Day 2

Spent the first night in an RV park. It got a bit chilly, but once we figured out the heater the RV felt great. It was nice to have breakfast right here in the RV we didn't have to go find a place.

One of the Water Falls at Starved Rock.

Outside Starved Rock, IL

Hiking through Starved Rock

 We started out the day going to Starved Rock state park. We walked around exploring the canyons and waterfalls. The kids had fun doing leaf races in the little streams. The place had a cool setup. Stairs were put in to climb the canyons.  By the end of the hike, our step trackers said we were at 35 flights of stairs. There were these really cute plants that looked like little umbrellas.

Cute Umbrella Plants

At one point Trey was getting tired and he said: "I need to get to the RV" like he has an important meeting or something. We then set out to look for lunch. We ended up in this tiny town, Ladd, IL it seemed like there used to be 4 restaurants, but they had all closed except for one, Softtails bar and grill. When we walked in, it looked like just a bar, not even sure if the kids could be in there. We moved to the back where they actually had tables and lunch menus. It was totally a small town mom and pop, but nice to experience something different.
     We then continued our 2-hour journey to Nauvoo, IL. It rained most of the drive and was kind of windy. We passed tons of farms with huge silos.  It is fun to see these new landscapes. We were happy to arrive in Nauvoo.  It is located right along the Mississippi river. The view from the temple is beautiful.

Nauvoo Temple

 I am surprised at how pretty it is in Nauvoo.  We arrived about 5:00 p.m. as most of the events were closing. We did go to the visitor center and watched a movie about Nauvoo.  We had the entire theater to ourselves.  We then watched a little play done by the Senior Missionaries.  It was funny and the kids enjoyed it too. Craig and Becky Ririe were in it. They are some old friends from Flagstaff, they are here serving a mission. It was really fun to see them again.

Me with Becky Ririe, my old YW President

  We ended the night by crossing over the Mississippi river to our RV park in Keokuk, IOWA. We hit Walmart for some much-needed food/supplies for the RV. In the morning we will head back over to Navoo to really experience it.

everything was in bloom and beautiful

playing along the banks of the Mississippi River, they found clams

Acting like boys chucking rocks into the Mississippi

While we were driving we saw all the different trees in bloom.  Dax came up with a game. When we came up across an interesting-looking tree (many looked different than what we were used to in Arizona) we had to come up with a name that described the tree.  For example "Sea Urchin Tree" or "Popcorn tree"