Starting Out and Missouri

The day to leave on our big trip finally arrived. Julianne stayed up all night cleaning and doing all sorts of things that didn’t need to be done. It kept me from sleeping much, so that I only got about 2.5 hours of sleep, which was dangerous. We had the younger 4 sleep in the motorhome that night. We left at 4:30 that morning, and drove for a long ways. We went through Utah and Colorado. As we cleared the great divide the poor motorhome could only get up to 25 mph. Colorado was beautiful and things went spectacularly for us. We hit Kansas and it was not quite as beautiful but I loved the rustic conditions. We drove from 4:30 am until 11 pm (10 pm Utah time), and traveled about 1000 miles. We slept at a truck stop. It was really a pretty great day and went quite well. Our good ol’ motorhome did us well.

Driving along in the RV

The next day we left pretty early. I started driving while everyone else slept for a while. We drove to Wamego, Kansas and had a nice breakfast at a little park in this quaint little town. The streets and homes were the perfect picture of rural America, and we saw friendly families everywhere. After breakfast we went to the Oz museum (we had watched the Wizard of Oz in the motorhome last night). We had a great time there. It was just plain a fun thing to do while in Kansas. They had a hurricane machine that for now if we paid for it the whole proceeds would go to the tornado victims in Moore, OK. It was a great first stop.

At the Wizard of Oz Museum

In the tornado machine

We drove for a few more hours and finally got to Missouri. It was not too hard to find the visitor’s center near the temple lot. We had a very nice time at the center, and I think the kids were touched. Then we went to the temple lot and talked about it just a little bit. Mostly we listened to a man from another church talk about it. Then we tried to find a few other sites. I had a hard time finding it and the kids were very impatient with it and I got impatient with them. We ended up driving to find what we were looking for Eventually we got it all worked out so we could have something of a reasonable experience while there. We went to the Whitney and Gilbert store and looked over at where the printing press was that was destroyed and then told the story of the girls who saved the Book of Commandments along with the story of man who saved some as well. It was a good experience. 

The family walking around the Independence Temple Lot

The Gilbert and Whitney store in Independence

Then we drove to Liberty Jail. To me that is a very profound place. The visitor’s center was great, and then we found a room there and we had some spiritual thoughts together. I am always so moved by the revelations received there. Joseph was in so much suffering, and yet it resulted in such profound things. It is so convincing that the Lord will use trials and difficulties to bring about great things for us. If we are willing to submit to his will we will learn and be refined. It is a great thing, if scary.

Liberty Jail

Kaleb in front of the window to the Liberty Jail dungeon

We went to our RV camp. It was nice enough, and we had a nice night for the first while. In the middle of the night Sabrina and Alexia woke up terrified that they had chiggers and tics. I was up with them for two hours before we got it all taken care of. It was a long night. I sleep on a little tiny part of the floor. It makes for a long night too.