Navoo, Illinois

Our ride along the Mississippi River was especially beautiful on Friday. The river is wide and there are islands sprinkled around. We saw sailboats among other kinds of river transportation. We rode in Illinois all day and crossed into Burlington, Iowa at the end of the day.

Today our ride took us through Navoo, Illinois. I had not heard of this place before but Pat has been here twice already. This is where the Mormans built a settlement and a temple in the early 1800's before they left the area in 1846 on their way to Salt Lake City. The people who live here now are Morman missionaries. Their mission is to show the tourists the way the people of the settlement lived in the 1800's. Their dress is period clothing appropriate for the craft they are showing. We went into a family cultural center where we saw a young girl weaving. A woman showed us how they baked bread. There are many buildings to visit. Pat says that to really see the settlement it would take a couple of days. We only had a short hour. Members of our group were struck with a couple of things: That the people continued to stay in Navoo until the temple was completed even though they probably knew it would be destroyed after they left. It is also a magnificantly planned settlement. It was a great hour that we spent.

We got caught in the rain and found others riders waiting for the storm to ease up at a bakery. We also got caught in a rain and thunderstorm and waited that one out sitting on someone's porch. Another time we found shelter in a restaurant where a chicken salad sandwich cost $2.00. We arrived in Burlington pretty dry feeling lucky that we didn't see the tornadoes which struck the next town in southern Iowa that we will be going to on Sunday. Enough of this weather.