Nauvoo Vacation - Last entry

Gideon at the edge of the Mississippi River

The Summary ...

THURSDAY 8/3/2007

· Kyler felt sick. Ran a low grade fever off & on throughout the day. Yay for Tylenol.
· 8:30am – We gathered our family and some of the Allen’s kids and went to the “Trail of Hope” which is the east end of Parley Street that leads to the Mississippi River. When the pioneers were forced out of Nauvoo, they lined their wagons up on Parley Street, waiting their turn to cross the Mississippi, whether by ferry or by crossing the frozen river. Cast members from pageant presented journal entries of various pioneers and their last moments in Nauvoo. The hymn “Come, Let Us Anew” has taken on new meaning to me now.

This is a ferry like the ones used by the pioneers to cross the Mississippi.


At the edge of the Mississippi River after viewing "Trail of Hope."

Gideon is holding a lily pad and Tori is holding a lily pad flower.

Once we reached the Mississippi River, we took off our shoes and waded in the water. The lily pads and their flowers are huge! Some, a foot across or more!
· There is a pioneer memorial board at the Mississippi’s edge that lists over 2,000 names of those who left Nauvoo but died along the trail. Our ancestor Albert Miner is on the list. He is the son-in-law to Edmund Durfee.
· We return to the Allen’s house to pack up.
· I make one last, quick stop at the Land & Records Office for last details.
· We drive through northern Missouri towards Bethany and see LOTS OF CORN & SOY BEAN FIELDS, but no fast food places for lunch! We finally come to a Subway Sandwich shop in Unionville. In Bethany we stop for a quick visit with Gma Susie’s friends the Johnsons whom she knew back in San Jose 40 years ago.
· 4pm – We arrived at Adam-Ondi-Ahman … the reverent feeling there was awe inspiring.
· 6pm – We arrived at Liberty Jail … gives new meaning to “let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly” (D&C 121:45-46)
· 8pm – We arrived at the Visitor’s Center in Independence … the only church owned visitor’s center without a temple.
· 10pm – We get a hotel, a bit of a complicated situation since there was a bikers’ convention in town.

FRIDAY 8/4/2007

· 9am - We leave for St. Louis; Jerry is excited to be driving on freeway and not highways through podunksvilles. We are TIRED of seeing LOTS of corn & soybean fields, but should be grateful – We saw more greenery in a week in the Midwest than we see in a year in AZ! We crossed the Missouri River for 1st time. (We crossed the Mississippi River 4 times during our trip.)
· 2:30pm (CDT) - Our flights take off on time! Jerry and the boys have a layover in Denver. The girls and I change planes in Houston. Gma Vickie & Gma Susie fly to Las Vegas together. Jerry & the boys’ plane had to wait out a storm in Denver, so they arrived in Phoenix 30 min late. Gma Susie’s plane to San Jose had to turn back to Vegas due to a flap problem on the wing. She arrived in San Jose finally, about 8:30pm (PDT).
· Tio Eric picks up the tired Newitts at the Phoenix airport. We have dinner at Cathy’s then head home.

The Details...

THURSDAY 8/3/2007

After driving through the northern portion of Missouri, we finally arrived at Adam-Ondi-Ahman around 4 pm. The valley was green. The trees were lush along the distant river that ran through the area. We visited two different hillsides. The reverent feeling there was awe inspiring. It calmed my spirit and filled my soul with a profound, reverent peace. I hope to never forget it.

At the entrance to Adam-Ondi-Ahman.

Overlooking the valley.

Our next stop was at 6 pm in Liberty, Missouri, to see one of the jails where Joseph & Hyrum Smith and their companions spent about 5 months incarcerated. It was here that the Prophet Joseph received 2 powerful and touching revelations on dealing with adversity (D&C 121, 122). As we saw the jail and understood its purposeful construction, and saw the conditions that these men lived in during the harsh winter, the scripture to “let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly” (D&C 121:45-46) took on new meaning to me. To have positive, virtuous thoughts even in these dire circumstances was possible with faith.

At Liberty Jail. The cross section of the jail is housed in a Visitors' Center.

At 8 pm we arrived at the Visitor’s Center in Independence … the only church owned visitor’s center without a temple. We enjoyed the dramatized history that we were able to see and hear. The kids enjoyed the children’s pioneer play area.

