A Church History trip and more!

We had a wonderful driving vacation that took us on journey over 3000 miles. We left on May 3rd and returned on the 12th.

Our first stop on this great trip was the Mormon Handcart Historic Site of Martin's Cove, where the Martin handcart group suffered terribly, before they were rescued and taken into Salt Lake City. In the summer months, the church helps thousands, mostly youth, do handcart treks to give them a taste of what the pioneers had to deal with on their journey.
When we were there, it was very windy and quite cold. It was maybe in the high 30's (Fahrenheit). This would have been warm to the pioneers! They got stuck in a lingering blizzard with temps often well below zero for about three weeks. To make things worse, they were starving. They had rationed out their food to almost nothing per day, and they didn't have warm clothing to protect them either. Lots of people died on this crossing of the prairie, and it must have been just awful. I think that I would have rather died than continue on in that dreadful cold.
This big crack in the mountain below isn't the way they came but they used it as a land mark that they were going in the right direction. It is called Devil's Gate.
Our next stop was at Devils Tower in Northeastern Wyoming.
Here's a picture of it from a distance --

It looks like my thumb is missing...
Ever since the movie, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," we have wanted to see this place. It's really pretty cool! Way big too! It took us about an hour to hike around the base -- although we stopped about a hundred times to take pictures.
Then, the next, and very impressive place that we stopped was Mount Rushmore. We had heard people say that it was actually smaller than they had imagined, but that's not how we saw it. These schnazolas were BIG! We were amazed!
Again, it was a really pretty cold day. We were here the first week of May, and although it was sunny, it was sure windy and cold!
There were actually workmen up on top, cleaning things up. We could hear them yelling to each other and see them throwing weeds and debris off the top.

I was curious about why they didn't carve nostrils for these great men. Maybe that would be too tricky!!

We drove through the "Bad Lands" National Park of South Dakota the day after we left Mt. Rushmore. Sue had no idea what the badlands was, or what it looked like. She was pretty impressed. They are certainly low on vegetation, but high on geology and color. It's actually has a similar feel as does the Grand Canyon.

We enjoyed the drive through the scenic by-way.

We stopped now and then to see anything that looked interesting as we drove. It looks like someone was looking out the window to see if we were obeying the "Don't feed the wildlife" signs.
As we were driving through South Dakota, we saw sign after sign, about a place called "Walls Drug". They made it sound so interesting that we had to stop. They had a soda fountain and small cafe and sold everything from t-shirts to post cards and cowboy gear to candles and sun glasses. They had some fun decor as well. The picture below shows the fun we had there. This place vaguely reminded me of Orvil Jackson's Drug store in Eagle, Idaho when I was growing up.
We stopped at the Church History site called Winter Quarters at Council Bluffs, Iowa. This was where Nancy Walker Alexander died. She was Dave's great grandfather's first wife. The sister missionaries at the visitor's center were really helpful in helping us find her unmarked grave. It's in the Mormon Cemetery right next to the Council Bluffs Temple.

In the picture below, Dave and I are standing right to the left of where she was buried.

This statue depicts the hard times that the saints had as they were forced from one temporary home to another in cold weather and unfortunate circumstances.
We had a good day here. Besides visiting the Mormon Trail Center near Omaha, Nebraska and the Kanesville Tabernacle in Council Bluffs, Iowa where Brigham Young was sustained as the second president of the church. We were also told to check out the Bronze Statues of the pioneers, in Omaha, Nebraska. They were incredible and so life-like! A little larger than life-size......pretty amazing!


We traveled on to Nauvoo, Illinois on Friday, May 7th. This was the main goal of our trip! There was much to see. The first thing you see as you get into Nauvoo is the temple! It was very interesting. The sun-stones and moon-stones are so unique and unusual.

The first thing we did was to go to the Visitor's Center. They had us sit down and watch a movie about all the things we'd see in Nauvoo, and then we went on a carriage ride around the whole "Historic Nauvoo" site.

This is the "Mansion House" that Joseph Smith built as a hotel for important visitors that came to Nauvoo.

This statue is in the Visitor's Center. I'd never seen a picture of it before. It's a little different than the typical "first vision" art work you often see.
I liked this colorful picture of Joseph Smith in his Nauvoo Legion uniform. It was in the basement of a shop we went into
The Nauvoo missionaries wear period clothing, and tell about their location and what function it played in the time of Joseph and Emma Smith and the church members around 1839 to1846.
A barge/boat similar to this was used to ferry the wagons across the Mississippi.
We got our Nauvoo brick. It was interesting to hear about the brick making process.
One place we visited in Nauvoo was the Land and Records office where we got information on Horace Martin Alexander (Dave's great grandfather). They were able to show is exactly the area that he had in Nauvoo which turned out to be one of the four acres where the current visitor's center is located (see photo below). There is currently this white house used by the site missionaries on the lot. He also had smaller parcels of land up east of the temple.
The Mississippi River that flows around the beautiful city of Nauvoo was very slow and calm. They put a dam in just downriver from Nauvoo in the early 1900s which has raised the water level some.

From Nauvoo we drove south and west through Missouri seeing the country that the saints had to travel when they were driven out of Missouri. Our goal for the day was to get to Independence to stay the night. On the way we saw a couple of other interesting church sites. The first was Adam Ondi-Ahman (see below).
According to Joseph Smith, Adam Ondi-Ahman is where Adam and Eve first dwelt when they left the Garden of Eden. Three years before his death, Adam called his posterity together, blessed them, and the Lord appeared unto them.
Following our visit to Adam Ondi-Ahman, we drove north a ways and visited the location of Far West. Settled by members of the church in 1836, Far West became the commercial and ecclesiastical center of the Church, as well as the county seat. As members of the Church continued to gather in Far West and surrounding towns, local Missourians began to fear the growing population and its influence. Differences in religion and political views and many other factors led to discord between the two groups. Local mobs began harassing outlying Latter-day Saint settlements, forcing the Saints to consolidate into Far West. It was from here that the Saints were finally driven out of when they went to Nauvoo.
After staying the night in Independence, Missouri we visited the Independence visitors center and the Temple of the Community of Christ formerly known as the Reorganized LDS church.
After Independence, we visited Liberty Missouri where the famous Liberty Jail is located. It was in Liberty Jail where where the Prophet Joseph Smith spent approximately five months awaiting trial. While there he received three revelations that are recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants. Following our time in Missouri we drove to Salina, Kansas where we spent the night. As we were arriving in Salina we hit a very strong thunder shower. The rain was so heavy that the fastest speeds on our wipers didn't make it any easier to see out the windshield.
On our way home we were able to stop in the Denver area and visit the place we lived for about 10 years before going to Saudi Arabia. Castle Rock, Colorado was a small quiet town in 1983 when we moved there from the Denver suburbs. It was an easy 20 minute commute into the Denver Tech Center where Dave worked for Tenneco Oil Company. We loved living there. The photo above is a shot of the Castle Rock Mountain from near the yard of our home while we lived there. It looks very good and they have dome a good job taking care of the "Rock". Castle Rock Town however is not longer the quaint little town we knew. It has grown and grown to where we hardly recognized things anymore. We kind of lost any longing we may have had to move back to the place where our family has such fond memories. It is still a pretty place but there are just too many people.


The night we stayed in Denver it snowed two inches! Remember, this is the 12th of May. We thought about staying an extra day because of the bad roads but decided we would chance it. It turned out that the roads were wet but not too dangerous and we made it back to our beautiful home in American Fork without any problems.

It was a great trip which we will always remember.