"Sunday morning, 19 November 2006, both Andrea and slept in. It must be harder to drive 12 hours than we thought. Or maybe we are just getting old. Actually, of the two, I don't think there is any question about which it is. We are older than dirt! And that is old!
We were able to crawl out of bed, take a shower and make it to the 11:00 church services. It felt good to see my son busy helping people before sacrament meeting, and on the stand as a member of the Bishopric during the sacrament meeting. The feelings of hope, love, and what I hope is righteous pride spread over me like a warm blanket. I wrote a couple of potential stanzas for Prime Words during Sacrament Meeting:
A few minutes before sacrament meeting, Andrea left and went back to the house to take care of Grant, who had a temperature of 104o. It was the first time this year I have been in Gospel Doctrine or Priesthood Meeting. It was nice to have a lesson on the Old Testament and Wilford Woodruff. I need to read the Wilford Woodruff manual. Maybe this would be a good activity for this trip to spend Thanksgiving with Paul, Kate, Grant, and Ella. Everyone I met and introduced myself to as Paul's Dad had good things to say about Paul and Kate and their genuine service to others. I certainly left the church with a good feeling that Paul and Kate are in a good place, with a good support group, and are busy doing good things which will provides rewards throughout the eternities.
When we got back to the house, I read a couple of chapters in The Old Testament, marking references to God, Jesus, The Holy Ghost, angels, and other gods. Grant and I played with some of his building toys for quite a while. Kate fixed a marvelous chicken stuffed with spinach and covered with tomatoes and onions dinner. I made it through the day only eating about 110 swallows, which is at the upper end of being able to lose any weight. Paul was the Master of Ceremonies for the Young Women's Night of Excellence. He then went and helped someone with a virus infected computer, and so we did not see him again until Monday night. We talked to Kate, and I spent a lot of time playing with a 3-D puzzle Kate has candy hidden in.
Monday morning we slept in until about 8:00, and then we went for a walk. It was just below freezing outside, and a beautiful morning to go for a walk. I took a couple of photos of us, the one to the left being my favorite. I like the composition, with the early morning sun, and opposite Andrea and I. The other one was at the other end of the golf course, and shows the chapel where Paul, Kate, Grant, and Ella go to church. The photos from our Thanksgiving with Paul, Kate, Grant, and Ella are located at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Family/03_PaulKate/061119-26_Kate_Paul_Thanksgiving_Week. When we got back we had breakfast, showered, played with the kids, ate lunch, read "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" to Grant, put him down for a nap, and I worked on catching up on Thoughtlets, while Andrea stripped wallpaper from the room we are staying in for Kate. Grant is still coughing, and doesn't feel all that good, and Ella is still fighting her cold a little, which she has from last week. I worked on catching up Thoughtlets in the afternoon while everyone napped. Then Paul got home from work, and brought the two guys he car pools in "to meet Paul's Dad." Terry Slezak is from Mobile, Alabama, is the Stake President, and Paul Home Teaches him. John Griffin is in the Elder's Quorum and just moved here. John works for Boeing, and Terry and Paul work for UGS, who contract to Boeing. It was a short and interesting discussion. Terry goes up to Nauvoo fairly regularly, and after Paul's promptings had comments about my idea for building Zarahemla across from Nauvoo (../0249.html). We did not talk about the upside of running a riverboat back and forth across the river from Nauvoo to Zarahemla. Guess I'll save that tidbit for investors once I tie up the land (as if there were a chance I could do that).
After the car pool left I went back up stairs and was working on e-mail (Paul got me hooked up to his wireless network) and Thoughtlets. Then I was called downstairs for a feast. And what a feast it was. The guy Paul was helping the night before gave him 4 pounds of shrimp the size of my fist. And were they ever good. In addition there was bar-b-que steak, strawberry and lettuce salad, home made rolls, and green beans. It was better than any restaurant. After dinner we had Family Home Evening. I played the guitar for 'Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree,' Kate had a lesson about what we are thankful for based on spin the bottle, we all drew a picture of what we said, and I sang 'Three Little Men' (I kept crying when I saw the words "looking up at me, wondering what would be"), and Paul's Song. Paul was on the phone quite a bit helping the Bishop get food orders for folks in need. It was a nice evening.
