Tuesday morning, the 27th of May, we loaded up in Carolyn & Dustin's van and Monica & James' car and headed west across the state of Illinois -- destination Nauvoo, Illinois. We planned to make one stop along the way: Springfield, Illinois - home of President Abraham Lincoln. When we arrived, we went into the Visitor's Center to look around and find out how we could take a tour of Abraham Lincoln's home.
The five children were happy to be out of the car and were hoping for something fun. The Visitor's Center wasn't exactly what they had in mind, but you have to remember that the ages of all five of them are under the age of five. We adults were looking around the visitors center and keeping an eye on the kids as they darted here and there. We had been there for quite a few minutes when Eliza ran around the corner of a section of the visitor's center. Monica and I both started to follow her when suddenly we heard the fire alarm in the building go off and Eliza came back around the corner with a scared "I think I'm in trouble" look on her face. I think both Monica and I said "Eliza" about the same time, and she burst into tears and ran to her mom. She was really upset and didn't really know what she had done wrong. I'd like to know who designs fire alarms that can be reached by a three-year-old without any effort at all.
Needless to say the park rangers immediately began evacuating the building. Monica apologized to the park ranger, but even though they knew the cause of the alarm, they had to follow protocol and send everyone out. Most people were very understanding and got a good chuckle out of the situation. However, a couple of the rangers weren't smiling and at least one of the guests complained about "parents who don't keep track of their kids".
While Monica was having a talk with Eliza trying to explain what she shouldn't have done, the fire engine pulled up and a couple of fireman went inside to check out the building and turn off the alarm.
At the end of it all, James had to go in and fill out a report for the fire department. We're not sure if that means that Eliza now has a record at the age of three in the city of Springfield, Illinois. The rest of us decided that not showing our faces inside the visitors' center again for awhile might be the best course of action and we headed over to President Lincoln's home for the tour.
As we followed the park ranger through the home, the kids did pretty good, but by the time we got to the top of the house, they were tired of being confined and tired of listening to the tour guide and were starting to fuss. As we came down the back stairs, the park ranger opened the door and, smilingly said if you'll exit through this door, it will take you through the back yard and out into the street where you started. Thinking the tour was over, we filed out the door. The ranger then shut the door behind us and went on down into the kitchen area with the other tourists and finished the tour. When we realized that he had shut the door and stayed inside, we looked at each other for a moment and then someone said, "Did we just get kicked out of the Lincoln home?"
We decided it must be time to "get out of town", so we headed on down the yellow brick road to Nauvoo, Illinois.
We had reserved tickets for a performance of "Nauvoo Rendezvous" for 7 p.m. that night, so we were under somewhat of a deadline for getting to Nauvoo. We were supposed pick the tickets up at 2 p.m. When it looked like we weren't going to make 2 p.m., we called and asked if they could hold our tickets until later. We were told that they didn't have any tickets reserved for us. We explained that we had reserved them a week ago, and the sister missionary said that she would see what she could do. She called back and told us that they had been able to get nine tickets for us and when would we be there to pick them up. We told her around 3 p.m. Then we had to call and tell her that it would be 4 p.m. Then we had to call and tell her that it would be closer to 5 p.m. By the time, we got to the Visitor's Center to pick up the tickets, they were very familiar with who we were. The reason we wanted to go to that performance was because Roger's uncle and aunt, Melvin & Nancy Memmott, are on a mission in Nauvoo, and Uncle Melvin was supposed to be singing in the performance that evening.
We called Uncle Melvin when we got into town and he offered to bring pizza to our motel room when we got there so that we could feed the kids before going to the performance.
Maren, Avery, & Eliza sat on the front row of the small cultural hall where the performance took place. It was the older couple missionaries serving in Nauvoo who performed in "Rendezvous" and they always took notice of the children. One of them asked if anyone had a birthday today, and Eliza yelled out "Me!" Monica explained that her birthday wasn't until Saturday, but they sang "Happy Birthday" to her and another lady anyway. The three girls watched the program and listened to the singing and did really well. As a side note, we never did see Uncle Melvin in the cast. After all of our efforts to get there, he had a meeting with the Mission President and had to miss the performance.
Afterwards we went back to the Nauvoo Family Inn & Suites and everyone went swimming, except Roger, who preferred the hot tub. I didn't go because I'd been sick for a couple of days and didn't think swimming was advisable right now.
More later.....................
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