Illinois

The Nauvoo Temple

The Nauvoo Pageant

We stayed at the White House Inn




Kaylee and Katie at the nearby school playground

Daniel makes a bubble at the Children's Museum

Dave says: It was Alisha's turn to stay home as I went off with my family for a week to Illinois. The trip began by visiting the area where my grandpa grew up near Chicago and finished in the Church history filled town of Nauvoo. It was a big group of 13 with basically the entire family (minus Alisha who stayed in SLC and put in a big 20 hour week on the bike prepping for Cascade).

My job for most of the first part of the trip was to keep everyone ages 14 and under entertained while everyone ages 50+ conversed with elderly (and somewhat distant) relatives that most of us had never seen before. The kids are fun. I played a lot of Frisbee with Daniel, folded origami with Katie, told lots of made up stories to Kaylee (including that I was an ogre like Shrek), and tried to connect with Rachel who doesn't say much yet and is still trying to decide whether she likes me or not.

Part two of the trip took us clear to the other side of Illinois to the tiny town of Nauvoo. Highlights from this part of the trip include the Nauvoo Temple, the Nauvoo Pageant, and a brief tour of some Church history sites with the Gudmonson family (who is there for the summer in a pioneer bagpipe band). The Church has turned the whole town into a little pioneer village that is great for kids.

I'm not sure I saw too many others between the ages of 20 and 30 at any of the places we visited, yet despite falling well outside of the targeted demographics I was able to appreciate the story of the saints who came to Illinois with nothing, built up a flourishing city that was at the time the second largest in the state, and then left everything behind again in the face of religious persecution and headed west to Utah.