Spring Break -- Nauvoo

As long as you're going to be driving to Iowa and Illinois, you might as well make a detour and see Mt. Rushmore. On Easter. While over 200 drummers are performing a well-choreographed number. Very rousing.

Also, I must say the the Quality Inn in Rapid City, South Dakota had the best complimentary breakfast of any hotel we've ever stayed in.

This was the highlight of the trip for Bug -- getting to drive my brother's stick-shift. (And doing a good job of it.)

The weather and climate in Nauvoo was fabulous -- green, moist, and warmer than what we'd left at home. The daffodils were out, the magnolia trees in bloom. Unlike the cold mountain valley we live in, it really felt like Spring.

This was a fun photo that captured the temple and a bit of the restored town. Note the water tower to the left of the temple. Beans, our youngest, referred to these are upside-down onions. They're all across the midwest.

Perhaps the most moving experience for me of the whole trip was our time at the Carthage Jail. I'd heard of the experiences that took place there and of the mob that stormed the room where the Prophet Joseph Smith and other men were. But being in that place of martyrdom brought home the realities of what happened.

For example, the prophet and his companions were in the bedroom of the jailer and his wife because the ground-floor jail cell was deemed unsafe and because the upstairs jail cell had reached 120 degrees the previous day before. The jailer did all in his power to keep his prisoners safe until they could come to trial, even giving up his own private quarters. But that was not to be.

As we left I heard mourning doves cooing nearby. Altogether it was a sad and holy site.