Our trip across America

An account of our family's 1993 trip across the United States to take Rachael to attend Peace College in Raleigh, North Carolina. We traveled through fifteen states as part of our fourteen-day vacation.

Friday, July 23, 1993
Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska

We left Bountiful at 6:00 this morn­ing in Kermit, our 1993 Dodge Grand Caravan, and headed east up through Parleys Canyon on Inter­state 80 toward Wyoming. It was early dawn, a light rain was falling, and Mom and the six children (Rachael, a few weeks short of her 18th birthday; Talmage, 16; Anna, 14; Camilla, 12; Eliza, 10; and Mary, 8) were all soon asleep again as I drove through the mountains of eastern Utah and western Wyoming.

We had originally planned to leave about 8:00 last night, but after we had had our final family prayer and went out to hook up the fold-up camping trailer to the car, our prayers were immediately answered. (Claudia would later refer to what happened as our spiritual non-experience, an occasion where a proper course of action was laid out before us, in answer to prayer, by what we could not get to happen.) The lights on the trailer were not working. After spend­ing a couple hours working on them—with the help of Grandpa Lange, Delbert Strasser, Delbert’s son-in-law Matt Johnson, and Colin Van Orman—and discovering in the process that the tires on the rented trailer were nearly bald, we decided not to haul the trailer with us after all.

That was a right decision, but it left Anna and Camilla stranded with the bishopric up at the Texaco station on the west end of Kamas, where we were supposed to rendezvous at 9:30. Anna and Camilla had been to girls camp since Tuesday morning and were being brought back down from Camp Piuta a day early to meet us to leave on the trip. Mom tried finding out the number of the gas sta­tion, but the information operator needed an actual name. She tried calling the Kamas police, but there was no answer. Grandma remem­bered that Grandpa had a cousin who lived somewhere up in the Kamas area, so she called her and finally got the number of what turned out to be a pay phone at the service station. Claudia talked to Bishop Gail Anger by about 10:00, after they had been waiting half an hour, and told him to bring the girls on home.

By the time we reached Little America this morning, out in the mid­dle of nowhere in southwestern Wyoming, the skies were gray, and it was cold and blustery. Rather than stopping for breakfast at a rest stop along the freeway, we decided to eat in the restaurant at Little America after we filled the car with gas. Talmage and Rachael took turns driving throughout the day we spent heading east along Interstate 80. By late afternoon we reached Cheyenne, the capital of Wyoming, where we refueled both ourselves and the car.

By early evening we reached the Nebraska border and stopped to snap a picture of the entrance sign. I was the only one in the car who had ever been in Nebraska before.

We continued driving, enjoy­ing the pleasant scenery of western Nebraska until it turned dark and started to rain again. Much of our drive across Nebraska paralleled the general routes of the Oregon Trail (which this year is cele­brating its 150th anniversary) and the Mormon Trail as they followed the Platte River through Nebraska.

I had created travel activity books for each family member and had distributed them this morning after breakfast at Little America. Among the activities in the book was a page called Oregon Trail Bingo, which contained various things the children could see along the way as we traveled through Nebraska—such as North Platte, I-76, spacious skies, a bridge crossing the Platte River, exit 199, Hastings, Kearney, big red barn, Lexington, Lincoln, cows out­standing in their fields, Platte River, Grand Island, Sidney, welcome to Nebraska, amber waves of grain, tractor in a field, Cheyenne County, Kimball, I-80, Omaha, exit 300, Central Time Zone, and Ogallala. Mary was the first one to complete an entire line on the bingo card.

Also, a part of the travel activity books were journal pages for each day of the trip, where the children could each list the states we visited, any interesting things about their visit, and other stuff they wanted to remember about each day.

On the first day of the trip, several of the children com­mented about the nice bathrooms at each of the rest stops we visited along the way. Tal­mage, for example, wrote: "Nifty bathrooms (with wall murals of cow­boys and horses and things in one of them in Wyoming). One rest room at this one rest stop in Wyoming was round (kind of like a circle). The restrooms in Nebraska have foot pedals to flush with instead of hand levers."

Nebraska is a long state, and we reminded the child­ren of how the several hours it would take us to cross this por­tion of the country paled in comparison to the several weeks and months it took the pioneers to cross it.

I drove after dark until I was too tired to go any further and pulled over at a rest stop and slept for three hours. It had been raining hard, and we were glad we had de­cided not to camp along the way. The thunder and lightening—coupled with the discomfort of trying to sleep seated in a car—awoke me, so I drove another 40 miles to the next rest stop, where I slept for another two hours, before continuing the drive in the early pre-dawn hours of Satur­day. The rains came down hard all night, and the lightening filled the entire sky like a flashbulb on a giant camera. Daylight was returning by the time we drove past Lincoln, the capital of Nebraska, and on to the Omaha area.

Saturday, July 24
Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois

Today is Pioneer Day in Utah. Appropriately, hav­ing spent much of the night following the routes of the Mormon and Oregon trails, we arrived at Winter Quarters (now Florence), Nebraska, before breakfast and just after the night's rains stopped and the skies cleared, to visit the pioneer cemetery and visitors' center at Winter Quarters. By evening we would reach Nauvoo, Illinois, where the Mormon pioneer trek originally began.

Winter Quarters was a temporary settlement built on Indian lands on the west bank of the Missouri River. It was sur­veyed in October 1846 and laid out in a grid with streets and blocks and individual lots. The houses ranged from two-story brick homes to sod huts. The settlement housed almost 4,000 Latter-day Saints by December 1846.

Upon orders from government officials concerned about settle­ment on Indian lands, the Saints vacated Winter Quarters in 1848 to go either to the Salt Lake Valley or back east across the river.

On January 14, 1847, President Brigham Young received at Winter Quarters the revelation now known as section 136 of the Doctrine and Covenants, which contained "the Word and Will of the Lord concern­ing the Camp of Israel in their journeyings to the West" (D&C 136:1).

There was a peaceful, sacred feel­ing in the lovely little hillside cemetery where many of the pioneers were laid to rest. Historians tell us that some 2,000 Latter-day Saints died near these settlements on both sides of the river between June 1846 and October 1848—with still more on the pioneer trail as it snaked its way west from here. What a terrible price was paid for the legacy of faith that we now so comfortably enjoy!

Eliza wrote of our visit to Winter Quarters: "We went to this place. We saw a 20-minute video, then we went to a grave yard. It was weird! They listed all the names of people who died and were buried there. There were two Elizas. One was 3 years old and the other 27 years old. We saw a wagon and a handcart and a log cabin. (Oh, this was all in Nebraska.)"

Talmage added, "We went to Winter Quarters and saw a little cabin, wagon, and handcart. More importantly, we saw the memorial for all the people who died at Winter Quarters for their faith. It was heart touching. We also saw a 20-minute film about Winter Quarters and the Mormon pioneers."

