1996 Western Illinois Vacation -- June 7 through June 9

My 1996 Western Illinois Vacation. 3 days, 700 miles.

All right, so I was being impatient and wanted to break-in my new car. So one weekend, we decided to just take a trip around Illinois' backroads, and put a few hundred miles on the car...

We decided to go out and follow Ol' Man River, for no particular reason.

Mississippi River

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Purely by accident, we ran across Nauvoo, IL, my first real encounter with the Mormons. I was pretty ignorant of their history in 1996, and if I were to go back today, I'd be more interested in what they had to say.

This isn't to say I'd join up, but I would like to hear history from their side. This was their last hope of staying in the United States before they were run out of the country by the religiously intolerant. (The Mississippi River at the time when Joseph Smith and Brigham Young formed Nauvoo, was the Western edge of the United States. After the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory, they had to travel all the way to what is today Utah.) How ironic that years after being run out of the United States, that they'd find themselves at the meeting of the iron road that made America the continental nation it is today...

Nauvoo, IL

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Home to one of the greatest humorists of our time, Hannibal, Missouri was eventually our final destination. It'd been years since I read Tom Sawyer, but here we were, looking at the buildings and landmarks that were used to make Sam Clemens's characters come alive.

Hannibal, MO

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