Bucket List Victory 2015: Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri Day 3

http://www.beerorkid.com/2009/03/tinas-cafe/

We woke up on Thursday Morning and had breakfast with Alian at Tina's Cafe in Lincoln Nebraska. It was delicious. J.D. was excited about the Cinnamon Roll.

Oh Cinnamon roll, How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

From there we drove back toward Omaha to go to Winter Quarters. It was a fun experience.

Onward!

J.D. got a chance to feel what it was like to pull a Handcart. 

Backward!

Of course he didn't have to pull it very far since it was indoors and he didn't even have room to turn around so he needed to push it backwards into the corner.

Mic, Kat, and I got to sing "Come, Come Ye Saints" for the Sister Missionary giving us a tour.

What would we have packed in a covered wagon?

We enjoyed the time reflecting on the sacrifices made by those who came across the plains to find a place to worship freely. The temple was beautiful, right on cemetery grounds and doubly holy.

From there it was a quick 5 hour drive to Independence Missouri, at least it seemed quick after the 20 hour drive of the previous 2 days.

We were able to meet up with my cousin Gilbert and his family, in Leavenworth, for an awesome dinner. It was delicious and really hit the spot after a long drive. FUN FACT: Leavenworth has at least 4 prisons including the Army Disciplinary Barracks.

After Dinner Gilbert and his family took us into Kansas City, Missouri for a quick tour of the town. The WWI Liberty Memorial there is impressive. 

Kat and Justice took some pictures for scale.

 Sadly, we were too late in the day to go into the museum, but that is a good reason to go back to Kansas City. I liked it there. The memorial was a good place to see the skyline of Kansas City.

My cousin Gilbert and most of his family.

Another impressive place downtown right across from the museum was Union Station. You can see the building just behind my head in the picture above. There was so much inside. This picture is one of the fancy restaurants on the first floor. Most everything else was closed, but again, it is a good reason to visit again.

We went on to visit with Mic's Uncle Rick, Aunt Sue, and Cousin Matt, in another part of the city. By the time we left it was almost 10 pm and we still had to get to our campsite about an hour away near Independence. 

It took us a while to figure out which part of Fleming Park in Blue Springs, Missouri our campground was located. When we finally found it, the arm on the campground was down and it looked like we may have to park the car outside the gate and pack our stuff to our reserved site. Thankfully, someone going on a late night bike ride took pity on us and gave us the code to get in. We pitched out tent as a whole family for the first time by the light of our headlights. And settled in for some much needed sleep after a long day.

Bucket List Victory 2015: Wyoming & Nebraska Day 1&2

In planning the trip, I had very little input. When I asked questions about what people thought we should do or where we should go I was often met with blank stares. So I developed some options. 

We chose to leave on June 30th in the evening after my work. One the options I offered was to ask the other two drivers (Mic and Kat) if they would rather camp or drive straight through to Nebraska. 2-1. We drove straight through the night. 

This was supposed to save us some time. But in the process of taking longer breaks when we stopped for gas or rest, we ended up taking about 24 hours to go 12 hours. I was so tired I honestly don't know how we did this, but we had some fun along the way. 

Did you know about the Lincoln Highway? I did not, but we found a cool rest stop in Wyoming that had a huge monument to President Lincoln because it is along the Lincoln Highway. 

J.D. stood in front of it for Scale. 

Since we were traveling through the night we skipped the handcart visitor sites, but they are close enough to Utah the we feel like we can get to them another time. What we did do was take a little time off the beaten path to see what the Pioneers crossing the west on the Mormon and Oregon trails would have used as a marker to  gauge their distance:

Chimney Rock

The rest of July 1st was simply trying to get to Omaha then Lincoln on time to meet with a dear friend of my youth, Alian who is ready to defend her dissertation at University of Nebraska Lincoln. She was gracious enough to hold dinner for us while we went to visit the Winter Quarters site in Omaha. I had decided that we would skip the Kanesville Tabernacle in Council Bluffs, Iowa because I was unsure it would have information I was interested in. We plugged LDS history site into the GPS and followed the directions. When we saw where we were, we realized we had crossed the Missouri River to Council Bluffs and so we ended up at the Kanesville Tabernacle instead of Winter Quarters.

We were so glad.

Kanesville is the place in LDS Church History where Brigham Young was sustained the 2nd president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over two years after the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. The saints present that day recorded in their journals that he took on the countenance of Joseph and so they knew he would be the next President of the LDS Church. 

It is also the place where Oliver Cowdery, one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon was re-baptized into the LDS faith, but more on him later.

It was a beautiful place and we felt the beauty of the stories associated with it.

Shortly after we traveled to Lincoln to spend the night with Alian. She made a delicious dinner and was a wonderful hostess. We chatted as long as we could and then went to bed on a very comfortable mattress. So ended a very long two days.

Bucket List Victory 2015: Boston Trip and Church History Tour

Since before we were married Michael and I knew we wanted to go on this trip. 

We both had a deep an abiding interest in Latter-day Saint church history. We even discussed going for our honeymoon. At the time we thought we would wait to get married until I had finished my degree and he had obtained more stable employment. When we chose to get married before either of those goals materialized, the lack of resources delayed this bucket list trip indefinitely. 

When Michael's parents were called on a mission to Boston, MA and the family decided that we would go to them for our reunion in 2015, we knew it was now or never.

J.D. was recently baptized and would receive the Aaronic Priesthood prior to our leaving. The trip would provide a visual dimension to the things that we taught him over the last year. 

Kate would be graduating from High School the following year and would either be off to college, a mission, or other possibilities next year and we may have lost our chance to do this trip as a whole family.

We began to plan and to save & just completed a most wonderful tour of the LDS history sites. We will post some of the amazing things we did and saw along with our thoughts in these blog posts over the next few days. We hope that in sharing them, you get to feel a little as we did on our journey.