When you live in a house with wheels, you can live about where you want. Our friends Steve and Jackie Duerden wanted to take a trip to Nauvoo. Steve's sister, Joyce and her husband, are serving a mission there and Carl and Ruth Jones, our double cousin are also serving there. Great time to travel and then to spend time with the relatives.
A little view of Ottumwa, Iowa.
Ruth is second from left. Below, Carl and Ruth do a song called,
Senior Moments.
After living in Chicago and traveling I-80 several times and being in Nauvoo several times and never being able to go to Ottumwa, Iowa where my Eakins' relatives lived, I asked politely if we could spend a couple of days in Iowa doing some family history work. Theron is most accommodating. We stayed in Ottumwa, Iowa, and visited Eddyville, Tama, Ormanville and a few other little towns around the area. It was a great experience for me to see where they lived, worked and died. In Ottumwa, we were able to visit the Historical Society library and gleaned some new information and validated some of my research findings.
We then traveled to Nauvoo, only about 2 hours away from Ottumwa. (Maybe my theory is correct, my relatives were in the gang who mobbed Nauvoo.) Ruth is serving in the sewing center and conducts the tour on the wagon ride. Carl works for FM and works around the city mainly doing plumbing. They both star in one of the nightly performances of Sunset and in the senior play Rendevous. The Church now has young performing missionaries (3.5 month youth calling) that performs in the Brass Band and singing and dancing. These kids are amazing and very entertaining. We strongly suggest taking your family to Nauvoo; it's a right down good time.
We were able to park the trailer a mile or so away in the Community of Christ campground and then ride our bikes everywhere we wanted - except Carthage.
This was a good get-away for us, but some days our mind was home wondering about what was happening on the build of our St. George home. I think for now, we can truthfully say, "Been there; done that." Until the next time.
We did get to stop by some Church sites on the way there and back. The first picture is Theron at Chimney Rock in Wyoming. This was a way point for the saints as they crossed the barren Wyoming prairie.
We also stopped at Haun's Mill, the site of that bloody massacre and at Far West, Missouri.
These were interesting sites, there is not much at either one but they gave us a perspective of how far the saints had to walk and where they might have settled if the people of Missouri would have left them alone. Both are in remote areas and people had to go out of their way to persecute the saints. Now, I have lots more questions of this time like - Why did the saints leave Far West and go east to Nauvoo? Why not just go west?
On our trip to Nauvoo, we stopped in Eldon, Iowa, at the famous gothic house. This makes for a really good Christmas card picture.
Melanee wanted a sandbox, so Theron invented this. At first the kids did not want their feet to touch it; then they would sit there and not move just shovel sand in the buckets; now, they throw sand everywhere. They now go everywhere in their little red wagon.
