Keokuk

We were tired this morning so we slept in until almost 8:00. That put us behind right away. We had breakfast provided by the hotel and all the kids changed into their church clothes. Then we checked out and drove from Lincoln to Omaha. I had already found a congregation with an 11:00 Sacrament Meeting, so that worked out perfectly.

It always amazes me how nice everyone is when you just show up at some random church. We had at least half a dozen people talk with us and  give us advice on what to see in Nauvoo. One lady even e-mailed me a packet of information with everything we could possibly ever want to know! It just goes to show that the church is true everywhere.

After church, we all climbed back in the van and drove to the new Winter Quarters temple. It's beautiful, but rather hidden amongst the tall pine trees. I offered to prepare lunch while my sweetie took the kids up the hill to see the cemetery. Princess and Teach stayed behind to help me. When everyone else returned, we got back on the freeway.

We still had plenty of driving to do, although it wasn't nearly as bad as yesterday. The kids watched movies and had an awesome drawing contest sponsored by Teach. She had everyone draw pictures with their eyes closed, then with their left hand, etc. I think she used my entire stack of post-it notes and then she stuck them to the window! As if people didn't think we are weird enough already...

Do you all travel with a GPS? We bought one about ten years ago and we have never replaced it. I guess that was probably a bad idea. As we were heading across Iowa on our search for Keokuk, it sent us off on this lovely dirt road with this candy-striped gate being our final destination. Time to update the maps, I think.

We let the kids swim tonight. They thoroughly enjoyed themselves and then we ate dinner in our rooms. I sent them to bed and told them they had better have everything shut down by midnight since we were trying to get away by 7:00 am. (I would be happy with 7:30, but I'm not going to tell them that!)

At least Nauvoo is only 10 miles from here.  Although the six hours today was much better than the 14 yesterday. And now I'm pretty sure I'm the only one breaking the midnight rule, so I will talk to you tomorrow.

Sandy