Coming to you... Live... from Mount Pleasant, Iowa!

I'm in Iowa until Monday with my dad, my sister, our cousins Connie and Sharon (as well as her husband Edson and their daughter Julie). We are here to visit distant Barton cousins who live in Iowa.

Below are some notes from the trip yesterday.

Wednesday, 7:54 a.m.

(Written en-route to Phoenix from Salt Lake City)

Didn't sleep so good last night. I was too hot and the couch was just a tad bit too short. My dad said I looked funny this morning because I was asleep on my stomach with my feet in the air.

The airplane is cold. I dressed cool because I'm used to crowded aircraft being warm and stuffy, but this one is cool. I should have worn some long pants.

It seems like half the seats on the plane are occupied by LDS missionaries. I'm guessing Wednesday is the day they ship out.

The security screeners at the Salt Lake airport made me take my laptop out of my bag. I was prepared to tell someone I am diabetic and carrying supplies, but it never came up. We'll have to see if it comes up on the return trip.

Wednesday, 12:14 p.m.

We're on the plane to St. Louis now. The Phoenix Air Harbor airport is probably the most boring airport I've ever been to. I was really hoping to get some pictures of something... Phoenixy - but there was nothing.

It took us about 30 minutes to get off the ground in Phoenix because our plane was behind at least ten other planes taxiing to take off.

I only got about three hours of sleep last night. I watched some stupid Extreme Driving show on TLC until 1 and then a show about Killer Africanized Honeybees which are invading the southern U.S.

Dad woke up me around 5:15 this morning.

Since then...

We arrived in St. Louis about 45 minutes late because of the holdup in Phoenix. After collecting our baggage, we caught a car rental shuttle and picked up a white Dodge Intrepid. I was hoping to upgrade our "full-size" to a minivan since there were four of us, but the Intrepid was roomy enough for us and our luggage.

We caught some dinner/lunch at a Denny's close to the airport and then headed north toward Iowa. The weather was a bit mucky in St. Louis. It was obvious it had been raining, but as we approached the Missouri-Iowa border, it began to thin out and the sun finally began to shine through the clouds.

We arrived in Mount Pleasant, Iowa about four hours after we landed in St. Louis and checked into our hotel.

One of my first orders of business was establishing some Internet access - since I get those nasty cramps in my shoulders if I don't have it. Tuesday night, I ordered a $20 calling card from CallingCards.com so I could dial into XMission while we were in Iowa. I had never purchased anything from CallingCards.com before, so they insisted on confirming my order over the phone. It was midnight and I gave them my home phone number. This was a bad thing because I was at my parents at the time and I was going to be leaving at 6 a.m. the next morning.

I hurried and changed my phone number on file to my cell phone number and hoped (and hoped not) they would call. They didn't call (thank goodness?), but I got their support number so I could call from my destination to get things taken care of.

When we arrived in St. Louis, I turned on my cell phone and it immediately erupted with voice mail notifications. One of the messages was CallingCards.com calling to confirm my purchase. I called them back from the car on the way to Iowa and confirmed my purchase. I asked them for my PIN (which they were going to e-mail to me) because I figured I would not be able to get my e-mail unless I had dialup access and I wouldn't have dialup access unless I had a calling card I could use to cover the long-distance toll charges.

The guy I talked to at CallingCards.com told me they couldn't access the PINs for security purposes and that I could only get mine via e-mail.

So... what was I to do?

Finally, I came up with a plan. I called Christine back home and had her read my e-mail and read the PIN to me over the phone. Problem solved. Christine saves the day.

Driving through Missouri and into Iowa was fun. We saw lots and lots of... uhm... fields, farms, uhm... trees... signs, fields, and... some cars and... let me think... I think we saw some gas stations too.

Thursday

We all got a late start on Thursday because we were so tired after Wednesday's early morning. After having some breakfast at the hotel, we drove through Salem - a town just south of Mt. Pleasant. Then we went back to Mount Pleasant.

Connie and my dad spent some time at the library looking through genealogical records. Allison and I went looking for a place that had postcards so she could send some back to her kids.

While we were walking through Mount Pleasant's business district, we happened upon a cute quilting store. Allison talked up a storm with the people who worked there and I visited a cat that roamed about inside. They had some very cool quilts and patterns. If I had time to do that sort of thing, I think it would be fun.

While at the quilting shop, we also found out about the Mount Pleasant City Fest coming up on Friday and Saturday in the town square. I guess we can check that out if we have time. It could be fun.

After the quilting store, we went to a Hallmark store on the next block. They didn't have any postcards, but they had some little trinkets Allison found interesting. Finally, we went back to the library and found my dad and Connie looking at some microfilm.

They had seven computers in the library for public use. I sat down at one which wasn't being used and looked for a web browser. I couldn't find out. That particular computer, as it turns out, was reserved for word processing and not for Internet access. All the Internet workstations were in use... by kids. They were playing online games, chatting in online chat rooms, and doing other stuff. They were still doing that when I left, so I didn't get to do anything on the Internet while I was there.

It was almost 12:30, so we went over to Marie Barton's house. Marie is 98 (going on 99) and has a memory more vivid than mine. At Marie's, we met her son Wes, his sisters Eloise and Wanda, his wife Jeraldene, his cousin Bill, Bill's wife Joyce, and Wes's grandson Weston.

After introductions and some showing off of family pictures, we had dinner. They prepared a tasty feast of shredded beef sandwiches, a tossed salad casserole, au-grautin potatoes, and a creamy corn casserole. This was followed by cake and ice cream.

We had a good time visiting with them over lunch.

After lunch, we headed north out of town to go to Kolona where there is a population of Amish people. Allison and Connie were very interested in seeing the Amish. As I have never seen Amish country before, I guess I was curious too. My dad seemed indifferent. Heh heh.

We went to an Amish country store - which was empty except for us and a couple of Amish people working there. My dad bought a sideways nail clipper. Allison bought a jar of jam. Connie bought a loaf of bread and some cookies or candy (not sure). I didn't buy anything. I was looking for an electric vacuum cleaner, but they didn't have one.

On our way back to Mount Pleasant, we stopped so I could take a picture of a cool rock village.

When we came back, we met up with Sharon, Edson, and Julie who had driven in from St. Louis. We all went over to Wes's house for pizza.

Tomorrow, we go to the Nauvoo Temple and Carthage Jail.

Some more pictures:

The Bluebird school bus factory

A waterfall near Salem

Me... in Mt. Pleasant