We decided to let Shenna pick where to go for a summer family vacation this year, and she picked Nauvoo, Illinois.
The first thing that went through my mind when she said Nauvoo, was the 3000 miles we would be driving in our car. With everyone.
To be honest, it was a scary thought.
I decided that the best way to go about it, would be have the entire journey be the vacation.
I sat down and started researching different routes, and various things to do along the way.
I kept everyone's interests in mind, then planned the itinerary.
Looking back, it really worked out great, gave everyone things to look forward to, and despite a breakdown of the portable DVD players, the long trip in the car was a success!
First stop: Helper, Utah
We decided to leave on our vacation the day after Shenna's graduation. With both girls working, we needed to go and get back before they missed too much work.
Shenna wasn't thrilled about leaving after her "all night graduation party", so we actually didn't leave until 12:00 pm so she had a little bit of time in the morning to sleep.
We stopped in Helper to go through the Western Mining and Railroad Museum.
We ate a supper that we'd packed from the cooler and headed off to Glenwood Springs, Colorado for the night.
Next stop of interest: Burlington Colorado
Where can you ride a beautiful, still original stationary carousel for just 25 cents?
In Burlington Colorado!
For supper, I planned on having us stop at a random park in Wakeeney, Kansas.
The park, might have seemed random, but it has an F-14 sitting in it. I figured someone might like to take a look at it.
Storms started rolling in so we left quickly and headed to Topeka for much-needed sleep.
Getting to Topeka meant we were close to church history sites.
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| Here are the kids at the location of Haun's Mill where their 5th great grandfather, Benjamin Lewis was murdered. We all had tons of fun there after the end of a long day.   
Also, Samuel Clemens made Hannibal a tourist attraction.
  
And what could be better in Hannibal than bumper boats on the Mississippi!
After Missouri, we headed up to the final destination. Nauvoo, Illinois.
Here are some of the pictures I took there.
        
We left Nauvoo and headed to Iowa. Made a stop in Ottumwa to see a small airpower museum there (for Aaron of course) and got a surprise treat of seeing a biplane taking off and landing.
 
We stopped by the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha Nebraska.
Great zoo, Bad weather.
  
After the zoo, it was over to Winter Quarters for more church history.
 
The Winter Quarters Temple is a beautiful one
On our way through Nebraska we went out of our way to see Chimney Rock.
It's definitely out in the middle of nowhere, but since it was a landmark mentioned by the pioneers, we wanted to see it.
We hit some pretty bad storms between Chimney Rock and Cheyenne, Wyoming.
We got to the hotel and while there were freezing temperatures outside,
the pool inside was nice and warm!
 
One more historic site before home. Fort Bridger, Wyoming.
The kids and Aaron had been there before, but I never had.
As far a road trips go, this one was great!
It is nice to be home though and relaxing for summer.
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