albrecht family summer reunion, days 7-8

On Thursday morning we woke up and prepped to trek.  We showed up at the beginning of the trail at 8am, ready to get some exercise!  We chose the 2-mile route, which we thought would be long enough for the experience but not so long that the little ones wouldn't last.  We took 3 handcarts, and put sandbags in 2 of them to add some authenticity.  Everyone rotated pulling (except for Rachel and Porter, who impressively stayed with their handcarts the whole time!), and the little ones spent some time riding.  In several spots, it took more than 2 people to help each cart - the steep hills, going both up and down, required a lot of teamwork to get over.

After the trek (on which Jed lost his cute yellow hat!), Jed and I went back to the house so Jed could nap, and everyone else did the wagon ride around Nauvoo.  I think they all enjoyed spending some time sitting down instead of standing!

In the afternoon, we drove to Carthage to see the jail where Joseph Smith was martyred.  It was humbling to stand in the places where he did, and think about what he must have felt like to be incarcerated on invented charges.  It saddens me to think that people were so filled with hate toward this peace-loving man that they wanted nothing more than to murder him and anyone who associated with him.  They accused him of treason - the only charge one could not get bail for - to ensure he would not go free.  The middle photo is the upstairs window that he fell from when the mob stormed the jail and shot him.  The Prophet Joseph may have died that day, but the Church still flourishes, as our head is Jesus Christ and our mission is His.

When we returned to Nauvoo, we had time to see a couple more things before everything closed.  We saw part of the Family Living Center, where they showed us some aspects of life in Nauvoo in its early days - candle-making, baking, spinning, etc.  They gave us a sample of the bread they had baked in the "oven" earlier that day, which was disappointingly small.  The kids had been dying to also get a sample of cookies, so the last item on the day's agenda was the Scovil Bakery.