Tuesday morning we got up a bit earlier, and since we already knew the way went for our walk in the Golf Course. This morning we found the signs saying no trespassing, and that violators would be prosecuted. We saw someone working on the golf course and went right by them. They did not prosecute us. I was worn out all day from two days of walking with Andrea. Maybe 54 flights of stairs most lunch times is not enough exercise. We went to the Magic House and watched Grant and Ella explore water, sound, light, floating balls, static electricity, Lewis & Clark, hanging rope tunnels, and lots and lots of other things. Both Andrea and I think there is a great opportunity to open something like this in Cedar City. She even mentioned Red Cove a couple of times. Who knows what the future holds. We came back and watched Dumbo, and specials related to Dumbo, I ate most of the rest of the shrimp, Kate fixed another fancy meal with oranges and salad, chicken enchiladas, corn, chips, and dip. Then we cleaned up and got the kids in bed. Paul is under a lot of pressure at work, and will not be able to take any time off until Thursday. Matt called me a couple of times to confirm his travel from Cedar to Las Vegas. Paul drove Andrea and I to pick Matt up at 12:30 AM. He had his military fatigues on. And he picked up the wrong bag, and the owner stopped us just as we were leaving the terminal. Oh well! It all turned out fine.
Wednesday was busy. Andrea and I went for a walk in the golf course again, this time walking clockwise. Then we all got ready and drove to a park-and-ride close to Paul's work, where we met him. Then we drove downtown to the City Museum. Paul says it is a "Dad place." It is an old factory where they turned loose a bunch of welders and made all kinds of tunnels and caves and tree houses and aquariums and an everyday circus and kiddie trains and metal sculptures with tubes you climb through and slides and open fires where you can roast marshmallows and toddler areas and art areas and rope swings and lots and lots and lots of other things. It was fun watching the Grandkids discover different things, and it was just as fun to watch Paul and Matt discover bigger versions of similar things. I took quite a few photos (http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Family/03_PaulKate/061119-26_Kate_Paul_Thanksgiving_Week/dsc07130.jpg to http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Family/03_PaulKate/061119-26_Kate_Paul_Thanksgiving_Week/dsc07183.jpg). My favorite is to the right, which I composited with more distant views to give a sense of scale, with Grant leading out with zero fear climbing a couple of stories above the ground in a wire tube. It might be a "Dad place," and I was not found climbing in those wire tubes hung by a single cable and otherwise floating in the air. Kate took the kids home and stopped to buy a pecan pie at Sam's. We bought gas and went across downtown to the Arch. I took some nice digital photos which composited well (see http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Family/03_PaulKate/061119-26_Kate_Paul_Thanksgiving_Week/dsc07184.jpg to http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Family/03_PaulKate/061119-26_Kate_Paul_Thanksgiving_Week/dsc07201.jpg). We left downtown, dropped Paul and Matt off at the Park-and-Ride to pick up his car and drove back to O'Fallon and the house. Paul and Matt went and picked up pizza, Kate had arranged for a babysitter, and the five of us went to a movie at a theater celebrating 100 years of showing movies. The movie we went to was "Casino Royal," the new James Bond movie. Better than some of the Bond movies. Should have been rated "R," and from that standpoint I shouldn't have taken Matt, Paul, Kate, Andrea, nor myself. And I shouldn't have referred to it as a Christmas movie, with the explanation that every Christmas it is appropriate to go see "The Nutcracker." Oh well!
