple, Joseph, traveling by horseback, turned towards the unfinished temple and said, "This is the loveliest place and the best people under the heavens; little do they know the trails that await them."

End of day 1 :]

Next up: Day 2-lots of houses, the brick yard, and meeting Elder Hatch!