After we finished breakfast on the picnic tables at the visitors' center, we got back on Interstate 680 and im­medi­ately crossed the Mormon Bridge over the Missouri River and entered Iowa. In nearby Council Bluffs, on the Iowa side of the river, there had also been pioneer settle­ments during the early years of the exodus to Utah, home to another 8,000 Saints. It was in this area that the Mormon Battalion left on its historic trek to Santa Fe and San Diego, and in December 1847 the First Presidency was reorganized for the first time and Brigham Young became the second President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In western Iowa, still near the flooding Missouri River, we traveled along Interstates 680 and 29 a short distance until we re­joined Interstate 80, which we followed past Des Moines, the capital of Iowa. There had been massive flooding through­out much of Iowa. It is the only state in the Midwest in which every single county had been declared a disaster area.

Mary wrote on the second day: "In the bathrooms [at rest stops] the water is yellow and icky in Iowa. . . . The flooding in Iowa is getting better and better; some places aren't that much flooded. In Iowa the fields are green and the trees are green. It's totally pretty here. Iowa is heaven."

Eliza added, "Well, Iowa is the prettiest place I've seen so far. It's kind of sad that Iowa is flooded. You can't drink water in some towns. They buy it."

Talmage wrote, "There is quite a bit of flooding all over the place. One part was about a foot or two away from the highway (I-80) at one of its low points in Nebraska. The water looks kind of sick in some places of Iowa. Also in Iowa we saw two or three completely flooded soft­ball fields."

Near Iowa City we turned south and followed U.S. high­way 218 to Ft. Madison, where we tried to cross the Mis­sis­sippi River. We had been told the bridge was open there, but it was not, so we bought ice cream cones instead and then continued a few miles further south to Keokuk, where we could cross the swollen river from Iowa into Illinois.

We were awed by our first views of the mighty Mississippi, Old Man River, the Father of Waters. The Keokuk bridge normally handles four lanes of traffic, but only two were open. On the east end of the bridge a temporary dirt roadway had been built up to allow cars to cross. Water was lapping at the edge of the roadway. The next morning, after another night's storms, the bridge was closed again and half the Nauvoo Ward were unable to get to their Sunday meetings.

After arriving in Nauvoo and securing lodging for two nights at the Nauvoo Family Motel, Mom and I went to the visitors' center to plan what we wanted to do during our short stay in Nauvoo. We learned a musical program put on by the young missionaries had just started in one of the theaters, so we hurried back to the motel and gathered up all the children and returned to the visitors' center to watch the rest of the enjoyable production.

Sunday, July 25
Illinois

Today was the 100th anniversary of Katherine Lee Bates's writing of the song "America the Beautiful," which we sang as the opening hymn in sacrament meeting in the Nauvoo Ward. What appropri­ate timing, we thought, as we were discovering for ourselves how beauti­ful America really is.

Oh, beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

Oh, beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine ev’ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.

Oh, beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev’ry gain divine.

Oh, beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

After attending sacrament meeting, we went to the visitors' center and watched an introductory film about Nauvoo, which served as headquar­ters of the Church from 1839, when the exiled Saints were being driven from Missouri, until 1846, when the Saints were again being driven from their homes, this time under the leadership of Brigham Young.

The Prophet Joseph Smith named the Saints' new home Nauvoo, which he said meant "a beautiful location, a place of rest," which we surely felt it was. It was here among all the lovely trees that Mom first noticed the sound of all the many birds.

We also toured the garden of women's statues just outside the visitors' center. The various statues, set in a lovely garden, depict the varied seasons and roles in a woman's life. An appropriate setting since it was here in Nauvoo on March 17, 1842, that the Prophet Joseph Smith turned the key that organized the sisters of the Church into the female Relief Society with Emma Smith as its first president.

Our motel room had a kitchen in it, along with two bed­rooms and a living room, so we returned there to prepare and eat our midday meal. We then returned to the historic part of Nauvoo on the flats along the river. We first visited the Cultural Hall and a bakery, then took a carriage tour of the restored part of the city. We then worked our way through a number of the other lovely restored buildings (including such places as the print shop, John Taylor's home, the tin­smith shop, the Browning gunsmith shop, the black­smith shop, the brick­yard, and the Heber C. Kimball home), re­ceiving an ample history lesson in each one.

Talmage wrote of today's activi­ties: "We visited the old Nauvoo historical sites and learned about the various homes and shops. We each got a prairie diamond, which is a horse­shoe nail bent into a round ring shape. It was used by pioneer men to give to their fiancees as a wedding ring because they couldn't get real diamond rings during their journey to Salt Lake City.

"We also got a Nauvoo souvenir brick and drove along the Road of Tears. It was really called Parley Street and was the road everyone traveled along in their wagons to get on the ferry to take them across the Mississippi. Many tears were shed along this road."

Our final stop this afternoon was at the Smith family cemetery right along the banks of a very full Mississippi River, where sandbags kept the lapping water from reaching the burial site and the nearby buildings now owned by the RLDS church. Mary wanted to climb the little fence that surrounded the cemetery and go stick her hands or feet in the water of the river. Mom told her she couldn't because of all the filth and disease that might be in the flood waters.

We ran out of time and energy long before we finished see­ing every­thing we wanted to see. The build­ings close at 6:00 in the evening, at which time we returned to our motel to eat dinner.

A fortunate result for us from all the flooding throughout the Mid­west was a lack of crowds at Nauvoo while we were there. We did not have to wait in line at any site we visited. The City of Joseph pageant, which would have been presented the week after our visit, was canceled.

In the evening we visited the site where the Nauvoo Temple once stood. The original cornerstones are still visible to give an idea of the size of the 128-foot by 88-foot edifice. An im­posing structure built on the summit of a bluff overlooking the lower part of the city and the river, the temple was visible from a distance of twenty miles. Started in the fall of 1840, it was not completed until May 1846, nearly two years after the Prophet Joseph's death and after many of the Saints had started leaving the city. Baptisms for the dead were per­formed in the basement level of the temple as early as November 1841, long before its completion. The well used to provide the water is still on the site. Even though the temple was not yet completed, it was often filled to capacity beginning in December 1845 by members coming for their ordi­nances during the months just before the exodus. A fire consumed the building in October 1848, and a tornado later knocked down the walls that were still standing.

Monday, July 26
Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky

This morning we checked out of our motel and visited a few more sites in Nauvoo—first the brick yard, where Mom talked the people into giving her more souvenir bricks to share with Grandma and Grandpa, Shauna Christensen, and Cláudia’s parents and grand­parents (the Amatos and Puertas) in Brazil. We also stopped at the Seventies Hall, which we wanted to visit yesterday but simply ran out of time to see. The Seventies Hall served as one of the earliest mis­sionary training centers in the Church. (The guide actually called it the first, but it seems that the School of the Prophets in the upper floor of the Whitney Store in Kirtland could also reasonably qualify as the first MTC.)