Thursday morning Andrea and I went for another walk in the Golf Course. It sure is a pretty place. It is so sad to me to see a place like this, surrounded by all of these houses, posted saying people are trespassing if they walk on the paths. Of course, it is also sad for me to see all of the beautiful farmland covered with houses. It would be so much better for everyone if thy built on 5% of the land, and left the rest of the land to farm and to walk through like Andrea and I have been doing in the golf course. Oh well! After our walk, I peeled apples for apple pie, and then worked on Thoughtlets for a while, and then took a long nap. We all sang Happy Birthday a couple of days early to Roice. Matt and I played the guitar for a while. Andrea and Kate cooked a wonderful meal. We all said what we are thankful for, and then we all ate too much. I take that back, Grant and Ella knew when they were full and stopped eating. Too bad I'm not as smart as these beautiful kids. After dinner and cleaning up, we sat in the living room, and I took over the guitar from Matt. I played "Nephi's Song" (../0317.html), and the last two verses of the song I wrote this week about Grant and Ella. The words are:
After this, and some talking, we packed the car, except for my guitar, then Matt, Andrea, and I headed out to Nauvoo. I drove all the way, and we arrived at our hotel about 8:30. We had the neatest little yellow house as a "hotel room" at the Hotel Nauvoo. I called and told Kate we had a full house, with two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen, a dinning room, a TV room, and an alcove sitting room with a couch that unfolds into a double bed. She asked if I was asking her to come with Paul on Friday and bring the kids. I said I was just passing on data for their consideration. Andrea watched ER, and I put on Dad's leather coat and went for a walk around the Nauvoo Temple and down Mullholland Street to Main Street. Some of the nicest digital photos I took were this evening (http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Trips/061123-25_Nauvoo). I slept fine, and the bed was too hard for Andrea, and made her hips hurt.
However, I slept in, and Andrea went for her own walk around Nauvoo in the morning. We all got ready and went for breakfast at the cafe across from the Hotel Nauvoo about 9:00. Good breakfast. Turned out it needed to be, because other than a sample of bread and gingerbread, it lasted us until we went to the buffet at the Hotel Nauvoo at 4:30 with Paul, Kate, Grant, and Ella. After breakfast I was buying some post cards for the kids in my Primary Class, and Andrea went next door to the quilting shop. She ended up buying several things for Christmas presents, including for Carol Hulet and Grandma Shirts. I enjoyed talking to the lady that runs the shop. She has lived in the area her whole life. She did not remember a family named Leinhardt living in Nauvoo, and she asked her friend who lived in town her whole life, who also did not remember the name. John Leinhardt does "The Engines of Our Ingenuity" on the Public Radio Station in Houston, I've mentioned him several times as a source of inspiration for these Thoughtlets, and in one of his radio programs he mentioned growing up in Nauvoo before moving to the northwest by Seattle. The person who most impressed the owner of the Quilt Shop was a Buddhist that converted to the LDS Church, and lived in Nauvoo for several years. She described how the owner of the store across the street begged her to set up a weaving display in his store years ago, and how she ended up never leaving Main Street. She also says there are very few people in Nauvoo from October until Spring Break. I told her she needs to be a snowbird and go to Florida for the winter months. She laughed.
Next we walked down to the visitors center where we watched a movie about Nauvoo, and an excellent movie about the Prophet Joseph Smith. Andrea and I both were deeply touched by the spirit of the movie, at least judging by the number of tears shed. Then we walked through the statues honoring the Relief Society in back of the visitor's center. From here we walked down to Main Street, and went to the Masonic Lodge. I had forgot that on the dance hall floor on the second story Joseph Smith had drawn on the hardwood floor a map for Brigham Young of the trail that would be taken to the Salt Lake Valley. Then we went to the Family Living Center where there were demonstrations of carding and spinning wool, making bread, making candles, making rope and making barrels. All very interesting to Andrea and I. It was also interesting to sit though some of the demonstrations with John and Leticia Ravenberg and two daughters of the Katy 1st Ward. Certainly there was a lot of manual labor involved in all of these activities. From here we went to the Scofield Bakery, where we were given a little gingerbread man for lunch. Then we went to the Browning house, where converts from Tennessee lived. Paul, Kate, Grant, and Ella met us here and went through this house with us. I was very surprised to learn, and Matt was very excited to learn the son of John Browning, Moses Branning, invented the machine gun when they lived in Nauvoo. The plaque on the wall behind the machine gun on display reads:
The tour guide had Matt read this plaque, and as much as I despise the killing, death, and destruction which have accompanied this invention, the spirit bore witness to me these words are true, and this was a most important to the freedoms we seem to take too much for granted. It will be interesting to see the impact 'General' Matthew Charles Nielson has towards these same freedoms. I wouldn't be surprised if it surpasses any good I accomplished in improving access to petroleum because of of ideas planted in my head by the spirit. History certainly takes some unexpected turns.
