Sunshine, Smilin' On Me...

...but not for long. Tomorrow severe thunderstorms will be rolling across Iowa along our entire route. The severe weather will start around the time we are halfway across Iowa. That would make for a nasty, hazardous day. After much hemming and hawing and consulting with our Washington resident mc expert we have decided to take his advice and stay put. Thursday's weather will be fine all across Iowa. It will be a much better day to travel and let's face it, one decent motel is much the same as another when it comes to price. It means we will have one less rest day, but by giving up that day we'll be back on track on the 18th. We need to be in Denver on certain days, those being the days LeAnn is not working. So we don't have many more days between now and then for bad weather delays, but after Denver we've got some time for that. Our motel changes have been made and we can stay here in this room tomorrow and watch the thunderstorms from the safety of our nice dry room. Yes, we weenied out. So?

Doesn't this look like a nice place to hole up?



Today we visited the restored parts of Nauvoo. It's amazing! Nauvoo really was a beautiful city and that was apparent today, which was a truly spectacular day. We took a very interesting and informative wagon ride around the restored city for a tour. A percheron and a belgian pulled the wagon and we don't think either one of them was working hard. The teamster told us that there are 20 horses in their stable.



The old buildings are so carefully restored/recreated that it is hard to tell an original building from a recreation. There are people (church missionaries) inside each building to tell you about the owners and about the house and the things that would have been part of the lives of the people there or the work that took place in the building. We visited the home and workshop of John Browning, who is the man who invented the Browning rifle. It was very interesting. This happens to be a recreation of the original house, built on the original foundation. The land records and many drawings of original homes are in an archive on the site, and can be consulted.



When we visited the school, we learned that Nauvoo had contained 150 log cabins. This is one of them. The school, based on what the docent said, is an original.


At the time the Saints lived here, this land was covered with homes and other buildings. We were told that none of the trees now growing here were here in the 1850s. Apparently trees do not live that long in this climate.



The next picture was taken outside the visitor's center in "The Women's Garden" and is a statue of Joseph and Emma Smith. The last person who actually knew Joseph died not that long ago at the age of 107.



And just look at the beautiful temple on the hill!



After dinner, we went down to catch the sunset. The pictures don't quite do it justice. But I like this one a lot.



And Ray took some more pictures of the temple.





It was a good day in a good place.