day three

I very well could be losing my mind. And I'm surprised I have not caused my husband to do the same. Yesterday, I realized I packed away our video camera in the back of our truck. We bought that video camera so we could film our adventures. So I insisted that we pull it out. We parked in a Walmart parking lot, and my good husband climbed inside, yanked out some boxes, and dug out our bag with the video camera. Only, it wasn't in there. It was inside my suitcase the entire time. Whoops. Wade so lovingly threw it back in the truck, packed everything up and we were on our way. So today, as we were heading across the Mississippi river, I whip out Wade's camera, only to find that his battery is dead. So I pull out my camera, only to find that it is missing the memory card. It was in the bag we packed away again. Of course i just HAVE TO HAVE A PICTURE of the Mississippi river. So we pulled over and AGAIN unpacked the truck and pulled out the memory card. A bag of flour hit wade in the head. ha.

We drove across the river and came to the "Welcome to Illinois" sign. In case you haven't noticed, it has become our new family tradition to take a picture of every sign. Well I had completely filled my memory card by this time, so I was frantically deleting pictures so I could take a picture of the sign before we drove past. I got one. So without wanting to delete all the pictures, I went backwards through them and deleted them one at a time. I DELETED the one of the sign. Imagine my heart ripping in half. So 9 miles from Nauvoo, good ol' Wade turns the huge, honkin', mighty truck around so I can take another picture of the sign. Don't worry, I deleted that one on accident too. Only to find that i really am completely losing my mind, because I never really deleted either of them. wow.

onward. We went to Nauvoo this morning and attended a session in the temple. It was absolutely gorgeous inside and the temple workers are so nice and friendly. They treated us like celebrities. In fact, one couple loved us so much, they took us on a personal tour of the temple after we were done with the session.

We also saw the grave site of Joseph Smith and his family, his little store, and the mansion house. I wish we would have had more energy and time to spend walking around to more of the sites, but my legs just wouldn't have it. We then went on to Carthage where we toured the jail where the prophet was martyred. It is so incredible to stand in a room where you know Joseph Smith has been. It's also heart breaking to think about him losing his life in the same place. We feel so lucky to have seen such testimony building things today.

To be quite honest, we had a lovely morning, and a horrible night. It all started when some stupid construction shut down the main road we were driving on. We went through many small towns, going about 35 miles an hour for about two hours. We finally worked our way up to the Chicago area, where I drove and Wade navigated. It didn't turn out to be such a good set up, seeing as I don't know how to drive those monsters. Oh, and then we got lost. For TWO HOURS. I hope I like Chicago more in the daytime.

Details:
depart: burlington, Iowa 9:22 a.m.
stops:
*nauvoo, Illinois
*carthage, Illinois
*peru, Illinois
postcards written: 10
blisters on Kali's feet: 2
times Wade asked where we are: 7,308
construction zones: 17
camels: 5
weirdest town name: Hennepin
cheapest gas price: 3.57
dead coyotes: 1
speed demon diesels: 5
times Kali either ran off the road, slammed on the breaks, or cut off another car: 4
toll roads: 3
arrival: Chicago, Illinois 1:00 a.m.
total miles traveled: 298 (thats a rough estimate. we're too tired to care.)

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