More Travels with Jessie

Last week my sister Libby and I flew to Indiana to visit our cousin Ethan and his wife Libby in West Lafayette. We flew in Tuesday morning and drove up to West Lafayette where my sister (Libby Jr.) and I took a nap to make up for the restless nights sleep we had received on our red eye flight. After our nap we took a drive around beautiful, green Lafayette. The next day the four of us drove around Lafayette. We went to Purdue University (where Ethan and Libby Sr. are going to work on their PhD's), had a picnic by the river, walked over the Wabash river, walked through Lafayette, and walked through a couple of awesome parks.

Here we are by the fountain at the end of the pedestrian bridge that goes across the Wabash river.

The classic Butt picture. This is my best angle.

Friday morning we drove the two hours from West Lafayette to the beautiful "Windy City" of Chicago. Our first day in Chicago we went to Millenium park, The Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium, then drove a taxi to Willis tower (better known as the Sears tower).

Here I am at the top of the Willis tower. I don't do well with heights so I was pretty nervous to begin with, but things got worse when my sister (and later my cousins) tried to convince me to go stand on the glass box that you can look through.

Here was my reaction. This is how I know my family loves me: they laughed at me and then took pictures of me crying.

After the Willis tower we ate delicious Chicago style deep dish pizza at Giordano's.

Then we walked through Chicago back to Millennium park and saw the bean.

This is a view from underneath the bean.

The next day we went to some botanic gardens in Chicago that was full of beautiful flower gardens and beautiful waterfalls.

After the gardens we went and saw the Chicago Temple.

After the temple we headed back to downtown Chicago and we ate some delicious Chicago Hot Dogs. Well Libby Jr. and Ethan ate official Chicago Hot Dogs, I only had a polish dog, which was very delicious. After lunch we went to a Planetarium then the Museum of Science and Industry.

Libby Jr. wanted to take a picture of me next to this male "statue." It was my idea to hold his male parts.

Here is Libby Jr. holding his male parts as well.

After the museum we drove to Nauvoo. We spent two and a half days in Nauvoo. Nauvoo was such an awesome and spiritual experience. We did a ton in Old Nauvoo. For example I was able to help make rope. Plus I got a lot of cool stuff: a prairie diamond, a mini horse show, a candle, a rope, and a brick. Plus the stories were so amazing. The early pioneers were amazing, I could never do all of the things that they did, but I am very grateful for them. A few of the buildings are owned by the Community of Christ church (which is the church that was formed by Emma Smith after Joseph Smith died and the saints left Nauvoo). We had to pay a couple of dollars each to go through those buildings, but we had an interesting tour guide. His name was Sergey (or something to that affect) from Russia. He liked to say phrases such as "Let me pay your attention" or "Can you imagine" of course you have to say these with a deep Russian accent.

After Nauvoo we headed south along the Mississippi River and drove to Carthage jail. After Carthage we drove back to West Lafayette. Spent one more night with Ethan and Libby Sr. then made our way back home to Southern Utah.
It was such a fun vacation, and if you would like to see more pictures you'll have to check both Libbys' blogs in the next couple of days.