We then drove to nearby Carthage to visit the Carthage Jail, where on June 27, 1844, the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were assassinated.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Nauvoo, but our brief stop at the Carthage Jail was especially memorable—to actually stand in the very room where the Prophet and the Patriarch lived their last moments before sealing their testimonies with their blood.

Eliza wrote in her journal, "We saw the room where they stayed in. It was dark and hot. (We got air conditioned.) It was awful. I saw the actual window Joseph jumped or fell out of."

From Carthage we followed U.S. highway 136 in a straight line across the state of Illinois until we came to Interstate 74, which we would follow the rest of the way across Illinois (past Champaign, Urbana, and Danville) before entering Indiana and the eastern time zone. We stopped at Mahomet, Illinois, to get gas and eat a late lunch at a Subway.

We continued to follow Interstate 74 across Indiana, past Indian­apolis (the state capital), and on toward Cincinnati. Indiana, like the other states we had been passing through, was very green with rolling farmland interspersed with forests, lakes, and rivers. Shortly after we entered Ohio, we took Interstate 275 (a belt route around the Cincin­nati area) and entered back into Indiana for a moment and then into Kentucky and on to the home of Mike and Kathy Bertasso at 106 Stanbery Ridge in Ft. Thomas, Kentucky. The detailed directions Kathy had given Mom on the phone a few days earlier were very help­ful, and I was able to drive right to their house.

I knew Mike Bertasso in the mission field in Brazil, and both Mom and I had become acquainted with Mike and Kathy as young marrieds at BYU back in the early 1970s. The children of the two families first met each other back in July 1988 at the Bertassos' home in Villa Park, California. The Bertassos have seven children: David, who left the MTC exactly a week earlier for the Germany Berlin Mission; Stephen, 18, who will be leaving shortly for BYU; Nathan, 15 or 16; Matthew, 14, who was away during the few days we were visiting; Carrie, 12; Diana, 10; and Andrew, age 7.

Tuesday, July 27
Kentucky, Ohio

Today we had a quiet, restful day visiting with the Bertassos in their lovely home. Mom, Rachael, and I went with Kathy Bertasso to visit Mike's office, which is right on the river front facing downtown Cincin­nati on the other side of the Ohio River. We went to his office to fax something to Peace College that Rebecca had faxed from Salt Lake City. The item we faxed, an answer to our prayers, was an offer of employment from Peace College for Rachael to work as an aide in the language department.

During the afternoon the children all went swimming at the local YMCA. In the evening we all went to watch the Young Women play the Young Men a game of softball. Talmage, Anna, and Camilla all par­ticipated. On our way back to the Bertassos' house, we drove through part of Cincinnati and therefore looped through a little bit of Ohio.

Kathy Bertasso had recently had surgery and was still recovering from that, so she had to take things a little slower.

Wednesday, July 28
Kentucky, Ohio

We arose very early this morning and about 5:00 left Cincinnati and on Interstate 71 drove diagonally in a north­eastern direction from the very bottom of Ohio to the very top, reaching the Kirtland area about 9:00. We ate our breakfast on picnic tables behind the visitors' center, which was located in the Newell K. Whitney home.

The headquarters of the Church were located in Kirtland from 1831 until 1838. Karl Ricks Anderson relates in Joseph Smith's Kirtland, a fascinat­ing book I reread just before our trip, about Joseph and Emma's arrival from New York:

"On about February 1, 1831, a sleigh stopped in front of the Gilbert and Whitney store. A man jumped out and went into the store, where he ap­proached Newel Whitney, extended his hand, and called him by name. Newel, be­wildered, re­spond­ed, 'I could not call you by name as you have me.' 'I am Joseph the Prophet,' the stranger said. 'You have prayed me here, now what do you want of me?'

"Newel's grandson, Orson F. Whitney, later wrote: 'By what power did this remarkable man, Joseph Smith, recognize one whom he had never be­fore seen in the flesh? It was because Joseph Smith was a seer, a choice seer; he had actually seen Newel K. Whitney upon his knees, hundreds of miles away, pray­ing for his coming to Kirtland.'

"Elizabeth Whitney described the Prophet’s arrival as 'the ful­fillment of the vision we had seen of a cloud as of glory resting upon our house.' Joseph wrote that he and his wife 'lived in the family of Brother Whitney several weeks, and received every kindness and attention which could be ex­pected, and especially from Sister Whitney.'

"A glorious new era had begun in Kirtland" (Joseph Smith's Kirtland, 8–9).

After eating our breakfast, we took a tour of the Newell K. Whitney store across the street, where Joseph Smith first met the Whitneys when he arrived in Kirtland from New York in 1831. Later Joseph and Emma lived in a por­tion of the store. In an up­stairs room, where the School of the Prophets met, the Prophet received a number of revelations that are now pub­lished in the Doctrine and Covenants, including the Law of the Church (section 42) and the Word of Wisdom (section 89). A special spirit was present in these hallowed places.

We then went to visit the Kirtland Temple, which today is owned by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints [several years after this visit, on April 6, 2001, the Reorganized Church changed its name to the Community of Christ]. It was special to be in the temple, knowing of the many pentecostal events experienced there during the early months of 1836, including the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ and the ancient prophets Moses, Elias, and Elijah (as recounted in section 110 of the Doctrine and Covenants).

Our guide was a short, kindly man who had lived nearly all his life, since he was three years old, in the Kirtland area. It was amazing, however, what a different slant the RLDS guide put on the same events that we see from such a different per­spective.

Talmage wrote of his visit to the temple, the first constructed by the Saints in this dispensation: "We visited the Whitney store and the Kirtland Temple. It was neat and I felt the Spirit of God while in the temple. I felt it just as was promised in Joseph Smith’s dedicatory prayer. It was a warm, peaceful feeling and a sense of being in a sacred place where many miracles happened and even the Lord and Jesus appeared."

Section 109 of the Doctrine and Covenants contains the Prophet Joseph Smith’s inspired prayer of dedication at the Kirtland Temple on March 27, 1836. An estimated 1,000 people attended the dedica­tion service. A repeat dedication was held on March 31. It was a time of great rejoicing. Dedicatory anthems were sung, including a new hymn written for the occasion, "The Spirit of God." This anthem has been sung at every temple dedication since that time.

The Spirit of God like a fire is burning!
The latter-day glory begins to come forth;
The visions and blessings of old are returning,
And angels are coming to visit the earth.

The Lord is extending the Saints’ understanding,
Restoring their judges and all as at first.
The knowledge and power of God are expanding;
The veil o’er the earth is beginning to burst.

We’ll call in our solemn assemblies in spirit,
To spread forth the kingdom of heaven abroad,
That we through our faith may begin to inherit
The visions and blessings and glories of God.

How blessed the day when the lamb and the lion
Shall lie down together without any ire,
And Ephraim be crowned with his blessing in Zion,
As Jesus descends with his chariot of fire!

