Madcap adventure

I'm busy planning this trip across the country next month. Actually, David's planning the route out to New Hampshire, I planning my itnerary back. We are caravaning out with 4 vehicles- Jared and Heather have to take their own cars, then we are taking the truck with a big rental trailer full of their earthly goods, and my Mom wants to go, so she is driving her motorhome. David and Nic will drive straight back within a couple days, but Mom and I will stay a week in NH to help get them settled in, and of course we have to go to the Atlantic ocean while we're so close.

Then the real fun begins- I'm forcing my Mom to drive with me to Ohio and Iowa for genealogy research. I figure that it's for her family, so she has to help. We'll be doing exciting things like cemetery visits, taking pictures of gravestones and such. Then we will ramp up the fun factor by heading to the courthouses, and finding birth, death and probate research. Aren't you jealous? I know, some people would rather go to Vegas, or have dental work, but for me, this is a great adventure. 3 lines of Mom's family lived in Jackson Ohio area, and are buried in the same cemetery, so this should be really cool! Or cold, since last weekend Ohio had 1-2 feet of snow dumped on them. Hopefully the flooding will be over, or not quite started, by the time we get there, and I can only hope that there won't be any snowstorms while we're tramping around.

I'm planning to stop in Nauvoo, IL on the way to Iowa. Nauvoo is big on the LDS history tour, and it's right on our way. There is a new LDS temple there, modeled after the one that was burned by mobs in the 1840's. Now Nauvoo is a great tourist place, so I plan to take full advantage of the new friendly natives, and have the wagon-ride tour about town. They don't run Mormons out anymore, they are happy to have the tourist dollars, so it should be a very interesting visit. Next it will be on to Iowa, party central USA. Mom's grandparents lived in southeastern Iowa for a 100 years, and I want to find all the history I can on her families there. I know her grandpa Mathews was a coal miner, and I have a picture of him in a beautiful garden at his home, so maybe we can find more.