Pilgrimage to Nauvoo

One of our favorite places to visit is Nauvoo, Illinois, an incredible place of beauty and history and spiritual refreshment. The city served as headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for a brief period in the early 1840s and over the past half century has been restored to allow modern visitors to imagine and experience and feel what it must have been like to be there when Joseph and Emma and thousands of others of our spiritual forebears walked its well-planned streets. Today a magnificent temple of the Lord overlooks the city and the wide sweep of the Mississippi River as it bends around the city, reminiscent of the first temple started by the Prophet Joseph and finished under the direction of Brother Brigham, his prophetic successor.

Through the years members of our family have made various pilgrimages to Nauvoo and Carthage and the kindred historical sites scatted across northern and western Missouri and the pioneer trail that headed westward across Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming to the Great Basin in the Rocky Mountains that today is Utah. The best way to experience these sites is a road trip. This account of our trip in May 2007 is adapted from an account originally published in the May 21, 2007, issue of the Family Journal. For some of the travelers in our party, those who had recently married into our family, it was a first time to experience this trip.

On Friday evening, May 4, we left on our grand adventure to the Midwest. Talmage, Louise, Paul, Eliza, and Peter traveled in our minivan. Chris, Camilla, Sam, Claudia, and I traveled in a rented minivan. The rental was our son-in-law Robert Hodson’s Mother’s Day gift to Claudia. Camilla had graduated that morning from the University of Utah with a bachelor’s degree in teaching French. More than 7,000 graduates received de­grees. President Thomas S. Monson, an alumnus of the University, was given an honorary doctor’s degree and was the commencement speaker.

It was raining as we left Bountiful, and rained or snowed off and on all the way to Rawlins, Wyoming, where we spent the night in two adjoin­ing rooms in the Trave­Lodge.

There was snow all over the ground when we woke up Saturday morning, but the roads were clear. We continued east on I-80 through the rest of Wyoming and into Nebraska. In the mountains between Laramie and Cheyenne, we drove through a blizzard, and that was pretty scary.

Somewhere near the Wyoming–Nebraska border, we suddenly came upon a stretch of highway where hail had covered the road for a mile or so, and we saw all kinds of cars off the road, a couple upside down. And that was pretty scary too.

At Kimball, Nebraska, we stopped for lunch at a Runza drive-in, which are dotted across Nebraska and the fringes of neighboring states, famous for their Runza burgers. We kept en­countering thunder­storms off and on all across Nebraska with threats of tornado warn­ings nearby. Just before we reached Lincoln the rains dumped down so hard that our windshield wipers on their fastest speed weren’t enough to allow us to see the road. The freeway traffic slowed to about 30 miles per hour.

At Lincoln we exited I–80 and took Nebraska highway 2 heading southeast toward Nebraska City, where we crossed the Missouri River for the first time into Iowa. After a few miles, we entered Mis­souri, where we stopped for supper at a Subway in Rock Port. We arrived in Kansas City about 9:30 or 10:00, where we stayed with Jim and Arlette Fedor. Jim used to live in our ward in Bountiful and now works in Kansas City as a graphics artist or designer or some such thing for Hallmark. Arlette works for the U.S. Postal Service as a mail carrier.

The GPS unit our son-in-law Cade Hoff had loaned us, which Mom nicknamed Helen, was very helpful in getting us to unknown destinations, although a few times it tried to lead us astray.

We attended church with the Fedors Sunday morning. It was the first time we had ever heard announced in a sacrament meeting what to do if tornado sirens went off during church. We were supposed to gather in the north hallway. We thought that was going to be one crowded hall­way with a whole ward huddled in it.

In the late afternoon we visited the visitors’ center at the temple site in Independence. The heavy rains continued. Then we drove to Liberty and visited the visitors’ center at the Liberty Jail. That is always a moving experience and increases our appreciation for what the Prophet Joseph Smith had to suffer there.

We had a delightful stay at the Fedors' place and greatly appreciated their hospitality.

On Monday morning we returned to Independence to visit the Community of Christ temple. The building is interesting, but it surely has a different spirit than our Church sites. We then headed north to Far West and visited the temple site there. We tried to continue north on the same road, but a few miles north Shoal Creek had overflowed its banks and completely covered the road as a result of the rains all weekend. So we had to backtrack south and further east to travel on to Adam-ondi-Ahman.

At Adam-ondi-Ahman we encoun­tered a turtle that tried to terrorize Eliza.

Adam-ondi-Ahman is a beautiful, peaceful place. After visiting the sites where scenes from the beginning of the earth occurred and other events from the ending of the earth will yet occur, we drove to James­port, where we ate at an Amish restaurant that was quite good. We bought two pies, an apple and a gooseberry to eat when we were in Nauvoo. It was the first time any of us had ever had gooseberry, and we decided we didn’t like it all that much, although it was tolerable if eaten with vanilla ice cream on top of it.