We’ll sing and we’ll shout with the armies of heaven,
Hosanna, hosanna to God and the Lamb!
Let glory to them in the highest be given,
Henceforth and forever, Amen and amen!

In his dedicatory prayer, the Prophet Joseph pled with the Lord for a visible manifestation of His divine presence. Many recorded the fulfillment of that prayer. Eliza R. Snow wrote, "The ceremonies of that dedication may be rehearsed, but no mortal language can des­cribe the heavenly manifestations of that memorable day. Angels appeared to some, while a sense of divine presence was realized by all present, and each heart was filled with joy inexpressible and full of glory" (from the article on the Kirtland Temple, in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 2:798).

"The climax of the spiritual out­pouring occurred on 3 April 1836, when the Savior appeared in the Kirt­land Temple to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery and said, 'For behold I have accepted this house, and my name shall be here; and I will manifest myself to my people in mercy in this house' (D&C 110:7). Then three other personages of former dis­pensations, or eras, came and restored keys of the priest­hood: Moses restored the keys of the gather­ing of Israel; Elias re­stored keys of the gospel of Abraham; and Elijah restored the keys of sealing. These keys represent three different aspects of the mission of the Church" (Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 2:799).

The revelation to build the temple in Kirtland came to the Prophet Joseph Smith in early 1831, but the cornerstone was not laid until July 23, 1833. The temple was completed in the early spring of 1836 and was abandoned within two years as the faithful Saints fled Kirt­land for western Missouri.

The children have a fifth-great-grandfather, Charles Dixon (1766–1854), who received his patriarchal blessing in the Kirtland Temple on November 15, 1837, from Joseph Smith Sr., first Patriarch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

After seeing the temple, we returned to the intersection where the Whitney store is located and had some ice cream cones in the little ice cream shop across the street from the store. It was a very hot day, the thermometer in our car registering 98 degrees at one point. It was also very humid.

We learned in Kirtland that in the 1830s it cost 25 cents, nearly a half day's wage, to mail a letter. Often mail was sent without post­age, and the person receiving it had to pay any postage due before he could get the letter from the postmaster. The Prophet Joseph often received letters that had been sent COD, and some of this mail con­tained insults.

"It is a common occurrence," the Prophet once wrote, "and I am sub­jected to a great deal of expense by those whom I know nothing about, only that they are destitute of good manners; for if people wish to be benefitted with infor­mation from me, common respect and good breeding would dictate them to pay the post­age on their letters" (History of the Church, 2:325).

The problem continued until the Prophet placed a notice in the Church news­paper: "I wish to inform my friends and all others, abroad, that whenever they wish to address me thro’ the Post Office, they will be kind enough to pay the postage on the same. My friends will excuse me in this mat­ter, as I am will­ing to pay postage on letters to hear from them; but am un­willing to pay for in­sults and menaces,—con­sequently, must refuse all, un­paid” (Messenger and Advocate, Dec. 5, 1835, 2:240).

We drove a few miles further east along Interstate 90 and went to an area near Painesville to a beach on Lake Erie, where the kids walked down to the water and played for a while. We then ate our lunch on a picnic table. Even in the shade of trees, it was hot and muggy and thoroughly un­comfortable.

Talmage adds, "We went to Lake Erie and played in the water and skipped rocks. I taught Camilla and Eliza how. My watch is still dead [from going swimming with the Bertassos the previous day], and I think it might stay that way with water inside ruining it.

"One restroom in an Ohio rest stop on I-71 had automatic faucets where the water would go on or off depending on whether your hands are under it or not."

We then drove south on state highway 44 about 30 miles until we came to the John Johnson Farm home and visitors' center near Hiram, Ohio. We had been hot and tired and still had a four-hour drive back to Cincinnati ahead of us and almost decided not to go to the Johnson farm, but we are very glad we did. The older sister, who was at the farm house with her husband as a full-time missionary, gave us a very special tour of the original home. Joseph and Emma had also lived here for a time, and one of the rooms upstairs was designated as the revelation room. A number of reve­lations were re­ceived here, in­cluding the glorious vision of the Father and the Son and the three degrees of glory (now recorded in section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants). This was indeed hallowed ground.

It was also in this spot where the Prophet Joseph was dragged out of bed one night, tarred and feathered and left for dead in the woods, and then after the Johnsons and others spent the night cleaning him up, he preached a sermon from the front steps of the farm house the next morning on the Sabbath. As a result of this same incident, un­fortunately, one of the Murdock twins died that Joseph and Emma had adopted after their own twins died.

We then drove down to Interstate 76, which took us past Akron, until we intersected with Interstate 71 again and re­turned past Columbus, the capital of Ohio, and on to Cincinnati and the Bertassos' home across the river in Kentucky. We were back by 9:00, a long but very rewarding and enjoyable day.

Thursday, July 29
Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina

We took our time getting up and packed this morning. We visited a lot, and by about noon pulled out of the Bertassos' driveway and headed south through Kentucky on Interstate 75 until we came to Lexington, where we stopped for gas and ate lunch at a Hardee's.

Every time we approached busy traffic or were changing freeways or getting on or off freeways, I would often turn off the radio or the tape that was playing at the time. Some­one asked why I did that, and I said I had to sneak up on the freeway. Talmage wrote of one such incident, "We had to sneak up on the freeway by keeping Rachael's Peter, Paul, and Mary tape off till we were on. This was right after we ate at Hardee's in Lexington, Kentucky. Anna tried to make a lot of noise so we couldn't sneak up on it, but she failed."

After lunch we traveled east on Interstate 64 through eastern Kentucky and into West Virginia, the Mountain State, very aptly named because that is about all we saw as we drove through the state. Even Charleston, the state capital, seemed to be just sprinkled among the mountainous hills. As we left Charleston, Interstates 64 and 77 became a toll road, and we had to stop at three toll plazas to pay $1.25 each.

We had a little scare as we crossed from West Virginia into Virginia because we thought we were going to run out of gas, and there were no towns or gas stations anywhere in sight. We were able to get some in a little place called Bastien, Virginia.

Talmage wrote of this experience: "At 6:55 ET we found ourselves dangerously low on fuel. Our elec­tronic miles till empty thingy said we only had 4 miles left when we made it to a Citgo station in Bastien, Virginia. At first we couldn't find any. When we did find a gas station in West Gap, it was closed and was the only one there."

When we reached the North Carolina border about dusk, nearing we thought the end of our journey, we stopped to allow Rachael to take a picture of the sign. Little did we realize we still had several hours to go across North Carolina till we reached Raleigh.

We drove by Mt. Airy, North Carolina, which was the town of Mayberry on the old Andy Griffith show on tele­vision. The nearby Pilot Mountain was Mt. Pilot on the show.

A little later, as we were passing Winston-Salem, we could smell the strong smell of tobacco, which we later learned was being harvested just then.