After the Browning House tour, we watched Ella jump in piles of dried leaves. Then Andrea and I went to the Nauvoo Post Office, the John Taylor home, and the newspaper printing shop, all three of which were connected. By the time we finished these, it was already time to head back up to dinner. Paul and Matt and Grant were playing football. Andrea and I went down and toured the Brigham Young home. The historical facts presented by the missionaries are so interesting, and there is so much to see. Both Andrea and I were blown away by only having seen maybe one-fifth of the tour stops in Historical Nauvoo. And we hadn't made it to the bookstore and other shops up by the Temple and the Hotel Nauvoo. As we were walking back, Paul came and picked up us up and took us back to the house. From which we went to th excellent buffet at the Hotel Nauvoo. Salad bar, shrimp, fake crab meat, roast beef, vegetables, and peach cobbler. Too bad there wasn't more time to enjoy it. Andrea, Paul, and I had an appointment at the Nauvoo Temple.
We went back to The Yellow House, changed, got our temple clothes, locked the house and Matt took the key back to Kate to finish dinner and to help her with Grant and Ella. The temple is beautiful. Natural wood, like in the original. A five story free hanging circular stairway, like at the Manti Temple. Very small Creation, Garden, World, Terrestrial, and Celestial Rooms, like at Manti. However, there were no dinosaurs in the Creation Room paintings, like there are at Manti. It was a wonderful spiritual treat to be there, and to be there with a son. The pillars are plastic, and the tables are marble, which was easily shown by temperature felt when touching them. It was nice to stand in front of the mirrors with Andrea and to see us replicate off into eternity. There is a painting by Michael Crawford. I look forward to when Ken Turner has paintings hanging in The Lord's House at various places around the world. After the endowment session we walked around the temple grounds and enjoyed the discussions. Then we went back to The Yellow House, where 'Cars' was playing on Paul's computer. I microwaved some popcorn and sat with Paul, Kate,Grant, and Ella and watched the movie while Andrea read and Matt had a shower.
I got up early Saturday morning, had a shower, and drove twelve miles to Hamilton, Illinois, across the Mississippi River to Kaokuk Missouri, then north to Montrose, Iowa. I arrived about the right time for the sunrise, and took several different panorama shots ad different places along the river, starting next to the river at Montrose, then at a Pioneer Memorial showing where the saints landed after crossing the Mississippi, then at a Bird Conservancy, then at a subdivision built next to the river. I was looking for the location for Zarahemla (../0249.hml), as recorded in D&C 125:1-4, and especially verse 3. I found it. It is not on the river. Rather it is in the far lands back from the river. There are facilities for riverboats, which can ferry folks back and forth from Nauvoo, a train track, which can bring in cars full of people from Chicago or St. Louis, and plenty of space to build a regional airport. This seems like an ideal place to prototype the Walden 3-D new city ideas. After all verse 4 says "And let all those who come from the east, and the west, and the north, and the south, that have desires to dwell therein, take up their inheritance in the same, . . ." And so I have another completely unfunded project like Barker Reservoir (../0447.html) and Red Cove (../0436.html, and Dynamic Resources (http://www.walden3d.com/dynamic). Intelligence mans you are suppose to learn from your mistakes. Guess that shows a key missing component in my life. I drove back to Nauvoo rejoicing in my insight, which I share here for the first time.