After we crossed over the Mississippi River into Illinois, we drove the fourteen miles up the scenic river road to Nauvoo as the sun was setting off to the west. The Nauvoo Illinois Temple was very impres­sive as we drove into town. We had a room in the Nauvoo Inn and Suites that accommodated all ten of us. That evening we watched the first game of the Utah Jazz and Golden State Warriors on the TV in our motel room. The Jazz won.

On Tuesday morning we began our visit to Nauvoo with a horse-drawn wagon tour of the historic sites. That gave us a good overview of what to see. This was the first time that Louise, Chris, or Paul had ever been to Nauvoo or to any of the other Church history sites we were see­ing on the trip.

The sites we saw on Tuesday included the garden with the women’s statues, the Scovill Bakery, the Family Living Center, the Cultural Hall, the blacksmith shop, and the brick-making place. In the evening all of us (except Chris, Camilla, and Sam) went to see “Rendezvous in Nauvoo,” put on in the Cultural Hall by the missionary couples in Nauvoo.

After the show, we walked down the Trail of Hope as the sun was setting over the Mississippi. From earlier visits to Nauvoo, we remember this street down to the bank of the Mississippi River being called the Trail of Tears because of the Nauvoo Saints' lining up along this street as they waited to be ferried across the river to Iowa as they were forced from their beautiful homes while it was still winter.

Back in our motel we watched the movie Second-Hand Lion that Talmage and Louise had brought on a DVD.

Wednesday morning Mom and I went through a session in the Nauvoo Temple. David Wright, who used to work with me at Church headquarters, is the recorder of the temple, and he took us up into the bell tower after the session. Mom only went half way up. I went all the way up, where I could see a gorgeous, panoramic view in all directions, including west across the Mississippi into Iowa, and east across the prairie fields of western Illinois. At noon Talmage, Louise, Chris, Camilla, Paul, Eliza, and I did a session, and Mom stayed in the motel with Sam and Peter. We did not see David this time, and the others did not get the tour of the rest of the temple. Afterward we got lunch at Zions Mercan­tile.

That afternoon we visited the Brown­ing home and gun shop, the post office, John Taylor’s home and print shop, and the drug store. We ate dinner at the Thyme and Seasons restaurant in our motel. We took pictures of the temple and watched game 2 of the Jazz–Warriors series. The Jazz won again.

Thursday morning we checked out of our room and visited the Smith family cemetery, the Prophet Joseph’s Red Brick Store, the Seventies Hall, the school, took a carriage ride to Inspiration Point, and ended up at the Land and Records Office, where Paul found information about ancestors who had lived in Nauvoo.

Thursday afternoon we drove to Carthage and visited the jail there where the Prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum were martyred. We ate a late lunch at the nearby Dairy Queen and then drove across the state of Iowa to Council Bluffs, where we stayed in a Quality Inn and Suites. What took the pioneers months to cross Iowa in the late winter and early spring of 1846, after they were forced to leave Nauvoo, took us only hours by car.

Friday morning Talmage, Louise, Chris, Camilla, Paul, and Eliza went through a session in the Winter Quarters Nebraska Temple. Mom and I tended Sam and Peter and arrived at the temple about the time they finished their session. We went through the Winter Quarters Visitors’ Center and then crossed the Missouri River back over to the Iowa side to visit the Kanes­ville Tabernacle in Council Bluffs, where Brigham Young was first sustained as President of the Church.

We ate at another Runza and then spent the next six or seven hours driving across Nebraska to Scottsbluff. We stayed in a Comfort Inn and got a late supper from a Sonic drive-in, one of the few places we could find still open. About twenty miles before arriving in Scottsbluff, we saw Chimney Rock, an important landmark along the pioneer trail. It was lit up with floodlights so we could see it in the dark.

Saturday morning we visited Scott’s Bluff National Monument. The Oregon Trail, the California Trail, the Mormon Trail, and the Pony Express all passed through this area. We then drove to Casper, Wyoming, where we stopped for lunch at a JB’s restaurant. We drove another hour and came to Independence Rock, another important landmark along the pioneer trail. Everyone (except Mom and Sam) climbed to the top. We then went a few miles further and stopped at the Mormon Handcart Visitors’ Center, where we saw Devil’s Gate and Martin’s Cove. Everyone (except Mom and Sam) took handcarts and went up to the cove. A rattlesnake terrorized Eliza.

Saturday night we arrived again at Rawlins, where we had stayed the first night of the trip, and stayed in a dump of a motel, an old, dirty, bug-infested Econo­Lodge in the wrong part of town. Actual­ly, we decided everywhere in Rawlins was the wrong part of town. We ordered in pizza from the local Pizza Hut for a late supper.

We arose early Sunday morning, which was Mother’s Day, and got out of town as quickly as we could, even before the motel opened its free breakfast. Four hours later we arrived in Bountiful.

This account outlines basically what we did and saw. It does not capture the feelings we had or the associ­ations we enjoyed or the things we learned. From my perspective, it was one of the nicest vacations we’ve ever taken.

The trip was over, but the memories will linger for a long, long time.