last minute road trip 8/23-8/25/11

A few weeks ago I bought a new vehicle, in Ohio to be exact, which isn't a problem, unless no trucks will pick the stupid thing up!! Last Friday my car final sold and by Sunday night we started talking about flying out to get it. Sunday night I booked a red eye flight for 12:55am Tuesday morning. We talked with parents and of course they would take our little mutt, who wouldn't?
We got to Cleavland Ohio at 9:05am, they met us at the airport with my car and we took off to Kirtland,Ohio to see some church sights.
We got to see the Old Whitney store, the school of the prophets room, the revelation room, the Kirtland Temple, very very quick. We took off on a 8hr. drive to Davenport,Iowa where we stayed at the Black Hawk Hotel, right across from the Mississippi river. It was the neatest old restored hotel from 1914, highly recommend it.
The next morning we got up early to head to Nauvoo,IL. We saw the Nauvoo Temple, Joseph and Hyrum Smith's graves, their homes, etc. etc... we then went over to Carthage to visit the Carthage jail.
We left IL and drove 10hrs that day heading to our hotel in North Platte, Nebraska where we arrived at 1:30am.
We woke up early that morning and had the rest of the 9hr drive through Nebraska, Wyoming and into Utah and on my 30th birthday to boot!
I was so glad that I had a partner that felt the way I did. We turned the situation of having to go to Ohio, into, what can we do since we are going out and how quick can we do it in? We drove 1,950 something miles in 3 days while squeezing in the sights we wanted to see. We definitely could have stayed longer, but we had our little sweetheart, the dog and jobs to get back to.
We had such a fun time with each other and our testimonies grew so much in such a small amount of time. If you have not done some of these stops, I highly recommend it. It was so neat to stand where so many important things in our church took place. These were the starting places of our restored gospel. The Saints that put in the service of building those temples, doing missionary work, building up Zion, will forever be a blessed people.
I'm so grateful for Joseph Smith and for the man that he was. I can't wait to meet him one day and hear his stories of this and that. I know that Joseph Smith restored this gospel in these latter days. I know that he saw God and His Son Jesus Christ and angels. I know that he translated the Book of Mormon and had vision after vision. I'm so grateful for him, his family, and for all the Saints that sacrificed so much for everything that they believed in.
Thanks mom's and dad's for watching our baby girl. It makes it much easier to leave her knowing she is in good hands. Bryce and I are so grateful that we got to take this fun quick road trip.
Here are some pictures, beware, I took a lot in such a small amount of time......
This is where they baptized people in the river. The missionaries said that the water was up over the banks this year

Whitney general store where so many important things happened upstairs

Revelation room, this is where Joseph translated the Bible and received revelations on most of the D&C

school of the prophets room.

school of the Prophets room

I put my camera in a tree and took a picture of us, hence the crooked picture....

Kirtland Temple


on a bridge overlooking the Mississippi river


Nauvoo Temple





Nauvoo Temple

Bryce and me on the steps of the Nauvoo Temple

Nauvoo Temple

the "Homestead", Joseph and Emma's 1st home in Nauvoo

The "mansion", Joseph and Emma's 2nd home in Nauvoo

Where Hyrum, Joseph and Emma were buried


Joseph's parents



Joseph and Hyrum

Bryce and me playing prisoner

These are the actual bullet holes and the original door that the mob came through

This is where Joseph fell out the window after being shot by the mob

Bryce standing in front of the Carthage jail