So we are back from our trip to Nauvoo. Total distance driven: 2653 miles. Fortunately we didn't go insane from being locked up for so long in the car. But here are some of the highlights from the trip. You can also see a few photos from the trip down in the post below.
Littleton, Colorado
The town where I grew up. It was cool to go back and see everything again. I haven't been back since we moved over here right after my mission, almost 11 years ago. The house where I grew up has since been painted and had a little white picket fence put around it. I forgot how much greener it is over there than here. Been used to living in a desert for too long. We went to Black Eyed Pea, a favorite restaurant of ours. I was worried my memories had built up the place and I would be disappointed with the food, but it was just as good as I remembered it. We dropped by the Denver Temple as well (which is actually in Littleton, not Denver). Good to see my old stomping grounds, even if only for a little while.
Great Wolf Lodge, Kansas City.
The Great Wolf Lodge is a chain of hotels with indoor waterparks throughout the United States. If you stay at the hotel you get free access to the waterpark. It was a ton of fun and we got some really fun videos with our new gopro camera. We ate at Famous Daves and Emily and I shared a whole rack of ribs (I admit, I ate most of them). They had a bunch of other things you could do at the Lodge but time didn't permit us to do them all. As a side note, a company that I am working with at work had a really huge building right next to the Lodge. I couldn't get away from work even on vacation!
Independence, Liberty, Adam Ondi Ahman
We went through all of these in one day since they are all on the way to Nauvoo. They are all really special places with a great spirit there. Adam Ondi Ahman had a 17 year high of cicadas when we were there. It sounded like a million chainsaws all going at the same time. You could look at a tree and see thousands of them in just one tree. Was crazy
Nauvoo, Illinois
The destination of the trip. So many fun things here. Obviously the Nauvoo Temple was a big highlight. We did both sealings and an endowment session in the temple. While Emily and I were waiting for our names we ended up wandering down the hall north of the assembly hall on the first floor. Turns out there are a bunch of artifacts in that hall like keys from the original temple and clothes that the saints used when they were first getting their endowments! Really awesome and easy to miss since you wouldn't normally walk down that way. It was great seeing all the different places, such as the Wilford Woodruff home where our ancestor lived (my 4th great grandfather). And they had a bunch of different productions that were really well done. The first one we went to was Just Plain Anna Amanda. Lynsie and Ashley loved the girl who played Anna Amanda and ended up seeking her out wherever we went. We ended up running into her 3 or 4 times during the trip, and she was so good with the kids. Remembered both of their names and just treated them amazingly. Sunsets down on the river were of course awesome, as you can see from the pictures below. And the spirit in all of the places is great. Emily also ran into a senior couple that she taught in the MTC, which was really fun for her to be able to see them again and tell them about getting married.
The long drive home
We stopped in Winter Quarters on the way home, but other than a crazy rainstorm in the middle of wyoming there wasn't much else to see on this portion of the trip.
Overall an amazing trip, and we are really thankful to my Mom and Dad for organizing and taking us all on this trip. Such a great experience that we will always treasure.
