Day 6: Nauvoo

Our day started out without any orange juice mishaps. We bought milk at Wal-Mart the night before, so we had that with two cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

We drove to Nauvoo in the morning and stayed there all day. First, we saw the buildings owned by the RLDS Church, which includes the home Joseph and Emma Smith lived in when they first moved to Nauvoo,

the Mansion House, which they built later,

and the Nauvoo House, which was built as a hotel, but in which Emma lived after Joseph died.

We also saw the graves of Joseph, Emma, and his brother, Hyrum Smith.

Our tour guide was named Kevin. Thus far, he has been the best tour guide we have had. He has been working as a tour guide for four years, and he was very knowledgeable and very smooth.

We also saw the Red Brick Store, which Joseph ran for a few months, until he began to lose large amounts of money due to his tendency to give away his inventory when people couldn't pay. While someone else took over the store portion of the building, the upstairs was used for church meetings, and as an office where Joseph worked. It is the site where the Relief Society was organized.

In Nauvoo, much of what you see is a reconstruction of the buildings that were originally there. However, some of them have remained largely intact over the years.

After the tour finished, we went to the LDS Visitors' Center where we watched the Joseph Smith movie that was made a few years ago. We ventured out into the garden, where the Women's Monuments are. There are several statues depicting women in various roles. My mom made me pose next to this one:

If I were not such a good daughter, I would have had her pose next to this one:

After that, we had lunch in town (the part of town that is not historical sites). There were only a handful of places to choose from, so Mom and I opted to get pulled pork sandwiches from the local grocery store, which we ate on a bench outside.

After lunch, we headed back to Old Nauvoo, to the buildings the LDS Church owns. That's when it sort of becomes a blur.

We first toured the John Browning home. For those of you who hunt and fish, this is gun/fishing pole maker. I didn't realize he was one of the early members of the LDS Church, but he was.

We also toured the John Taylor home, the general store/post office, the tinsmith, Wilford Woodruff's home, and the brickyard. In between, we would get back on the bus so that we could rest in a cool place.

For dinner, we found this little restaurant on the main street in town that sold sandwiches and sub-zero ice cream. We each got a Porter Rockwell, which is turkey, ham, and three kinds of cheese, drizzled with barbecue sauce and grilled in a panini press.

After dinner, we located the store in town that sold fudge. If you think we were able to go in without buying anything, you obviously don't know me or my mom that well.

We headed back to Old Nauvoo one last time to watch a production called "Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo," which was a short play about the LDS Church in Nauvoo prior to, and immediately following the death of Joseph Smith. What made this play terrific was

a) It only lasted an hour.

b) All of the actors were the same senior missionary couples who had led the tours earlier that day.

Let me pause to say that, seeing all of the senior missionary couples throughout the day reminded me of the dream I once had to spend a week in Nauvoo and a week in Palmyra studying the relationship dynamics of LDS senior missionary couples as a follow-up to my thesis. Sigh. Maybe some day.

Anyway, I was pretty impressed by the singing, dancing, and acting ability of the senior couples. I don't think any of them were ever on Broadway, but they were all at least as good as the actors in the LDS Beauty and the Beast movie we watched on the bus the day before.

Here is a picture of one of the couples whose storyline provided comic relief. Sorry it's so bad.

My favorite part of the play was when the elder who was playing him broke down and started laughing. It was reminiscent of that Chris Farley SNL sketch where he is playing Matt Foley, and David Spade has to cover his face because he is laughing. Except that it wasn't on national television. Their entire audience was only about 50 people.

The night ended with another trip to Wal-Mart. When traveling with my parents, it is always good to be in close proximity of places where you can get junk food and comfortable clothing.