We reached Raleigh just before 11:00 p.m. and checked into the Comfort Inn just north of town on U.S. high­way 1. We picked this particular motel so the kids could each receive a free Choiceasaurus (a little plastic green dinosaur). As it turned out, this was the only motel we stayed in during the entire trip that we made advance reservations for. We were very tired from a long day of traveling and were glad to be able to go to sleep in real beds.

Friday, July 30
North Carolina

This morning I called Bob Lee, the Institute director here in Raleigh (whom I had talked with on the phone two previous times), and told him we were in town. Brother Lee agreed to come over to our motel to meet us and take us on a tour of the Raleigh area. He took us into down­town Raleigh first and showed us where the Peace College campus was located. He then took us to North Carolina State Univer­sity, where the Institute classes meet in the student union building. He then took us by the meetinghouse where the two Cary wards meet and then to his house in Cary to meet his wife and a few of their eight children. After visiting a while and having some lemonade, we returned to our motel.

Then Mom, Rachael, and I went over to Peace College while the others stayed to swim in the motel pool. During the summer months, unfortunately, the offices at Peace College close at 12:30 on Friday after­noons. It was about 2:00, so no one was on campus except a kindly security guard, who very graciously gave us our own private tour of the buildings on campus. It was obvious how much he cared for the girls at Peace.

When we left the Cincinnati area Thurs­day, we had originally planned to return late Sunday evening to stay one more night with the Bertassos before heading to Missouri, but after we saw how far away Raleigh was from Cincinnati, we decided not to return that way.

Saturday, July 31
North Carolina

Today we drove for about two hours south from Raleigh on Inter­state 40 to Wilmington, where we went to Wrights­ville Beach on the Atlantic Ocean and spent a couple hours playing in the surf and on the sand. It was a most enjoyable outing. In a lot of ways, such as the difficulty in finding parking near the beach, Wrightsville Beach re­minded us of Laguna Beach in southern California. The children have now been from sea to shining sea, the Atlantic to the Pacific, with one of the Great Lakes thrown in for good measure.

Talmage recorded the event: "Today we went to the Wrights­­ville Beach in North Carolina. It had a lot of sea­shells, more than California. It had pigeons and a few seagulls, fewer gulls than California. We built two sand castles, both of which were washed away."

This afternoon, as we were returning to Raleigh from the Wrights­ville Beach, we saw a mileage sign as we got on the very beginning of I-40, its easternmost point, that read "Barstow, Cali­for­nia 2,559 miles." Barstow is at the other end, the western­most point, of Interstate 40.

When the final portion of I-40, connecting Wilmington to Raleigh, was completed in the late 1980s, Charles Kuralt observed: "Thanks to the interstate highway system, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything" (Amy Wilson, "U.S. Route 66: Historic Road Is Time Line of America," National Geographic News, Jan. 18, 2002). There is a certain truth in that observation, because the interstates miss a lot of what can be discoverd traveling the old U.S. highways and back roads of America, but we have seen a lot of the beauty and granduer and diversity of our country from the intestate highways we have traveled on during this trip.

Back in Raleigh, I called and talked to a Sister Henderson, a member of the Raleigh First Ward, whose name we had been given by a lady from Peace College. She told us further about church meet­ings in the morning. Her oldest son is serving in the Brazil Belo Horizonte Mission, and two other sons, twins, have received mission calls and enter the MTC next month. This evening one of those sons called Rachael and invited her to join a group of about five other young adults to go out to eat and to a movie. Rachael had an enjoy­able time.

Sunday, August 1
North Carolina, Tennessee

Yesterday morning, after we had eaten breakfast in our room for the second of the three days we were here, I dis­covered that a conti­nental break­fast came free with the motel room. And this morning, of course, was fast Sunday. We went down and brought some of the food back to our room to eat after we returned from church.

At 9:00 we went to the Raleigh First Ward to attend sac­rament meeting. We met the bishops and some members of both the First and Fourth wards. Rachael actually lives in the Fourth Ward, but their meeting schedule until September is in the afternoon, and Rachael has to begin at Peace College this after­noon. It was fast and testimony meeting, and we were very impressed with the services. After sac­rament meeting, we left Rachael to attend the young adult Sunday School class and Relief Society while we returned to our motel to pack and check out.

At noon we returned to the church to pick up Rachael and take her to Peace College, where she could check in for the summer writing institute beginning at 1:00 p.m. At that time, she picked up her registra­tion packet, had her picture taken, and found her room. While we stop­ped to have some refresh­ments (cookies and punch), Rachael happened to meet Susan Stubbs, her roommate in the regular school term, and her parents. They hit it off very well from the start, and it appears to have been a good match up. Susan is from Yorktown, Virginia, about four hours away from Raleigh.

As we were moving Rachael into her room for the writing institute (room 302 in Finley Hall), we also met her room­mate for the next couple weeks, Debbie Lee from nearby Cary.

After we had Rachael all moved in, we went out to the parking lot and took some pictures and said good-bye and hugged each other. About 3:00 we drove out of the Peace College parking lot, a sad-looking Rachael standing there waving good-bye, the sort of once-in-a-life type of experience that rips your heart out, even though—or maybe because—we have been plan­ning and working toward this very day for the past eighteen years.

A week later, on August 7, I wrote Rachael concern­ing this parting:

"Well, today's your eighteenth birthday. When we drove out of that parking lot Sunday afternoon, seeing you standing there all teary-eyed, it really tugged at your dad's heart strings. For eighteen years we'd been preparing for this very day, and now here it was, and it was a rather sober experi­ence—something like when we left Michael at the MTC in Provo last year: we didn't want to be there, but there was no other place we wanted him to be. As I drove along during the quiet times of the next few days (when we weren't listing to Talmage's tape of Weird Al Yanko­vitch or whoever he is), my thoughts kept returning to you and the big empty hole you left there now that you won't be living with us anymore and how wonderful a daughter you've been and what exciting opportunities lie ahead for you and how much I'll miss you, etc.

"I do love you very much, and we do miss you, but we're glad you're there in North Carolina, certainly one of the most beautiful and friendly places I've ever been. May the Lord bless you always."

Mary wrote in her trip journal: "Peace was very interesting. I got to go to Rachael's room. . . . I want to re­member Rachael and us leaving. I will always remember the tears of Rachael Cleverly."

We left Raleigh, which we had indeed found to be a very lovely and delightful area, and headed west on Interstate 40, traveling past Greensboro and Asheville, by which time we were in the hill country, an entirely different aspect of beautiful North Carolina.

We stop­ped at a lovely mountainous rest stop off Inter­state 40 in western North Carolina to eat our evening meal of sand­wiches (which everyone tired of before the trip ended) and chips and juice. It was a lovely wooded spot, but un­fortunately the table we picked was also a favorite resort for a swarm of pesky little bees that wanted to share the evening with us.

Beyond Asheville, as it was approaching dusk, we passed near the east boundary of Great Smokey Mountains National Park. While driving through this lovely stretch, we entered Tennessee, and traveled just a little past Knoxville, where we stayed in another Comfort Inn for the night.

