Friday, Mar. 20th
   Friday morning we went to Carthage.  First, we watched a film about Joseph and some of the history of The Church.

  They have a new visitors center and it is really nice.  The jail was getting a new roof so there was work going on.  This is the back of the jail and the addition on the left is part of the living quarters of the couple who ran the jail.  The man was friendly to the saints and he and his wife took good care of the prophet and those who were jailed with him.

When you enter the back door this is the room you go into, like their living area.

 

 This is the next room, their dining area.  We were told that the jailers wife would cook for the prisoners and fed them well.

 This is where much of the cooking took place.  I found it interesting that there was a bed in this room. 

 The jailer and his wife had two little girls and they would play on the bed when mom was cooking and working in the kitchen.  The day the mob came there were a couple of shots that were fired into this area and just missed the girls on the bed.

This is the dungeon part of the jail where the prisoners were held.  It's a dark room,  You can see in the second picture where they would be chained. 

 The room was heated by this wood stove.

The day the mob came the jailer had been sent away.  There were town leaders that knew if he were there he would be killed trying to protect his prisoners.  He actually moved them out of the jail area into his bedroom, which was next door.

This is the window Joseph fell out off.  The walls of the jail are very thick, as you can see by the window sill.

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 There was no lock on the door and when Hyrum and others tried to hold the door shut this is the bullet hole that killed Hyrum.  There's also a hole on the side of the door just above the door knob.  This is the original door.  The holes had been covered with wood at one time but when it was removed the original holes were revealed.

This is the front of the jail.

 

There are rods that go through the walls and floor joices then have a large nut on each end.  These nuts can be tightened up to keep the walls straight and snug.  You can see the stars on the picture above.  The rods go both ways on the building.

 

After we got home from Carthage we babysat so Brian & Amy could go to the temple.

 

SHOOT.  I forgot to post the pictures of our cabin and where we're staying.  I didn't think about it till after we left - I didn't take pictures of inside but I think Amy did so maybe I can get those pictures from her.

Ethan & Hannah loved that swing at the end of our porch.

On Thursday, Mar. 29th we went to the 10:00 am session at the temple.  Good day to go to the temple because it was on the cold side and a little rainy.  By the time we got to the temple it wasn't raining but it was cold and windy.
   When we got there we were walking from the parking lot and there was another couple just a little way behind us.  There's a door on the side and then, of course, the big doors in front.  We thought we should go in the big doors in front but wasn't for sure so I turned around and asked them if we were suppose to go in the doors in front.  The sister laughed and said, "We're following you!"  Come to find out they are from Caldwell and have never been here either.  Well, we found our way in and it was wonderful.
  During the week there are two sessions in the morning and two sessions in the evening.  On Sat. they have a session start every hour.
  After the temple we went back to our cabin, changed and went shopping at the shops in downtown Nauvoo.  You can walk the whole downtown area.
  When Amy & Brian got here they got unloaded and settled in.  We had a birthday dinner for Brian since it's his birthday:  Elk steak (that we brought from home in dry ice), baked potatoes, broccoli & salad.  Sure is nice having a kitchen in our cabin. 

Our week in Nauvoo went sooooo fast!  We didn't have very good Wi fi connection and I didn't do very well keeping up with posting, but here goes.
WED.  March 18th
   We spent the morning touring some of the sites.  Jim was very interested in the Gun shop.  The Elder that did the tour for us was from Montana and he built his own gun of that time in history.  He was very interesting and informative.  Coming to Nauvoo at this time of the year has it's advantages.  When we tour a place we aren't rushed and most of the time we were the only ones on the tour so the missionaries took their time and we got to know them a bit.  Today we were engrossed in the tours and didn't take as many pictures.  We decided we'd go back and take more pictures.

When we went to the brick shop this is the oven in the front.  Our tour guide on this day was somewhat plain in his presentation and when we asked if we could each get a brick he told us we could only have one but we could go to the Red Brick Store and buy more.  When we went to the store we were told they didn't have any.  The brick makers usually supply the store with bricks but they hadn't received any yet.  The store is owned by the Community of Christ which long ago were know as the reorganized church.

We went to the tin shop but spaced getting any pictures.

These pictures are of the print shop.  We learned some interesting things here.  There were three sisters in the print shop and as they were giving their presentation we kept hearing things being dropped on the floor upstairs.  Finally we were told that there was a sister up there working on a quilt and apparently dropped the frame.  Nothing to be to concerned about!!

 

So the table shows how print set up happened - the beginnings.  It's all upside down and has to be proof read paragraph by paragraph very carefully because if you put a whole column together and then discover a mistake in the first paragraph it all has to be taken apart, to the mistake and start all over from there.  It was very time consuming.  So a couple of things I learned - When I was a kid my mom would tell me to mind my "p's and q's".  I never knew what that had to do with anything until we were in the print shop.  The only difference between a "p" and a "q" is the way it's turned.  Sometimes young people were typesetters and they would be reminded to "mind the p's and q's", meaning - be careful and don't screw up!

