Hello again!! Welcome to today's edition of the Great and Amazing 2019 Davis Family summer vacation/church history trip. Today, we will join the Davis family in Nauvoo, Illinois. We begin our story on a beautiful, sunny Friday. The date is.....
7 JUNE 2019
Let's take a quick consultation with my journal and take a sneaky peek at the things we had planned and wanted to do for the day:
Carthage Jail (we did that)
"The Promise" 75 minute musical (we did that. It was amazing!!)
We got up bright and early, ate breakfast, loaded up into the D.S.S.V. and made our journey over to Carthage to tour the Carthage Jail.
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| We are large enough to be our very own tour group! |
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| It was very beautiful and peaceful there. |
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| This is the room where Joseph and Hyrum were killed. |
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| We all got to sit and listen to the sister missionaries tell about what took place on that fateful day. |
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| And Jacen can't take a picture without making a silly face. |
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| I don't think Natalie wanted her picture taken. Sorry Natalie! |
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| The window that Joseph went through |
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| Looking out of the window |
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| The bullet hole in the door. Hard to hold back tears. |
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| The top window is the window he went out of. |
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| You could really feel the spirit here. It was a very somber experience to actually stand in the place where the Prophet Joseph and his brother, Hyrum were martyred. |
After leaving Carthage, we made our way back to Nauvoo to do some more touring around.....
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| Downtown Historic Nauvoo |
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| They have a band that goes around the town playing music. They stopped at the park and we had a good time talking with them. If you look in the background, you can see a white van, not our van. Remember, we are in the black D.S.S.V. |
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| We got to tour a lot of the houses and shops. We learned how the saints lived, worked, and played. |
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| They even have gardens and tend to them. It truly is like stepping back into time. Off in the distance, you can see the top of the temple. |
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| It really is a beautiful temple. |
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| That fenced in area is not a cemetery. It's an excavation site. There were a few of them around. I think it's really cool how they are finding and restoring all of this history. |
Welcome to episode two of, "What in the world did the kids take a picture of now?" I do have to say, I really love seeing the things that they thought were photo worthy.....
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| I love that you can see all of our reflections. |
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| um......okay? |
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| Waiting for the 75 minute musical, "The Promise" to start. |
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| And piling into the car. |
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| And a drawing that one of the girls drew. |
So, the musical, "The Promise" was AMAZING!! We all loved it a lot!! Afterwards, we were able to meet with the actors and have some photo ops.
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| They were such adorable sister missionaries. |
It would not be a proper vacation without souvenir shopping. So, we made our way up to the main street in Nauvoo and looked around at all of the shops...... Some of these pictures could fall into the category of, "Why did the kids take a picture of that?"
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| Such a cool dude! |
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| um.....why? |
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| Main street in Nauvoo |
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| Souvenir option |
Then to wrap up our shopping nicely, we took a lovely carriage ride around the temple and main street.
To round off our day, we went to see, "The Trail of Hope." To understand the Trail of Hope, one must understand some history. The saints were driven out of Nauvoo and had to cross the Mississippi River. There is a main road that goes right down to the river, and it is this road that the saints used to leave Nauvoo. The actor/missionaries line up at certain points along the road, all the way down to the river. As you walk the road, and come to each stopping point, the actor/missionaries, acting as if they were the person, read excerpts from journal entries about the exodus. It was a very sacred and somber experience and one that I will never forget. What I can tell you though, was that the flies are AWFUL!! No amount of bug spray can keep them away. I have to give great kudos to those poor actors who had to stay in character while the flies were pestering them. One poor guy had a fly go in for a landing in his mouth....and he did not break character even then.
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| Starting point for the Trail of Hope |
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| Goofing off while we wait for our turn. |
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| Desperately trying to protect ourselves from those stinking flies!!! |
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| The band was playing music. |
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| And a beautiful sunset on the Mississippi. |
All in all, it was a full day....full of things to do, full of fun, and full of the spirit.
Well then, what do my journal entries say?
Interesting things I have learned: The saints had to endure a lot more than I have to
Thoughts and impressions I have had: The spirit was very strong at Carthage Jail. It was a very sombring experience.
What was my favorite part? Why? It's hard to decide between Carthage and "The Promise." The feelings of peace and the spirit I felt.
And the fun journal prompts:
Today's date is: 7 June 2019
Today we visited: Carthage & Nauvoo
Today's weather: Sunny
How I feel today: Cool
What I saw today: Carthage Jail & Nauvoo
My favorite part of the day: Carthage Jail
I liked: Meeting all of the missionaries.
I did not like: ALL OF THE FLIES!!
It was funny when: When we were shopping and came across the I 💓 Mormon Boys & I 💓 Mormon girls T-shirts.
Are you all ready for our time warp to 2020?
7 JUNE 2020
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| I did construction work |
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| Kids jumped on the trampoline |
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| Kitten-kattens |
Okay, okay, I don't have any pictures for this day either and I cheated by drawing something.....but at least it's something. And I have "fabulous" artistic skilzzzzz. 😂😂😂😂😂😂 I do promise that I have pictures from June 2020, really I do......just not any on this particular day,
or the one before that, and the one before that. I don't have any pictures for tomorrow or the day after that, or the day after that, or the day after that.....But, I will have some pictures to share soon. Besides, 2019 is so much more interesting than 2020.
I shall see you all again tomorrow!!
