Our Trip To Carthage / Hannibal (Day Two)

We started off the morning going to the local church branch in Iowa.  The boys were not thrilled.  And Seth realized almost immediately that he can pull himself onto the metal chairs without any problem.  We made it through the sacrament, after which Katsu left with Seth.  Then Andrew had to get a drink or something and at that point, with Seth running down the halls, we decided interrupting a ward that much that’s not even our own is probably not worth the battle.

So, off to Carthage we went.  We didn’t think it opened until 12:00.  So we had considered heading back to Nauvoo.  But since the building tours are so scripted and long (reminiscent of mini-sacrament meetings), we didn’t think that would go so well.  Besides, we had been reading in the D&C scripture reader about Joseph Smith’s death and Andrew was fascinated (as he is about all deaths and morbid thoughts … we talk about death almost daily in this household), we figured he would love the trip to Carthage.

And he did!  Luckily, Carthage seemed to be open and packed when we got there.  Packed.  After waiting for a while to see the movie, we finally got in with the rest of the room completely full of teenage boys and a few leaders.  Seth was fine for about 5 minutes and then we spent the rest of the time in the foyer surrounded by a family reunion group singing hymns – a lot more up Seth’s alley.  We joined the group again for the outside tour and made it through the downstairs before Seth again pled mercy.

While the boys toured the upstairs (Andrew loved it, but even he was no match for the LDS missionary spiritual tour guide and came down early), Seth ran around outside completely in love.  And yes, he is carrying a mallet, which is the closest our boys have ever come to a comfort object.  Heaven pity the person who comes between the boy and that mallet.  Which made for great fun when Seth learned the wonderful joy of hitting the Prophet/Hyrum statue with it.

After gathering up the troops, we were off to Hannibal, which is just about smack-dab between the Lou and Nauvoo.  For the uninformed, this is Mark Twain-ville, where he spent some of his life and also has the houses that were inspiration for some of his books.  We decided to forgo the museum and just took pictures as well as walked a bit around the downtown.  We thought we broke the camera at one point while Andrew simultaneously threw a fit, but luckily, the world was renewed again upon finding one of the coolest toy train shops ever.

 

At this point, we decided to go.  We were starving … and my feet were killing me.  Yes, in all the rain yesterday, we had forgotten to put on bug spray.  And while Seth escaped with hardly a bite, and Katsu with just a few, Andrew had one smack dab between his eyebrows (and still has scars from when we went hiking and got bites like a month ago!).  I, of course, suffered the worst, with I think 28 total, 12 on one foot alone.  The picture does not do justice to the pain.

It was a fun trip and NOT easily forgotten.