Day Three: Nauvoo

We slept in a little this morning. 7:30 am. Whoop-de-doo. Had a great nights sleep, though. For once. The breakfast was amazing, biscuits and gravy, bacon, scrambled eggs, the works. Jacqueline wasn't too excited about it all, she was fascinated by the adjacent arcade in the lobby. So I opened the door to let her in, went to grab a cinnamon bun for Grant and came back to the door to find it locked. Yep, Jacqui locked herself in the arcade. The maintenance guy wasn't in for the day yet, so the front desk ladies had a huge ring of keys and started trying each . . . individual . . . key. After about 20 minutes, we located the right one.

After that excitement, we started the day. We drove to Nauvoo and began at the Red Brick Store. Then to Blacksmith's shop where they made a little mini horseshoe and since it was Grant's birthday, he got it!! The tinsmith's, post office, Brigham Young's house, John Taylor's house and everything in between. I dropped Mom off at the temple for a session and took the kids to Pioneer Pastimes, a place with all sorts of period games, toys, dress-up and a little cabin to play pioneer in. They dressed up and played all afternoon.

As we drove back into Keokuk, the town we're staying in that's about 20 miles from Nauvoo, we noticed some impressive thunderheads hovering over our area. As we crossed the bridge over the Mississippi from Illinois to Iowa; big, fat drops of rain started falling. We pulled into the hotel parking lot and it really started pouring. Then, it turned into hail the size of large TicTacs. Yuck. Oh, did I mention that yesterday I got a chip in my windshield? Yeah, not fun. I was calling around to try and get it fixed, but apparently, you need sunshine to cure the resin that fills the chip. Huh?

We decided to go down to WalMart and pick up a small birthday present for Grant (since it IS his birthday today.) The rain went from pouring to sheeting. Thunder, lightning, winds and rain as heavy as if you were standing in a shower. We made a mad dash into the Wendy's to eat and we looked like drowned cats. Mom's shirt was as wet as if she had just pulled it out of the wash. Actually, it was probably wetter because the washer wrings most of the water out so that it's not dripping. We ate and then the thunderstorm subsided. Whew. We made it through the storm. So, it's on to Columbus, Ohio tomorrow morning.