Concerning this part of the trip, I reported to Rachael in the letter written on her birthday: "After we left you in the parking lot of Peace College Sunday afternoon, we drove out through the hill country of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee and stayed in a motel near Knoxville. The western part of the state is very different from the Piedmont or coastal regions of North Carolina, and we enjoyed it very much. Interstate 40, which we were traveling on, went by the eastern edge of Great Smokey Mountains National Park as we were leaving North Carolina and entering Tennessee. It was a great deal like West Virginia, very mountainous, very pretty. You would have enjoyed it."

Monday, August 2
Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri

Talmage wrote in his journal of a dream he had last night: "We were like pioneers going to Missouri in the winter with­out a car or wagon or any­thing like that. We were wearing modern winter clothing. There was a group of maybe 50 or 60 people, old and young. We were camped some­place in the Rocky Mountains, where we set up camp for the night. The young men of this group (me included) were each given an assign­ment to help with the setting up camp. My job was to chop and gather firewood. When I was through it was getting pretty dark. I sat down next to some people (I'm not sure who—friends, family, strangers?) and a young man about David Ashton's size and/or age offered me a paper plate with some homemade pizza and I took it. I started eating it then woke up. I felt like what is going to happen during the opening of the seventh seal before Christ appears again when the Saints would drop what they were doing and im­mediately make their exodus to Missouri."

Today we continued our exodus toward Missouri. Much of today was spent driving. We left Knoxville and drove to Nashville on Inter­state 40. At Nashville, the capital of Tennessee, we took Interstate 24 in a general northwestern direction through the rest of Tennessee, across a portion of western Kentucky, and into southern Illinois until we reached Mount Vernon. After filling up with gas again at Mount Vernon, we took Interstate 64 from there to St. Louis.

Just before we left Tennessee, near a place called Clarkes­ville, we stopped just off the freeway at a little family-style restaurant and ordered our mid-day meal. Mom had such local delicacies as catfish and hush puppies.

We had been concerned about reports that it would be difficult still to get across the Mississippi River, but we were able to do so just north of St. Louis on Interstate 270. We continued west through Missouri on Interstate 70 until we stopped for the night at Columbia at another Comfort Inn.

At St. Louis the flooded area on either side of the Mis­sis­sippi was easily as wide again as it appeared the original river would have been—making the en­larged river three times its normal width. We saw buildings in the water where only the roofs were visible.

Tuesday, August 3
Missouri, Kansas

Columbia, where we spent the night, was about two hours from the Kansas City area. We got up and drove to Inde­pendence, a suburb of Kansas City.

We visited Church history sites in Independence. Three different religions own parts of the original temple site laid out by the Prophet Joseph Smith in this central place that the Prophet said was the site of the Garden of Eden: (1) our church has a meetinghouse, a visitors’ center, and some vacant property that now looks like a park; (2) the Reorganized Church has their world head­quarters there—including their Auditorium and their newly finished Temple, which we toured; and (3) the Church of Christ-Temple Lot, also known as the Hendrikites, owns a little spot.

By the time we reached the temple site in Independence, it had started raining lightly. We toured the Independence visitors’ center and saw a couple films and had a nice visit with the guides there.

We then toured the new temple of the RLDS church. The archi­tecture of the building is really strange from the outside (some have described it as a giant snail or a space ship), but it was a gorgeous building on the inside. Interestingly, the RLDS guide in the temple invited us to take pictures of any­thing we wanted, while the RLDS guide at the Kirtland Temple said we could not take pic­tures inside because of the sacred nature of the building. Apparently their new temple isn't as sacred. The guide emphasized that they did no ordinances in the temple and held no regular meetings. By the time the tour was finished I had no clue really as to what they use the building for, except for the portions that serve as their church office building and a school.

Independence is the county seat of Jackson County. In ad­dition to its being the site of the New Jerusalem, the place where the early Saints anticipated building up the center place of Zion, it was also the out­fitting and departure point during the 1830s and 1840s for explorers, trap­pers, and pioneers travel­ing west over the Santa Fe, Oregon, and California trails.

When we were through visiting the temple site in Independence, we drove north out of Jackson County, across the swollen Missouri River into Clay County, where we visited the Liberty Jail. In this dungeon the Prophet Joseph spent the winter of 1838–39 while the Saints were being expelled from Missouri and heading back east across the Mississippi River to Illinois, where they eventually built Nauvoo. While in­carcerated in the Liberty Jail (an ironic title, to be sure), the Prophet received the marvelous revelations that are now sections 121, 122, and 123 in the Doctrine and Covenants. LDS historian B. H. Roberts would later call this site "a prison temple" because of the momentous revela­tions that were given here.

The jail itself was built in 1833 and was used for that purpose until 1856. Later it was used as an ice house, and finally after a long period of disuse was demolished near the turn of the century. The current visitors’ center includes a partial reconstruction of the jail as it then existed. The Prophet Joseph was a prisoner there from December 1, 1838, until April 6, 1839, when during a change in venue he was allowed to escape and join his exiled people gathering back on the other side of the Mississippi in Illinois.

The young sister missionary who took us on our tour of the jail was a Sister Cahoon from Woods Cross, Utah. She had been out on her mission just a month. As we were leaving, I secured her parents' names and phone number, so we could call them upon our return and tell them we saw their daughter and she looked well and gave us a marvelous tour. I did call the mother the day after our return. She greatly appreciated the call. She also said that her husband was a first cousin to Aunt Ruth, married to my uncle Irvin (Grandpa Cleverly's twin brother).

After eating lunch at a Wendy's in Liberty, we drove farther north along Interstate 35 into Caldwell and Davies counties, where we visited the temple site at Far West and then the beautiful valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman. They were lovely, peaceful places, where we experienced a won­derful feeling with the realization of what had and will yet occur there.

Far West at one time had 5,000 Latter-day Saints living in it. All that is there now are beautiful fields and the four corner­stones of the temple that was started but never completed. Settled in 1836, after the Saints left Clay County, Far West became the county seat of the newly organized Caldwell County and for a brief period the head­quarters of the Church. In addition to the temple site being dedicated and the cornerstones being laid, seven revelations now published in the Doctrine and Covenants (sections 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119, and 120) were received in Far West, the Quorum of the Twelve officially left for a mission to England, a stake of Zion was organized, and Joseph F. Smith (sixth president of the Church) was born on November 13, 1838.

It was at Far West on October 31, 1838, that Joseph Smith and other Church leaders were arrested by the state militia and taken first to Independence, then Richmond, and from there to Liberty, where they were imprisoned for several long months during the winter of 1838–39.

Haun's Mill was located about twelve miles east of Far West, but we could not go there because the floods that had occurred here in recent weeks made the dirt road impassible.

