Nauvoo

I send out my apologies to the select few of you who actually read my blog. I've been out of the blogging loop for more than a month now. Doing door to door sales can be quite tedious and it's about that point in the summer that the thought runs through the back of my mind whether it's really worth it. The pain in my lower back is screaming, "It's not worth it!" But I remind my back that it's really not that bad of a job and that the solution to lower back pain is exercising my core muscles and stretching more often. Anyway, with this summer job weighing down on me, like I knew it would, my roommates and I agreed that it would be a good idea to take off a couple of days and get away. So on Sunday morning (July 13th) we hopped in the car and drove to Nauvoo where we planned to stay through Tuesday night so we could see the Nauvoo pageant. I mean, seriously, can you live in Illinois all summer and not take advantage of the opportunity to see Nauvoo? Well, about 30 miles from Nauvoo we ran into a detour which we hoped wouldn't be too long (after all we wanted to make it to the 2 o'clock sacrament meeting in Nauvoo). Well the detour ended up adding an extra 100 miles to the trip, which is not fun if you forgot to take a bathroom break before you started the trip... In the end, we made it safe and sound but we were about a half an hour late for church.
The only hotel room we could find available in Nauvoo was a room with bunk beds that could sleep nine. We took advantage of the extra beds and made the room into one big bunk bed fort! Now that's something you'd never get to do on vacation with mom and dad around. Room service I'm sure was shocked when they went in to give us fresh towels.
Nauvoo was spectacular and the pageant was amazing! I'm glad we went, it really was the perfect break. The spirit of those early saints is there in that city they built and loved. It is inspiring to see and think about what they left behind to follow the prophet of God across the continent. My life has definitely been blessed by their sacrifice. Here are some pictures from my trip, so enjoy!