I love how green & thick the trees are.
We started the morning at the federal prison in Leavenworth, KS so we could try & visit my nephew (Sherrie's son), Nathan. We arrived at 8:30 & since we had to send in paperwork about 6 weeks ago, we assumed we would be able to go in within 30 minutes or so. Not true!
Poor Ben woke up with a fever. When we arrived at the Visitor Processing Center building, there was a sign that said no one with a fever could enter. So I stayed outside with Ben. And then Emmalee had forgotten to change from her flip-flops into her tennis shoes, so I quickly carried Ben down the hill to the vehicle to get her some socks & shoes.
(Missouri River)
So about the visit with Nathan: By the time we got back to the building, we peeked in the door & everyone was gone. Since I couldn't get Ben inside, I told Emmalee to wait outside with me & someone would probably be back for her. We waited outside (in the high 80's heat with about 85% humidity) but in the shade & saw other people go inside. We saw a group of people leave & go to the prison. After a few more people, they locked the front door because they had too many people & told people to come back at 10:45. They told a few outside that they would have to change because they didn't have the correct clothing on (no shorts, flip flops, etc.). It was then that I realized that Emmalee was still in shorts, so I ran down to the vehicle & grabbed her pants. About 9:25, a group of people finally came out & I asked Pamela if Emmalee could go with them (they were headed to the prison itself) & she said that Emmalee wasn't on the list so she couldn't go. So that made Emmalee quite upset (started crying) because "they forgot me--they left me".
Here we are in Kansas--on the way to the prison.
About 5 minutes later, the whole group of people came back. Pamela said they were literally 1 minute "too late"--they arrived at the visiting room at 9:31 & they wouldn't let any visitors in after 9:30. So we walked back to the vehicle & tried to decide if we should stay until the 10:45 visiting time or head to the church history sites. Brienna said she would much rather skip some of the sites so she could visit Nathan. So we went back up the hill to wait for the next time. We sat there for a while--I went back to the vehicle (again) & got some snacks & waters. And then at 10:30-ish, the ones that were already processed (had the paperwork all finished) were able to go in the "exit" door to wait to get the okay to go back up. They said it would be easy to add Emmalee to the list since she was a child, so she went back inside the building.
Ben had fallen asleep for the 30 minutes that they were outside with me & so when they went back inside, I thought that when Ben woke up, we'd go to the vehicle to cool down & get me some things to do (we couldn't have cell phones or pretty much anything so I had left it all in the vehicle). But Ben never did wake up the whole time. They finally left the building 1 hour later (11:30 am). Pamela said that they actually didn't get to see Nathan until 12:15. All this time Ben & I were hanging out in the shade. Every so often, a "cool" breeze would come thru so I was able to tolerate being outside.
Pamela & the kids finally got back about 1:15 pm & we headed back to Missouri.
We drove by the Kansas City Temple. It was so beautiful! This picture almost looks like a painting!
We skipped going to Independence, MO & the visitor center there & headed up to Liberty Jail.
Ben finally woke up--and almost barfed 2 times (but was able to hold it back)--I rushed him to the bathroom, but he never did throw up.
Brienna & Emmalee at the jail.
It was very informative--the dungeon is the original jail (was used briefly for a basement)--the jail was torn down & a house built on top until the church bought the property. A church historian had documented the size & what the jail was made of so then the replica was built on top of the original
The double front doors.
Then we stopped at Sonic for a late lunch & went to Far West.
There are 4 cornerstones at the site.
There is a nice plaque & garden.
here's callum taking a picture of one of the cornerstones.
I wanted to include a few pictures of how green & thick the trees are!
Here is the stop at Adam-ondi-Ahman. Ben was still very tired (mostly slept even though he had slept about 4 hours that morning)
Here is the overlook of the valley.
It was in the 90's (with at least 85% humidity) so the kids wanted to find some shade.
Afterwards, we headed to Shelbina, MO for our hotel. We made a stop at a Wal-Mart on the way (around 8 pm) for some dinner, snacks & laundry soap.
We saw the full moon on the way to the motel. It was a small building (looked like about 15-20 rooms total) with only 1 floor. There were fireworks going off behind the hotel because they had just held a boat derby. But we made it! I was so tired that I fell asleep working on this blog.
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