June 17, 2012

We are in Illinois.  We left camp and followed scenic 79 along the Mississippi to Hannibal, Missouri.  This is where the boyhood home of Mark Twain is and where he got most of his inspiration for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.  We walked through Mark Twain’s house and Huckleberry Finn’s house and then saw his father’s law office and Becky’s Thatcher’s house.  Afterward we visited the Mark Twain museum.

Then we drove to Nauvoo, Illinois and got an RV site at Nauvoo State Park.  We drove on the Great River Road between Hamilton and Nauvoo alongside the Mississippi River.  Our Casita in the picture is right next to the river.  Joseph Smith and the Mormons had a settlement in Nauvoo in the mid 1800s. There is a large Mormon temple here.  On the morning of June 24, 1844, Joseph Smith and his brother left their families for the last time from here.  They continued to Carthage, Illinois, where they faced legal charges and eventually death at the hands of a mob.  Jim’s great great grandfather settled in Nauvoo to work in vineyards that were here.  He and his brother had immigrated from Austria.