Beautiful Nauvoo

On the way in, we made a brief stop at Fort Madison to look at an old steam engine (the kids really wanted to see this, right Greg?).  Then we crossed the Mississippi River on a bridge whose width limit was 8’ and whose weight limit was 8 tons.  Greg asked the toll lady if she thought we’d make it across.  “Well, it’s too late now, ain’t it?” was her response.  So true.

None of us had ever been to Nauvoo, and we mistakenly thought that we could see everything in a few hours.  There has been a ton of restoration done in recent years – there is everything from a bakery to a blacksmith shop where the kids can make rings to a brickyard where they can learn the whole process, to a blacksmith/ gun shop that houses a huge collection of original the Browning-invented guns (including the first type of automatic machine gun).  I guess we’ll be sticking around to see more after church tomorrow.  In my efforts to glean all the Nauvoo experiences in a relatively short amount of time, I booked us on the last wagon ride of the day, forgetting how allergic Kambria is to horses.  She suffered through the 45 minute ride with eyes streaming – she is a good sport. 

In my enthusiasm I also picked up tickets for the “Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo” a supposedly hilarious musical production that tells about life here in 1840s.  I did not realize that the show was completely cast with the all of the older (and some were really old) couple missionaries here in Nauvoo.  I have found PGYSA (PGY for senior adults)!  I terrorized the kids by telling them that one day Greg and I want to star in this production.  OK the show was actually somewhat entertaining if you could get over how old the “actors” were; they were just having so much fun up there.  I did find myself getting anxious that one of these cute little men would have a heart attack or that one of the women would fall and break their hip (yes they were dancing and singing).  I wonder if they have to audition ….hmmm.