Nauvoo Road Trip: Day 2

Friday morning we met up early with Chandler and went to the temple. Gorgeous and peaceful, as always. HUGE thanks go to Kirsten for watching the kids for us and making that possible! Love that girl!

After that LUNCH, and then we hit the sites. Brickyard first!

On the way Peter and Andi fell asleep. Cute kids, we carried them into the cool and Peter slept most of the presentation.

They gave us a really nifty Nauvoo brick for learning all about bricks and how they used to be made. Pretty neat! Next up was the Family Living Center. I taught the dear lady giving the demo on spinning how to spin wool (ha!) and then we learned how they used to make bread in bustle ovens. I've decided I want a bustle oven someday... ;) We saw the bakery, and rode around a couple miles trying to figure out if we were taking Chandler hostage or not. Jonathan actually rode his bike back to the camp site and drove the car down to get Chandler's bags. In the end Chandler couldn't make it, but I'm holding her to a trip in December!

Then we rode down to the Red Brick Store and checked out the fun stuff they had there.

 They have rootbeer, home brewed, that is amazing. The cap FLEW off the top and into my hand. Scared me half to death, but it showed just how fresh and good the rootbeer was. Auntie Chandler also spoiled Andi and got her a stick of rock candy. David, at this point, had thrown a ROYAL fit and actually fell asleep in the car and wasn't able to get any candy.

 (Poor Andi and her dark circled eyes. We were all really tired by this point.)

After the store I had to drop Chandler off with her group and say good-bye (for now. CHRISTMAS, CHANDLER!!!!)

We went up and did some window shopping in town, then hunted down a glass guy that I remembered from the first time I went to Nauvoo when I was a kid. We asked around and found him! Jim Topic; he doesn't have a website, but if ever you go to Nauvoo he is down Warsaw a ways and TOTALLY worth the detour. He has a beautiful shop, and he's got these window hangs that are gorgeous medallion replicas of the sun, moon, and star stones on the temple.

After our shopping we went back to the campsite, ate dinner, then drove (we were definitely tired of riding up and down the hills by now) back to the pageant to do the games and activities they had at their carnival.

We got a really cheap snow cone as a treat and went back to the campsite when the pageant started. As we'd already seen it we figured we would get out quickly before the traffic hit. We actually were asleep when things ended and everyone got back to their campsites. 

When they talk about Nauvoo being an old swamp and mosquito infested they really weren't kidding. I counted a grand total of 52 bites when we got home, and that's just my legs. Every street light we passed looked like this:

And that still is not an accurate picture of how thick those blasted things were. So lesson learned: if you don't care about the pageant, go to Nauvoo while it is still a tad chilly and frosty outside and before the bugs come out. If you want to see the pageant wear pants and a light-weight long-sleeve shirt.