In May 1838, Joseph Smith led an exploring expedition north­ward into Davies County to find additional places for the Saints to settle. They found a beautiful townsite on the Grand River and named it Adam-ondi-Ahman. While there, the Prophet received the revela­tion that this was also the site, men­tioned in a revelation received three years earlier, as the valley where Adam had gathered his right­eous posterity three years before his death.

The valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman had been under water the previ­ous week and was now filled with lots of mud, but it was still a lovely place, and we had no difficulty arriving there. William W. Phelps wrote a poem about the place that was included in the first LDS hymnbook compiled by Emma Smith in 1835 and is hymn number 49 in our current hymnal:

This earth was once a garden place,
With all her glories common,
And men did live a holy race,
And worship Jesus face to face,
In Adam-ondi-Ahman.

We read that Enoch walked with God,
Above the pow’r of mammon,
While Zion spread herself abroad,
And Saints and angels sang aloud,
In Adam-ondi-Ahman.

Her land was good and greatly blest,
Beyond all Israel’s Canaan;
Her fame was known from east to west,
Her peace was great, and pure the rest
Of Adam-ondi-Ahman.

Hosanna to such days to come,
The Savior’s second coming,
When all the earth in glorious bloom
Affords the Saints a holy home,
Like Adam-ondi-Ahman.

While we were at Adam-ondi-Ahman I read to the family two passages from the Doctrine and Covenants, the first about what had happened there in the opening days of the earth's history, the second about what will yet happen there in the closing days:

"Three years previous to the death of Adam, he called Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, and Methu­selah, who were all high priests, with the residue of his posterity who were righteous, into the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman, and there bestowed upon them his last blessing.

"And the Lord appeared unto them, and they rose up and blessed Adam, and called him Michael, the prince, the arch­angel.

"And the Lord administered comfort unto Adam, and said unto him: I have set thee to be at the head; a multitude of nations shall come of thee, and thou art a prince over them forever.

"And Adam stood up in the midst of the congregation; and, not­withstanding he was bowed down with age, being full of the Holy Ghost, predicted whatsoever should befall his pos­terity unto the latest generation" (D&C 107:53–56).

"Spring Hill is named by the Lord Adam-ondi-Ahman, because, said he, it is the place where Adam shall come to visit his people, or the Ancient of Days shall sit, as spoken of by Daniel the prophet" (D&C 116:1).

Talmage shared his feelings about our visits to the Missouri Church history sites we visited today: "We went to the LDS visitors' center in Independence, Missouri, then visited the RLDS temple. I found out their prophet will receive a 'revelation' from the Lord and the congregation would vote on it to see if it was really a revelation. (How stupid.)

"We then went to Liberty Jail where Joseph Smith was held for 4 months.

"We then visited the Far West temple site. There wasn't anyone else there, so it was real peace­ful, quiet, beautiful, and spiritual.

"After that we went straight to Adam-ondi-Ahman, where no one was there either. There was a lot of flood damage in the valley, but it was still neat, beautiful, and spiritual place. Mary and Eliza were spooked by some rabbit that jumped out in front of them. I think I liked Adam-ondi-Ahman the best and the Far West temple site next."

As evening approached, we returned south to Kansas City on Interstate 35, where we crossed the Missouri River a final time, left the state of Missouri, and traveled along Interstate 70 again to Topeka, the capital of Kansas, where we stayed again in another Comfort Inn. The freeway to Topeka was the second toll road we had been on during the trip.

One of the nice things about staying at the Comfort Inns, besides getting more Choiceasaurus dino­saurs each stay, was that all of the children were able to stay free in the same room as Mom and me, so the cost was no more than if Mom and I were making the trip alone, and breakfast was free every morning.

Wednesday, August 4
Kansas, Colorado

A lot of driving today on Interstate 70 across the plains of Kansas and eastern Colorado. Kansas was probably our least favorite state, probably because Mom was not feel­ing par­ticularly well today, the roads were rough in many spots, the long hours of tedious driving over the rolling prairies was less exciting than much of the rest of the country we had seen, and we were now just heading home, having seen all that we came to see.

On our return trip, we passed a few rather interesting oddities: an Elvis museum just off I-70 somewhere in eastern Missouri that we had to back­track along a frontage road for nearly fives miles so we could take pictures of it for Rachael. In windswept Kansas we saw billboards along Interstate 70 that invited us to visit Dorothy's house, that proclaimed Colby in western Kansas as the Oasis of the High Plains, and that urged us to visit a prairie dog museum, where we could see the world's largest prairie dog, a living five-legged cow, and a six-legged steer. Alert readers in the car actually saw these signs; we are not mak­ing this up.

We did enjoy the abundant sunflowers we saw growing in Kansas, one of the few things Mom liked about the state. Unlike its depiction in the Wizard of Oz, Kansas is actually in color now, although Mom disputes this fact by point­ing out that except for the sunflowers it was rather gray the day we passed through­.

We stopped in Colby, Kansas, for gas and lunch at a Pizza Hut. The bill­boards all across Kansas billed Colby as the Oasis of the High Plains. It was cloudy and grey and windy when we were there, and we weren't all that impressed with the place. Of historical note, how­ever, I went for my first time ever into a Walmart at Colby.

We arrived at Denver and spent our final night in a Comfort Inn somewhere in the southwestern part of the Denver area. We ate supper in our motel room. It's good we're nearing the end of our journey, because everyone's get­ting pretty tired of sandwiches every day.

We were glad we were in Denver this week, however, and not next week when the Pope and President Bill Clinton are both in town. Accommodations would be harder to come by, and traffic would be horrendous.

Thursday, August 5
Colorado, Utah

We arose early this morning, so that we could eat breakfast and have the car packed and get checked out of our room by 7:00, at which time we left Denver and headed into the beautiful Colorado Rockies. Parts of the trip were breath­taking, and I wished later I had stopped a couple times to take pictures on our last roll of film. We had bor­rowed Rebecca's camera, since she couldn't come with us, to use throughout the trip. At Vail Pass, Interstate 80 climbs to nearly 11,000 feet in elevation, a little higher than we were at the beach last Saturday.

Later, as we traveled into western Colorado, the terrain started resembling the harsher desert mountains that we are more familiar with in the Great Basin.

We ate lunch in Grand Junction, Colorado, and shortly after­ward entered Utah, bringing cheers and shouts from all the children. We continued along Interstate 70 through the San Rafael Swell and the Fishlake National Forest, parts of Utah none of us had ever seen be­fore, until we came to Salina. The scenery along this part of the drive was breath­taking.

From Salina we drove north on U.S. highway 89 until Palisades Lake, just south of Manti, where we dropped Talmage, Anna, and Camilla off at the ward youth con­ference. We got there at 3:00, just half an hour after the rest of the youth from the ward arrived from Bountiful. We stayed and visited for about an hour, and then Mom, Eliza, Mary, and I made the final trip home to Bountiful, where we arrived about 6:30 this evening. A lovely time was had by all.

