Nauvoo or Bust

Kaitlin had to dump the sand from her shoes.

On Saturday we started out on our two day journey to Nauvoo, Illinois.

Our first stop was to pick up Kaitlin from Trek.  Every four years our local church group does a pioneer handcart re-enactment.  Kaitlin was assigned to be a "big sister" to a family of nine kids and two parents called "Ma" and "Pa".  They all loaded their gear onto a handcart and over three days pulled it nearly 30 miles through the sand and sage brush.  She slept under the stars and ate broth and rice.

'Selfies' in the van.

We met the handcarts at the end of the trail when the kids were just eating lunch and loading on buses to come home. Instead of getting on a bus, Kaitlin got into our van.  She was so happy to see us, and so excited to climb into an air-conditioned van. She was filthy from head to foot, and spent the first while wiping herself  down, leaving odd black dirt stripes down her arms and legs.  She thought trek was a great experience and she shared many with us over the next eight hours of driving as we headed east across WY and NB.

WY Museum

Jared: Are we still in Askaban?
Dad: Do you mean Nebraska?

We slept in a bit at the hotel and took our time getting breakfast before hitting the road for our last leg.  We pulled into our Nauvoo Condo around 6pm.  Now we are settling in and getting acquainted with our new little home away from home.

A newspaper article came out about the pageant and the families that participate in it.  You can read it here. 

Nebraska had lots of windmills. This one was right next to our hotel.

This was a scary little bridge that we had to pay $2 to get across the Mississippi.  It reminded me of our Footloose bridge.  The bridge was the theme of Footloose - broken bridges, building bridges and crossing the bridges of our lives.  As we drove across this bridge we were crossing a bridge figuratively to new growth and adventure.