Paul, Grant, and Ella were watching "Cars" again. Andrea had just got back from her early morning walk and was having a shower. Matt and Kate were still asleep. I started to build the panorama photos. At 8:30 Matt and Andrea and I went to breakfast. Paul, Kate, Grant, and Ella arrived just as we were finishing. We traded the key to the Yellow House, went back and brushed our teeth, and drove back to the restaurant. Andrea took in her lottery tickets, I took the key to Paul, and stopped and said hi to the lady in the Quilting Shop. Then Matt drove us down to the blacksmith and wheelwright shop. They really do a great tour. From here we walked along the Trail of Hope to where there is a list of those who died after leaving Nauvoo. Nathanial Ashby on Grandma Hafen's side, and Margaret Cameron Shirts on Grandpa Shirts' side were in the lists. There was also a quote from a Granddaughter of Lucy Mack Smith describing how hard it was to leave Nauvoo. From here we went to the Brickyard, where we learned about making Nauvoo bricks, and got another brick for the mantle. Matt seemed to enjoy both of these, and yet this was the end of the tours he wanted to go on. Andrea has waited 51 years to make it to Nauvoo, and Matt isn't really interested. Oh well! Andrea and I walked over to the Lucy Mack Smith house, which was very interesting. I mentioned Andrea is a descendant, and they had her sign a book kept for descendants to sign. Too bad Matt didn't come in. Maybe he will come back and sign the log book someday. From here we went back to the Visitor's Center, where we met Paul, Kate, Grant, and Ella and went on a wagon ride. This was really fun, especially since it was on this ride I was vindicated when we went past the Nathanial Hall / Erastus Snow duplex, which is not open for tours because a missionary couple lives in it. This was a fitting end to our brief and limited tour of Nauvoo. We will be back!
When we got back to the Visitor's Center we met Matt, said goodbye to Paul, Kate, Grant, and Ella, and headed over to the Land Office. This turned out to be quite exciting. I found records for Nathaniel Ashby (694), his wife Susan Hammond (695), Benjamin Ashby (35069 and 689), Elizabeth R. Ashby (980), Fielding Gar (22191), Pauline Turner (22190), and Richard Woolsey (28477). There is a fairly extensive biography of Nanthaniel Ashby. He was a shoemaker. He was converted by Erastus Snow, and he and Erastus built a duplex that is still in Nauvoo in block 125, and is used as a home for missionaries. We were going to go by and meet the missionaries living there and ask for a tour, and there wasn't time. Richard Woolsey owned block 13 in Hibbard 2. Andrea found 21 names of ancestors that lived in Nauvoo. Peter Shirts owned block 112 and block 10 in H. Smith. Hyrum Smith had four lots, Lucy Mack Smith had a house, which we visited, and there is probably lots more to learn about. For me the most exciting thing was to learn specifics of Nathaniel Ashby, and his 11 children. He was worried about being able to run an ox wagon, and Brigham assigned someone to teach him. Then he died a few weeks out of Nauvoo. His wife and 11 children all went to Winter Quarters and then to Utah, and move to the St. George area with Erastus Snow and his family. There is a lot to learn about our ancestors, and it is exciting to me to realize how much they sacrificed so we could have all of the blessings we so much take for granted.
After we got a CD with all of the data from the Land and Record's office, we drove to the end of Parley Street so we could look at where Peter Shirts' main lot was. It was very close to the Mississippi River, and there was not a road going all the way down there. Then we went up in back of the Nauvoo Temple and went to a bookstore that had a neat statue of Joseph and Hyrum. We spent some time looking at the old books, and Andrea was debating whether we could afford to pay the discounted $185 for the statute. They are porcelain, glazed to look like brass, and made in China. I told the store owner she was trying to decide whether to buy it or not because she is a descendant of Hyrum. He looked at her and said, 'Hi cousin.' He is about 70, with a long straggly white beard. They talked about the Smith Family Reunions, he got one of the boxes, and opened it up. It looked fine, although we have not got it all the way out of the box yet. Hopefully it is OK.