 

This picture is taken were the typeset would be put on paper. The arm in the front would be pushed back and forth and it would apply pressure that would make the print be applied clearly on the paper.

Then the paper had to be dried and there were papers hanging all over - of course I didn't take a picture of that,

Oh, the other thing - I call people "ding bats" occasionally.  That term describes the decorative things added to the type to make the paper more appealing.

There were two publications printed in the print shop:  The Times & Seasons and The Nauvoo Neighbor.

The Times & Seasons would be compared to our Ensign now and the Nauvoo Neighbor would be more like The Church News.

 

We went down to the river's edge. at the end of Parley Street.  This is where the saints crossed the river.  I was amazed at how large the Mississippi River is, although I don't think it was this big when the saints were here.

This is the ferry that took the saints, their wagons and the meager belongings they had, across the river.

 This is the point they entered the river.

 

 

This statue of Joseph and Brigham is at this site too.  We were told they often talked about the saints moving west - just not like it ended up happening.

These pictures show the underbrush and trees along the river bank.

Oh, I got a rock from the river bank.  Jim wouldn't let me get a big one!!!

I also found an oyster shell, all in tact and still connected.  Sweet.

My Nauvoo temple picture for today.

 

 





We arrived in Nauvoo late afternoon and by the time we got unloaded and went to see the temple there was a beautiful sunset over the Mississippi River.

Which made the temple look like this

 

We went down to a town called Keokuk to get some groceries and Jim got a night time picture of the temple that is really beautiful.

 

 

 

Tuesday, March 17th
   Before we left Omaha we went to Winter Quarters visitor center and the temple was just across the street.  Originally we wanted to go to the temple but it only has sessions in the evening and we weren't going to wait that long.  The visitors center was very interesting and it's just hard to imagine all that the saints went through there.

 

From Winter Quarters we went over to Council Bluffs. 

 

Some of the bridges here are pretty interesting.  I got these pictures of one of the bridges.

There was another that was really colorful. Reds & yellows, totally different shapes

but I couldn't get my camera fast enough.  Then leaving Council Bluffs I got this one.

 

We went to the tabernacle in Kanesville.

 

We saw a film on the Mormon Battalion.  They left from here and it was very interesting.

Again, hard to imagine all that they went through,

Then we went to the tabernacle and were told all about it.  The original tabernacle was built a couple blocks away from where the one is now.  It was built with cottonwood trees and there was a natural spring that ran underneath it.  The wood isn't a good building wood and rotted away.  This replica is also built out of cottonwood because the Historical Society decided it needed to be authentic.  But this one has rebar in the walls and is built on a foundation with a crawl space under the building.  In the crawl space at the end of each rebar is a jack, so to speak, that can be tightened as the wood dried out.  Cottonwood holds the moisture and that is a problem in building with it.  In the last couple of years they haven't had to tighten any of the jacks so the settling is mostly over.  About the only trees we see around here are cottonwood so that is all that was available.

The Historical Society worked with the church to rebuild it as close to the original as possible.  Then in the late 90's they sold it to the church for a dollar and the church took over all the maintenance,  which was time consuming and expensive, because of the cottonwood. 

Inside you can look closely and see where the wood rots out.  Our guide told us last year they had to replace part of the wood because of it's rotting.  In this picture you can see the rotting wood up near the top.

This is where Brigham Young was sustained as President of the Church.

This is the stage are where that was done.  The mural is of the apostles that were present -

three were missing, if I remember correctly.

There's a old organ (on the right) that looks almost exactly to the one Dan has that was Mom's.

It has been restored and is electronic - the peddles don't work anymore.

The fireplace is made of the same kind of adobe kind of material - mud and grass.

It doesn't function as a fireplace but this is what it looked like.

This is a statue of the first presidency when Brigham became President

This is one of the center posts (cottonwood tree).  Each one also has a jack under the floor too.

You can see the crack in it.  The guide said that the center of the tree is hard and sturdy so the crack won't go through.

 

 

 

DAY FIVE:  Monday, Mar 16th
   When we left Laramie it was windy and not very warm.  The temp. was suppose to be 49 degrees but it didn't feel like it.  When we stopped at a rest area near Sidney NB it was 89 degrees and really WINDY.  We took some pictures.

 There was a plaque at this rest area tell about the construction of I-80 across the state.  Apparently Nebraska was the first state to have an interstate freeway from one side of the state to the other.

Most of Nebraska is very flat and most of it is brown and dull.  Here's a little rock hill that was at the rest area. 

 

We're driving along and there is an arch over the freeway.  Jim told me to take a picture.

It's the Great Platt River Archway Monument

When we got to our motel Jim looked it up on the internet.  It is a museum and monument of the Platte River valley's role in the westward expansion (building of I-80)  It is directly over the interstate (as you can see), 3 miles east of Kearney, NB

It might be an interesting place to stop and see if there were time.  Oh well.

It was really windy all day today but very warm.  The highest temp we saw was 89