Wheaton College

The next day, I became a sure candidate for Mother of the Year.

Since way back, the kiddo has been the #1 fan of C.S. Lewis, beginning with the Chronicles of Narnia in probably the 2nd Grade.  (And no one had dreamed of making a million-dollar movie yet)

Wheaton College has a display of C.S. Lewis items, as well as J.R.R. Tolkien (whom she also loved reading way back), along with a few others.  They also have some books that Lewis himself read, that the kiddo will have to tell you about, now that she's back to blogging and posting.  My Mother of the Year nomination came from waiting for quite some time while she read through some of those books.  She was so happy.

We were allowed to take photos for personal use only.  Does blogging a travelogue count as personal use?  Tell you what, I won't post any close-ups.  Reckon that'll be all right?

Here are a couple or 3.

THE wardrobe was there as well.  Again, I want her to tell you about it.

Will a postcard collection count for anything here?  We collected postcards everywhere we went.

We stayed there until about 2:00 that afternoon, and then left for our final destination.  Redneck grandma that I am, I had wanted to go by Moline, IL, to see the John Deere stuff, but time was marching on, so we had to pass on that.  Also had to pass on the Wyatt Earp birthplace.

Arrived that night at the Fairfield Inn in Keokuk, Iowa, which is right across the Illinois/Iowa state line.  As a matter of fact, the state line is in the middle of the Mississippi River.

Keokuk, Iowa, would not be my choice of residence.  However, when we drove in that evening, it had one of the most gorgeous sunsets I've ever seen in my life.

I hate making reservations at a hotel I've never been to before, but I thought I'd better make sure we had some place to stay when I knew we wouldn't get there until probably pretty late.  So before we left the Wheaton area the night before, I had made reservations at the closest place to Nauvoo I could find.  We didn't get checked in there until about  8:30 that night.   Let's just say that staying at a place that backs up to the  Wal-Mart parking lot is not my ideal place to spend the night. Upon check-in, I promptly made my way .2 of a mile back up the road to the Hampton Inn for the next 2 nights of our planned stay.

Yes, I'm a hotel snob.

I even made me a new buddy at the Hampton Inn.  It's kinda funny that whenever I went to check in at these Hampton Inns, they remembered my name from when I had called to make the reservation.  I'm guessing they don't have many people checking in from South/North Carolina and they tend to remember.  Therefore, I had to be on my best behavior.  There was even a World War II veteran when we were at the Lincoln museum that I was talking to, who had my place of birth exactly right.  It wasn't "Where in the South are you from?", it was "Let's see, you're from South Carolina".  He was good.  He was real good.

Back to my new buddy, I got to see her trip to New York pictures on her Facebook. 

We spent the next 3 days in Nauvoo, IL - the main reason for this trip to begin with.