Road Trip Day 3

1.  Holiday Inn Express offered a well-rounded variety of breakfast yummies to choose from for free.  That is the main reason we stayed in their hotels.  It was great until day 14 when the kids actually got tired of the choices and wanted....hmmm, I don't know what.


2.  Visit to Liberty Jail in Liberty, MO.


Liberty Jail
Joseph Smith was unjustly confined in Liberty Jail from December 1838 to April 1839 along with several other Church leaders. Joseph suffered helplessly, knowing that the Latter-day Saints were being driven from Missouri under an "extermination order" from the governor. The Prophet and his companions were imprisoned in a rough stone dungeon measuring 14 by 14 feet, with a ceiling just over 6 feet high. Only two small barred windows allowed light and air into the cell. The six prisoners suffered from winter weather, filthy conditions, hunger, and sickness.

While in Liberty Jail, the Prophet wrote letters to his family and the Saints. His correspondence contains some of the most poignant revelation found in scripture. In this miserable jail, Joseph learned that his sufferings were still not comparable to those of the Savior, as the Spirit whispered to him: "The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?" He was taught that in the end "all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good."1

In early April 1839, Joseph and the other prisoners were allowed to escape, and they fled to safety in Illinois.

The jail was eventually torn down, though some of the dungeon floor and walls remained. The property was purchased for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1939. President Joseph Fielding Smith dedicated a partial reconstruction of the jail housed within a visitors' center in 1963. 

(josephsmith.net)

Road side art - smoke stack pencil top.

3.  Visit to Far West, MO.

Far West

By 1838, many Saints left Ohio to join with those driven from their homes in Missouri. They gathered in the wilderness area of Caldwell County in northwest Missouri and built the city of Far West as a temporary place of refuge. Joseph Smith and his family arrived in March 1838. The following month, God revealed to the Prophet that Far West was located on holy ground, and the Saints were commanded to build a temple here.1 Cornerstones for the temple were laid during a celebration in early July.

As persecutions raged, Joseph continued to receive direction from the Lord. Here, God revealed that His Church was to be called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.2 He directed the Saints to "pay one-tenth of all their interest annually"3 to financially sustain the Church. And from Far West, the Lord sent the Twelve Apostles on an important mission to England.

The Prophet and other Church leaders were captured by a mob in the fall of 1838. Most were soon released, but Joseph and five others were moved to Liberty Jail. By the following spring, the Saints had fled Far West to safe havens in Illinois and Iowa.

In 1908, the Church purchased 80 acres in Far West, including the temple lot. President David O. McKay dedicated monuments at the temple site in 1968. 
(josephsmith.net) 

4.  Visit to Adam-ondi-Ahman.  Stopped and had lunch: granola cereal, hard boiled eggs and dried fruit.  The wind tipped some cereal bowls over and made it a little hard to eat.  We forgave it when it gave us grand views of gorgeous grassy waves on the back roads of MO.  It literally looked liked waves in the ocean.  I guess that is why they call it grassy waves.

Adam-ondi-Ahman

Here Adam and his righteous posterity met . Adam, other prophets, and faithful Saints from all ages will meet the Savior here prior to His Second Coming.

Looking eastward across the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman, a quiet, beautiful valley located in northwestern Missouri near the community of Gallatin.

Significant Events: Three years before he died, Adam called his righteous posterity into this valley and bestowed on them his last blessing. In 1838 Adam-ondi-Ahman was the location of a settlement of between 500 and 1,000 Latter-day Saints. The Saints abandoned this settlement when they were expelled from Missouri. Before Christ’s Second Coming in glory, Adam and his righteous posterity, which includes Saints of all dispensations, will again assemble in this valley to meet with the Savior.
(lds.org)  

We (mostly mom) loved all the old abandoned farm houses and barns.

5.  Since it was Memorial Day, we visited one of the many quaint cemeteries along the back roads of MO.  

6.  Arrived in Keokuk, IA and stayed at the Holiday Inn Express for a total of three hours while eating a picnic lunch and watching Animal Planet.  The hotel was located right on the Mississippi river in the run-down part of town.  Being the protector, Dad reserved another hotel in Burlington, IA for the next three nights.  We repacked and drove there for the night.  It was a long day.

Yeah for Geepers!  GPS!  GPS!  GPS!

I love cemeteries - especially really old graves.