Richardson Report

 On Thursday we left Palmyra and drove the 6 hours to Boston.  We had planned a fun day in Boston as the culmination of our trip (also it was the cheapest flight home after Palmyra).  The Boston Celtics had just won the NBA championship so we also found out that there was a parade scheduled on Friday...and the parade route ran right in front of our hotel.  We knew that we would want to be sure to get away from the parade chaos on Friday as soon as possible. The drive into Boston was uneventful.  When we got there it was 95 degrees and humid - we were melting.  Our room wasn't ready so we braved the heat and took a walk to the Boston Commons, which was one block away from our hotel (Omni Parker House - home of the Boston Cream Pie and Parker House rolls).  Boston Common is featured in the children's book "Make Way for Ducklings".  The kids were too hot to explore much of the garden, but we did find the ducks.... Once we were in our hotel room, we opted to relax and coo

 We spent all of Sunday driving from St. Louis to Kirtland, OH.  After the flats of Iowa, Illinois starts showing rolling hills and more trees and by the time you are in Ohio it is all rolling hills and trees - you can hardly tell where the towns are sometimes because there is so much greenery between you and the buildings.  The Northeast was having a heat wave so we knew we were in for some heat.  And it was hot.  Thank goodness for air conditioning.  We were outside as little as possible over the next few days. Monday June 17 was our full day in Kirtland.  We started at the John Johnson farm and learned some of the history of that. We next toured the Kirtland temple, now owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (recently purchased from the Community of Christ).  Following that we took a break for smoothies for lunch. We finished with a short tour of Kirtland - which was cut short because a tour group was coming in and had reserved the site.  We finished a

On the way to Nauvoo we stopped for lunch at a cute Dutch town called Pella.  We tried out their bakery (yum!) and enjoyed the Dutch buildings.  We spent two nights only in Nauvoo.  The weather was warm and we were a little melty, but in spite of that, we had a good time exploring the Church's historical sites. On Wednesday afternoon Jenny and Jackie drove up and joined us in Nauvoo. We also saw the host from one of our favorite podcasts...so that was fun On Thursday,  the girls, Josh, and Kelly went down to the baptistry to do some baptisms in the Nauvoo Temple together.  Then we headed over to Carthage to tour Carthage Jail.  We got there and realized we were all hungry so we ran to a restaurant for breakfast first, then went back for the tour. Our next stop was the town of Hannibal, MO - home of Mark Twain and Tom Sawyer.  We decided to take a river cruise and enjoyed learning a little more about the great Mississippi River and its history. We continued on to St. Louis and spent