We woke up in another Walmart parking lot just outside of Kansas City. It was a nice, cool night that we had, so we got some good sleep. It’s always interesting sleeping in Walmart parking lots because you wake up with different cars all around you than when you went to bed.
Carthage Jail
After getting ready for the day we made our way to Carthage Jail, about 3-4 hours away. When we arrived, EFY kids had overtaken the grounds and we ended up joining their tour group — about 35-40 people crowding into the rooms of the jail. Carthage Jail is where the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were killed by an angry, drunk mob.
Nauvoo
After Carthage, we made our way to Nauvoo, IL. Nauvoo is my favorite church historical site to see, the temple on the hill makes it a remarkable place along with all the old original homes that were left there from the saints.
We did several little tours of some of the homes including Lucy Mack Smith’s, John Taylor’s and a couple others. We also went to the brick house, the blacksmith, the tin shop and the bakery, all were great to see and enjoy. We got a brick souvenir, a horseshoe, and few diamond rings from those little shops.
Nauvoo was established by the early members of our church in 1841 and in just a few short years it flourished. They built brick homes, the grand Temple, the Nauvoo House hotel, a Masonic hall, and distributed a newspaper. The city was the largest in Illinois at the time and the political influence of the saints scared the neighboring towns. In 1846, the saints were driven out by dissenters and fearmongerers. Instead of fighting for their home, they left behind everything and, with faith, over 5,000 Mormons, crossed the Mississippi River into the Iowa territory during the bitter winter of 1846.
We walked down the Trail of Hope where the saints once traveled down with their wagons and families as they left behind their homes. This path was originally called the Trail of Tears but was renamed when President Hinckley dedicated the rebuilt Nauvoo temple and asked church members to change their perspective on the path.
Most of the Nauvoo tours end at 6pm so we signed up to do a temple session that evening since we both have never been through the Nauvoo temple. I was amazed that the temple had about 5-6 floors and even had a meeting room like the Kirtland Temple does. We got permission to wander a tiny bit in the temple and found a hall of antiquities that showed some sacred artifacts of the early saints including Lucy Mack Smith and Joseph Smith — pretty neat.
After the spiritual temple session we went to a local campground operated by the Community of Christ Church, aka the reorganized church. It was more of a place for summer camps with lots of activities to do. We were really tired so we just pitched our Prius tent and went to bed.
