The first item on the agenda for today was a trip to Carthage to visit the historic Carthage Jail. Another gloomy, gray day brought a cool wind that was made cold by the humidity.
The visitor's center at the Carthage Jail was nearly empty. There were three other groups with our family in our tour. After viewing a short video of the history of the prophet (The actor that portrayed the prophet looked just like the statues and the pictures of Joseph Smith. I also never realized how much Ray Romano looks like Joseph Smith. Visit Carthage. You'll see.) Then we got a tour of the jail. Talk about history coming to life. Standing in that building and trying to picture the events occurring as the Senior Missionary recounted them was incredible and moving.
Heber and Anna are seated on the window sill of the actual window through which Joseph fell at his death. The walls of the jail house are 3' thick, so the sill is deep. And the jail house is just that, a house. This is acutally the bedroom of the couple that ran the jail. They moved the group into this room to keep them safe from prowlers around the jail and moved themselves and their family downstairs.
The hole by Rachel's head is believed to have been made by the bullet that killed Hyrum. This is the original door. There is a piece that was cut out and replaced just above the latch, but the door is the original door and believed to be in mostly the original condition.
This cell is called the dungeon cell even though it is on the 2nd floor. It is completely encased in limestone and timbers. The group was moved from this room because is got too hot. There are tiny windows and poor ventilation. Had they been in this cell, probably ever member of the group would have been killed.
The front of the jail house.
The window on the second story is the window through which the prophet fell. I don't think the courtyard was concrete back then.
We are standing in front of a statue of the Smith brothers.
The kids are standing near the main entrance to the Nauvoo Temple. Mom is inside attending a session. When we returned from Carthage, she went to the Temple while the kids had some "quiet" time. It actually worked. Everyone but Spencer took a cat nap. Then we visited the accommodations house and viewed some videos about the temple. The inside of this temple is BEAUTIFUL. I can't wait for my turn tomorrow. Then we came back and waited for Mom.
The view from the front gate of the temple.
Looking down from the bluff across Old Nauvoo. It is giving me spring fever to see all the green. There were green fields here and there in Kansas, but Missouri and Illinois have a lot of green. Some of the trees in Missouri have started to leaf out. I have decided that if I were called back to one of the settlements in Missouri to help establish one of the several temples for which the cornerstones were laid and the site dedicated in one of the several communites dedicated in Missouri, I could survive it. It is not as flat and barren as I thought it would be. The trip from Nauvoo to Carthage... flatter than Kansas... flatter than a basketball court. Kansas? Well, Paige had it exactly right when she said watching Kansas is "BOOORING".
Self explanatory from our previous discussions.
After Mom got back to the hotel and changed, we went to the visitor's center to plan our day tomorrow and get whatever tickets we are going to need. It turned out that they had some cancellations for tonight's Rendezvous With Old Nauvoo so we got tickets for tonight's show. Then we wandered until dinner.
The show was at 7:00 pm local time. It was a great time. It is put on by the senior missionaries. There must have been nearly 20 couples involved in the show. They acted and they sang and they involved the crowd. We laughed and we shouted and we clapped and had a great time. They reserved the front two rows for kids and they talk directly to the kids and point at them and believe it or not, our kids sat quietly and attentively up there all by themselves. The older two never even came back to us once.
The kids are now sound asleep and a good thing, too. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow full of wagon rides and historic houses and museums and shops. And I get my turn to see the temple.
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