We flew home Friday afternoon from St. Louis, Missouri. It was a great trip. The kids, especially Kyler, are asking when we can go again. It was an incredible and inspirational trip.

For Anyone Going to Visit Nauvoo

Lessons Learned

There are some things I wish I’d done differently and advice I’d give someone visiting Nauvoo. The main issue was not enough time.

We should have flown into Kansas City, and drove to Nauvoo while doing the MO sites. I really regret not having more time in Independence (we had about 25 mins). Feasibly, you could try to fly in on a Saturday as early as possible, spend the rest of the day in Independence and Liberty (depending on how early the flight in was) and get a hotel. Then you could leave early Sunday to see Adam-Ondi-Ahman, and Far West on the drive to Nauvoo. On Sunday, some of the Nauvoo sites are open, including the old visitor’s center. You’ll probably want to stay in Nauvoo through at least Friday, if not Saturday. Ideally, we’d have driven down the Mississippi on the last day and flown out of St Louis. Without stopping it’s about a 4 hour drive.

Having a cooler full of ice and water bottles was a necessity. Hit a grocery store the 1^st day and buy a flat of water, a styrofoam cooler and ice. Healthy snacks are also highly valued, since many days we ended up eating meals late in order to see sites. Buy ice and more snacks at mini-marts throughout the journey.

In Nauvoo, I liked doing the wagon ride and old visitor’s center first. After a day or tow, it would have been nice to do the carriage ride and the ox cart ride, but we didn’t have time. There are no vignettes, demonstrations or other shows that I’d pass up on; as a matter of fact, there were some we couldn’t see because they weren’t shown on the days we were there or we didn’t have time (detect a theme?). You need to get tickets for the some of the shows at the visitor’s center a day or two in advance.

Note: for endowments and baptisms, you need reservations, but not for sealings.

Taking Stephanie down to the river (at the end of Parley street there were a couple of benches on the other side of the stage) to watch the sunset was one of my favorite moments. Dinner at the Hotel Nauvoo was nice. The buffet was good. Bring bug repellant.

Jerika had a great idea for souvenirs for the boys. We bought them wooden rubber-band shotguns in one of the gift shops and took it to the pre-pageant activities where we got them branded with the pageant logo.

Don’t underestimate how much time you may spend in the lands and records office. If you do some genealogy work *before you go so you have a list of names of ancestors that may have lived in Nauvoo at the time, you’ll come home with a ton of information about them. You could spend a couple hours there gathering information. When you are done, they burn it to a CD for you to take home.

Speaking of time, leave enough time every day for journal writing, and personal time. I’d suggest every morning.

Of course, you have to see the pageant. The night or morning before you are going to see the pageant, take tape and papers with your names on them to the audience area and reserve seats. I’d say shoot for the back of the front center section. You can get too close and be careening your neck too much. I would like to have seen the pageant twice.

It was nice to visit the old cemetery knowing what relatives we had that died there. It was a good, slow down, rest and ponder moment. Visiting the grave sites of Joseph, Emma and Hyrum was also one of those moments.

There is a very nice campground in Nauvoo, but it may be full of pageant performers.

The ride to St Louis: On the way back you could visit Hannibal, MO early enough in the day to do the Twain (train) ride (closed at 4:00 pm) and maybe the museum. I’m not sure I’d do the cave again. The Mark Twain historical portion was nice and the tour was entertaining, but I’d rate the cave itself quite low as far as caves go. There were very few geologically intriguing aspects. Maybe if it weren’t so costly it would be a definite. In St Louis, if there’s time, you could see the arches. We didn’t have time.

Before you go

Visit nauvoopageantcousins.org before you go (it is available there as well in case you can’t do it at home) and put in as much information as you can to find out which of the characters from the pageant you are related to. Print it out and bring it to the pre-show activities. You can get pics with the performers, plus it’s nice to watch for those characters in the performance.

Visit the Historic Nauvoo web page and look at the calendar and schedule. It’s a good idea to generally plan your week beforehand so you don’t miss things. Leave time for rest, pondering and journal writing. Note that some of the sites are only open in the afternoons.

*See note about doing some genealogy work before you go. Print out the information and bring it along.