Driving to Nauvoo

Today was fairly uneventful -- mostly driving. Nearly 500 miles. We left Wilmington right after breakfast and drove west, leaving Ohio, crossing across both Indiana and Illinois. In fact, the "quick route" from our GPS took us across the Mississippi river into Iowa, then south, then back across the river on a very narrow steel bridge before heading south to Nauvoo. Mary's a great driving partner, and we worked well together. For lunch, we stopped in Urbana-Champaign and ended up going to Schnuck's grocery store and shopped at the salad bar and bakery. We enjoy this type of lunch!

The weather has continued to be mixed, but mostly cool, rainy, and windy. At this moment, we're in our hotel in Nauvoo, with storm warnings coming up on the TV, including a tornado watch farther south in Missouri. In fact, in the last few minutes it's gone nuts! Lightning, thunder, rain, and now hail! Big gumball-sized hail! I hope our new car will be OK. Have I mentioned how much we like our car? Toyota RAV4.  It's been very comfortable and efficient.

Just so I can remember, I should mention where we've stayed and how we liked it. When we visited Annalicia, we stayed at the Comfort Suites in Danbury, CT. This was one of the nicest hotels we stayed at in the mid-price range. Clean, well-appointed, nice touches, including Andes mints in the room and real plates and silverware at breakfast. For our visit to Palmyra, we stayed at the Comfort Inn in Rochester, NY. Good price (especially at government rate) and about as nice as I would have expected, not quite as nice as Danbury's. It was about 30 minutes to Palmyra. For Kirtland, we stayed at the Comfort Inn in Mentor, OH, less than 10 minutes away. Unfortunately, we found this to be pretty rundown and cheap feeling. The foam plates and plastic silverware at breakfast were standard, but it just felt limited in its choices, etc. But what bothered me, was that this hotel cost about the same as the really nice one in Danbury, although in quality it reminded me more of a Motel 6. We happened to be next door to a Suite 6 (Motel 6 with a kitchenette). So after our first night, we went next door and asked to see a room. It seemed at least as comfortable and nice as the Comfort Inn, but at half the price, so we checked out early from the Comfort Inn and checked into the Suite 6. In Wilmington, we stayed at the Holiday Inn. I used reward points and stayed for free. We had a very nice room, very comfortable bed, and nicely appointed. They didn't have a refrigerator in the room (which we like for the food we're carrying with us). But when I asked, they brought a refrigerator to the room at no cost. Very nice. Finally, here in Nauvoo, we're staying at the Nauvoo Family Inn & Suites. The room is a good size and has everything we need, at a little less than Comfort Inn price. The restaurant downstairs is buffet style. When we got there we were the only ones there. But shortly after we started to eat, a busload of about 50 young adults arrived. We decided we better get our deserts before it was too late! Good thing. We were amazed at how much some of those young men were eating!

After dinner, we did a load of laundry, and settled in for the night. And wrote this blog. It sounds like the storm is passing now. We still have power. So I may as well got to bed.

I didn't take any photos today. Note that all the photos in this blog are my own. I like my new camera, too. But no pictures today, so that's why I attached a map.