Day 45, Thurs, Oct 16, Bloomington, IL to Nauvoo, IL

We arrived in Nauvoo in the mid-afternoon on a very beautiful, clear Autumn day. It was such a feeling to see the Temple gracing this prominence above the Mississippi on the very spot where the original Temple once stood.

We visited the Temple site 24 years ago when we picked up our son Jeffery from the mission field in West Virginia (Jan, 84). We stopped in Nauvoo on our way home.

This Temple is affirmation of the history and the destiny of this great Church and its mission to the world!

How wonderful to be here! We took a room at a hotel a short distance away and settled down to view the BYU-TCU game.

We are hoping to prepare ourselves in the morning to attend a temple session after we check out of our hotel.

So, what do we find when we arrive at the banks of the mighty Mississippi River?

That's right! A rock tht says "Lincoln Spoke Here."

This is in the tiny village of Dallas City, Ill, just a few miles upstream from Nauvoo.

You can tell Illinois is the land of Lincoln. We see signs of "Lincoln Slept Here," or, as in this case "Lincoln Spoke Here."

This an old building in downtown La Harpe.

This old City Hall building in La Harpe caught our eye. This is how city government should be organized. Police, Fire and City Hall all wrapped in to one efficient location.

This morning dawned clear and beautiful after a night of some rain and quite a downturn in the temperature from the unseasonable warmth to more of a Fall-like day.

We continued our journey west across rural Illinois, heading toward Nauvoo. This is the bridge that spans the Illinois River at Pekin, a suprisingly large city, just south of Peoria.

Again we forsook the Interstate and took to state route 9 which took us through the communities of Canton, Bushnell, Good Hope and La Harpe. And at La Harpe we had to slow down and drive some side streets and take some photos. It was such an interesting little town.

Day 44, Wed, Oct 15, Indianapolis, IN to Bloomington, IL

The further we went westward across Illinois from Indiana, the more the countryside began to look like driving down a Chandler, Arizona farm road (in the old days at least) with mile after mile of land under cultivation.

We have seen a lot of corn fields today. The stalks are all dried and ready to be cut down.

This picture was taken on US 136, west of the town of Rantoul, Illinois.

When we tried to take a photo of the Indianapolis downtown skyline while we motored along through the city our tiny digital camera wouldn't function. We thought we would have no pictures to make record of our day's travels. But, later just for the heck of it we tried again, and presto! It worked!

So, here is another of only three photos taken today as we passed through all the little villages and towns on US 136 between Indianapolis, Indiana and Bloomington, Illinois.

It is great therapy for the modern man and woman, getting off the "fast lane" of every day life and taking the "road less traveled" as we have expressed before, but which we say once more.

This drive today was so pleasant. The scenes weren't as breathtaking and spectacular as some we've had but beautiful and very refreshing none the less. Driving at speeds well below 50 mph (30 mph through most townships) with time to actually see the countryside and the houses and small businesses; the old historic buildings and the quiet, modest middle American homes, so many decorated for Halloween and the Autumn season was just a delight.