North Dakota was one of the few states whose license plates we were still looking for. As we exited the freeway at Bountiful and were driving by the McDonald's and Smith's on the old highway, we finally saw North Dakota. Of all places to see it finally! We were still missing Rhode Island and Hawaii, I think.

Conclusion
On our trip we traveled 5,789 miles. I summarized the entire trip in my next letter to Michael in Brazil:

"We had a marvelous trip, saw a lot of beautiful country in the 15 states we traveled through, witnessed first hand the incredible devastation caused by flooding rivers in the Midwest, had a delightful visit with the Bertassos, got a chance to visit Peace College and meet some of the people in Raleigh that will influence Rachael's life dur­ing the coming year, and toured many sites impor­tant in Church history. I plan to put together a full report of our experi­ences in a special issue of the Family Journal, which I will send you when it's ready, but in the meantime let me touch briefly on each of the listed elements of our marvelous trip.

"First, we saw a lot of beautiful country in the 15 states we traveled through. It seemed the farther east we traveled the greener and more beautiful the country became. The eastern half of the country simply has a lot of trees, and even in the rolling hills of states like Nebraska and Iowa and Illinois and Indiana—where there are a lot of farms—everything is still green and beautiful. West Virginia, one of my favorite states, was the most mountainous we passed through outside the Mountain West. North Carolina was as pretty as everyone told us it would be. Trees every­where. Even in big cities like Raleigh it was like being in a forest. Mom was the first to notice the sound of all the birds. In addition to all the regular pretty countryside, we crossed wide rivers, burrowed through mountain tunnels, dipped our toes in Lake Erie, and spent an afternoon at a beach on the Atlantic coast of North Carolina, and climbed to nearly 11,000 feet over Vail Pass in the Colorado Rockies. It is an immense, big, wonderful, blessed country we live in.

"Second, we witnessed first hand the incredible devastation caused by flooding rivers in the Midwest. In state after state we saw vast tracts of forest and farmland covered with water, the greatest single natural disaster to hit the country's mid­section in recorded history. We weren't sure where we'd cross the two main rivers—the Missouri and the Missis­sippi—but were able to get across both going and coming. The first bridge we tried to cross the Mississippi was closed, even though we'd been told it was open, but we were able to cross 10 or 12 miles south of Nauvoo at the Keokuk bridge from Iowa into Illinois. Normally a four-lane road, only two lanes were open on the Illinois side, and water was lapping the sides of the dirt em­bank­ment built up for cars to cross on. It rained again that night after we crossed to Nauvoo, and the next morning the bridge was closed again, and half the Nauvoo Ward couldn't get to church. The City of Joseph pageant, which would have been staged in Nauvoo the week after we were there, was canceled this year. On our return trip we crossed the Mississippi just north of St. Louis. The flooded areas on both sides of the river were at least as wide as the original channel appeared to be, so the net effect was an already vast river being about three times its normal width (and all this in a major metropolitan area). We saw rooftops poking out of the water and the tops of signs and telephone poles and bridges. Simply incredible. People were saying the Mississippi Valley was the sixth of the five Great Lakes. Or one of our three oceans—the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Mississippi.

"Third, we had a delightful visit with the Bertassos in their large home on a wooded ridge in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, overlooking the Ohio River, which was not flooding, across from Cincinnati, Ohio. Mike was even in town, although he was unable to go with us to Kirtland as originally planned. Too busy at work and getting ready to leave a few days later for Puerto Rico. Kathy had recently had surgery and had to take it easy while we were there. Their children and our child­ren blended well, like they did that Sunday we visited them in California, as they all became reacquainted. We were with the Bertassos from Monday evening, July 26, until about noon on Thursday, July 29. We were gone all day Wednesday on our day trip up to Kirtland and Lake Erie.

"Fourth, we got a chance to visit Peace College and meet some of the people in Raleigh that will influence Rachael's life during the next year. We were in Raleigh from Thursday night, July 29, until Sunday afternoon, August 1. Friday morning we called Bob Lee, the Institute director, and he came over to our motel to meet us and then took us on a tour of the Raleigh area, including stops at Peace College, North Carolina State (where the Institute meets in the student union building), one of the meeting­houses, and his home (where we met his wife and some of his eight child­ren). That after­noon, while the kids were swimming at the motel, Rachael and Mom and I went to check out Peace College. We were very impressed with the campus in the heart of downtown Raleigh. The oldest building was built before the Civil War. We found out, unfortu­nately, that during the summer the offices close on Friday afternoons at 12:30, so we didn't get a chance to meet any of the people we've corres­ponded with and talked to on the phone all these many months. A very nice security guard with an appro­priate Southern accent and an obvious love for the girls gave us a personal guided tour of all the buildings on campus. Saturday, after we returned from the beach on the Atlantic Ocean, we called some members whose names and numbers we were given. The Henderson family has a son in the Brazil Belo Horizonte Mission and two others, twins, who go in the MTC next month. The one son called back later and invited Rachael to go to a movie and to eat with a group of six young adults from their ward. She went and had a nice time. Sunday morning we attended sac­rament meeting in the Raleigh First Ward (which Rachael will attend through August) and, while the rest of us went back to check out of the motel, Rachael stayed to attend the young adult Sunday School class and Relief Society. In September, when the meeting schedules change, Rachael will attend the Raleigh Fourth Ward (which she actually lives in). While there we met the bishops of both wards and some of the members. (The bishop of the First Ward had a daughter who attended and graduated from Peace.) When Rachael checked into school Sunday afternoon, we were able to meet her roommate and her parents. I think Rachael will have a great experience.

"Finally, we toured many sites important in Church history—includ­ing Winter Quarters on the Nebraska side of the Missouri River near Omaha; Nauvoo on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River; Carthage Jail, where Joseph and Hyrum were killed; the Newell K. Whitney Store and the Kirtland Temple in Kirtland, Ohio; the John Johnson Farm home near Hiram, Ohio; the temple site in Inde­pendence, Missouri; the Liberty Jail; the temple site at Far West, Missouri; and the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman.

"I'm not sure I have either the oomph or the space in this letter to describe some of the marvelous feelings and things we learned at all of these places. That will come in the Family Journal or in next week’s letter.”

Throughout the trip the children were collecting things: pebbles from the beaches of Lake Erie, seashells from the Atlantic beaches of North Carolina, post­cards and brochures from Church history sites, and bugs from all over the eastern half of the country for Camilla's sixth grade bug col­lec­tion. I was thrilled to be col­lecting more maps. And all of us were collect­ing enough memories to last the rest of our lives.

The children were marvelous travelers, and a wonderful spirit of co­opera­tion and patience prevailed throughout the trip. In fact, we often felt the Lord's Spirit attending our pilgrimage and saw many evidences of His guiding and pro­tective providence.

Once in the car the children got talking about walking someday to Missouri. They didn't think that sounded too exciting. After a while, how­ever, ten-year-old Eliza decided that if Heavenly Father wanted her to walk to Missouri then she guessed it would be OK.