Iowa & Nauvoo Day One

Ok, so first off...I apologize for taking so long to post this. We got back a little under a week ago & I have just been wanting to relax! These posts may be a little long, but I'll do my best to get to the point. 

For those of you who don't know, Chris is from South Africa. His grandparents were in America for the first time ever this past month. He hadn't seen them in 10 years, so we decided to take a trip to Iowa to see them. The drive is about 18 hrs. We tried to do it in one day, but we couldn't. To see our overnight experience, visit  this post. 

We went to Jester Park & saw these....I think they're Elk?

At the mall they had these statues....this ones Ronald Regan.

As Chris was showing me around his old stomping grounds, this one of of his stops. He used to play rugby here.

Chris' parents we're so nice & threw us an "open house" so all the people Chris grew up with could see him & meet me. It was a ton of fun. We had hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, chips, and yummy cake. It was great to meet everyone and see people that taught Chris as he was growing up. 

So I'm sure you recognize this...but only a few of you will know what its actually called. "Gothic America" is the name. One of the houses had this in front of it.

And.... coincidentally, on our way to Nauvoo we saw a sign that said "Gothic America House 1 mile." We had to stop. Before going to Iowa I knew nothing about this famous painting, but I remember seeing it every where. We went to the Gothic America visitors center, learned some new stuff (Did you know that the two people in the painting are not husband and wife, they are not father and daughter, and in fact they aren't even related? That's right...the painter had his sister and his dentist pose for this) and got to take a picture in front of the actual house where the painting was based off of.

Original Painting:

Hubs & I in front of the house: (yea, we match... we're cool)

About an hour later, we passed this...Making Illinois the 10th state I've been to. (5 of those are from since I've been married ha)

For those who don't know, Nauvoo is a very historical city for the LDS church. It's one of the main places where the saints who traveled across the plains stayed on their journey west. It's filled with historical houses and buildings where prophets and apostles actually lived and spent there time. One of the main ones being Joseph Smith.

Here are some pics from our first day in Nauvoo.

SUPER small hotel room. We're used to sharing a queen size bed...this one was a full.

First machine gun invented.

This flower was huge. Chris compared it to his hand.

Young men used to carry these with gallons of water on their shoulders up the hill to the temple workers.

Handmade brick.

This is the kind of curling irons the women used to use.

Their bathrooms. They had buckets in the bottom of their chairs.

A small baby cradle.

REALLY steep stairs. They were scary.

We got mint-chocolate fudge from here. It was delicious!

The beautiful Nauvoo Temple at night.

Our first day was amazing and we learned so much. Stay tuned for day 2 of Nauvoo!!