Farewell to Old Nauvoo

We drove around Nauvoo Monday morning to see some last things and to say goodbye to the town. We had grown so attached to the place and had so many wonderful experiences there that it was harder to leave than I expected. I was actually on the verge of tears at points! We visited the temple once again. I really love the statue of Joseph and Hyrum that is across the road. It depicts them leaving for Carthage, and when he looked back on the beautiful city he helped create, Joseph said, "This is the loveliest place and these are the best people under the heavens..." It truly is a lovely place and I am grateful for all the efforts so many people have made to restore it and make it a place we can visit and feel the Spirit of the Lord.

We had one last adventure before we drove out of town when we went in search of the Rockwell farm property. It is located down a dirt road which, since it rained every night we were in Nauvoo, was actually a mud road. We tried to take the green machine to the site, but we became increasingly concerned that we'd get stuck, so we turned around and parked our bugly rental in a safe spot and hoofed it instead. On the way to our destination, as we hopped puddles and horse pucky, we stopped to get a picture of King Follett's well. King Follett was a church member who died when rock fell on his head while he was digging this well. At the funeral of his friend, Joseph Smith delivered a wonderful sermon known as the King Follett Discourse. In it he taught about the character of God and stated, "God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens!" I find so much comfort in that truth. Our Heavenly Father is kind and loving and patient with us because he knows that life is hard, but that we can make it.

Just around the bend from King Follett's well is the Rockwell farm. It is a lovely and lush looking place, but what part of Illinois isn't? The perfect grass that we strive so hard to keep alive in our desert home grows on the side of the roads there! It's crazy green! We squelched back to our car, scrubbed our muddy shoes really good on the floor mats (just cuz we liked that car so much), and headed through Old Nauvoo one last time on our way out of town. We couldn't help but think that if we felt blue leaving Nauvoo after a few days visit, the feeling of the Saints would have been compounded a 100 times over as they drove down Parley Street and into an unknown future. They had amazing faith and that important spiritual component of hope, which is the expectation of good things to come.

We made good time across Illinois, since we avoided the toll roads and had no side trips planned. We did, however, have one last stop to make. Our airplane ride friend, the boozy businessman, had been a treasure trove of information about great places to eat in Chicago. He said that if we wanted Chicago-style pizza, Giordano's was not to be missed.
We didn't know much about the place other than that it was a chain resturant, so it couldn't be too hard to find once we were in the city limits, right? We ended up on a toll road on the way to the airport and so I asked the toll booth operator if he knew where a Giordano's was. He was able to give us precise directions and we were there in 15 minutes. Real Italians showed us to our seat and took our order for a small pizza that ended up being too massive for us to eat. They make the pizza from scratch, so it takes about 35 minutes to cook. We had an appetizer to kill the time, which was super yummy, and then ate the most divine pizza ever. It was so good, in fact, that Chad couldn't bear to leave behind the left-overs. He was positive he could get it into his luggage and past the security check. I felt a kind of fatalism when he was pulled aside for extra baggage screening in the airport, but he and the security man just talked about pizza and laughed while Chad's carry-on was swabbed for bomb materials. I think they just wanted to pull aside the guy who was crazy enough to stuff a pizza box in his suitcase. We flew home on a slightly newer model of airplane, it was at least bigger and only half full of passengers, but the pilot seemed determined to fly the entire route home in a cloud bank, which jiggled the wing (yes, we were sitting next to the wing again!) in such a stomach-churning manner that I had to close the window or lose my dinner. We arrived safely home again and found all well there. Our deepest gratitude goes out to Jeannine for making our get-away possible. She took care of our kiddos like a pro! We had such a fun reunion with them in the morning and were glad to be together again. North, south, east, and west...wherever you go, home is best!