Matt drove us from the bookstore to Carthage, where we spent about an hour at the visitors center. It was interesting to hear Paul tell Matt that he came to Nauvoo when he was 14, and didn't remember anything about it. But he remembered Carthage in detail. The movie about the Prophet Joseph's life was short, and very nice. I did not remember all of the parts to the jail. There was a family that lived on the ground floor of the jail and cooked for the prisoners. The day they brought Joseph and Hyrum to the prison was very hot, and it was 120o upstairs. So the jailer let them stay downstairs the first night, in the debtor's prison. Then there were mobs gathering, so he put them upstairs where they would be safer, but did not put them in the jail, rather let them stay in their upstairs bedroom. Joseph and Hyrum slept in the bed, and the other men with them slept on the floor. During the night a shot went off and came into the room, and so Joseph and Hyrum moved to the floor. The next day 200 men mobbed the facility. The brace across the door was off, which allowed them access to the building. And it was over fairly quickly. Whenever I hear the story about the critical shot to John Taylor hitting his watch, I recall a "Twilight Zone" episode I saw as a youth where you watched a man get shot about six times, and the one that they let be the one that really happened was where people moving as fast as light, moved his watch to take the impact of the bullet. The story we heard at the Lucy Mack House about one of Hyrum's daughters, Lovina, was particularly poignant as we stood in the room where he was martyr. She had been dating a man for about a year and Hyrum asked why they hadn't got married yet. She said she wanted him to perform the wedding. Hyrum did not know if he had the authority, and asked Joseph. Joseph told him, he had the authority, and if he wanted to do it he needed to perform the wedding that day. The next day they left Nauvoo for Carthage. The Sister Missionary telling the story, Andrea, and I all teared up as she told us this story. It was a very special few minutes we spent at the Carthage Jail. I had written notes on the post cards for my Primary Class as we drove to Carthage from Nauvoo, and we had purchased stamps at the Post Office in Nauvoo, so I mailed the postcards in the mail box across the street from the Carthage Jail. We stopped and ate at a Subway's Sandwich Shop on the west side of town, and then drove to St. Louis. Matt, Andrea, and I each drove about one third of the way.
We went straight to a Mall, where Andrea bought Matt a pair of running shoes, while I worked on rotating digital photos and building the last few panorama views. We got to Paul, Kate, Grant, and Ella's house about 9:00, just after the kids went to bed. Ella did not want to go to sleep, and came downstairs a couple of times. We sat around and talked for a while. Matt brought up wanting a computer for Christmas again. I attempted to address the issues associated with buying him a computer, and did a poor job of it. Paul brought the conversation to normalcy by getting his laptop and reading about items from www.thinkgeek.com. There certainly are some funny things available for purchase. He was telling us he wants a USB missile launcher for his cubical. Matt loved the things Paul showed us.
I did not sleep very well Saturday night. Partly because the air leaked out of the air mattress, and mostly because I kept thinking about how poorly I responded to Matt. So after showers and breakfast and a prayer in the car, I told Matt what I had spent the night stewing about. I won't go into specifics. The key insight had to do with the part of the conversation about how sex and money are the biggest issues in a marriage. The insight I got in the middle of the night was that both are special bonding experiences if tied to love and sharing, and both are divisive experiences if tied to control and selfishness. I hope my comments were heard. Matt had pretty much shut down, and didn't want to talk to us, nor to give either of us a hug goodbye. Oh well! We dropped him off about 7:30 AM, said goodbye, and drove to Houston. Thanks to my new charger, that runs off of the battery in the Prius (0630.html), I was able to finish writing this Thoughtlet before we arrived in Sherman, Texas, about 5:45 PM. And thus ended our Thanksgiving with Paul, Kate, Grant, and Ella."
