Day 11: All over Missouri and Salina, Kansas

This was the part of our journey that I didn't have completely mapped out. There were some many little places to visit, yet things weren't as close together as they seemed when we were in New York. I wasn't really sure how to go about our adventures for the day, so Matthew suggested that we start at the visitor's center and get some suggestions as to how to best manage what little time we had.

As we walked up the steps to the visitor's center I thought I saw a familiar face through the glass, but I couldn't get myself to really believe that I was seeing Brooke Walters, a girl that was in the singles ward that Matthew and I attended right before getting married. I knew that she was serving a mission, but I had forgotten where she was serving. We only spoke for a few moments, but it was nice to have a brief encounter with home.

We took a tour of the visitor's center and got a picture of the Christus. I love that each location has it's own background.

The missionaries told us that the spiral building kiddie corner to us was the Community of Christ's Temple and that we could go and take a tour and maybe even meet their prophet. They also told us about The Liberty Jail visitor's center, the Far West grounds and Adam-omdi-Ahman. I was kind of intrigued about the Temple, but Matthew really want to visit Adam-omdi-Ahman and we realized that if we were going to make the trip up to visit it we didn't have much time to stick around Independence. We made a quick stop to the land dedicated to aTemple which is again, just kiddie corner to the Visitor's center and the Community of Christ's Temple.

After snapping a quick picture, Matthew and I headed towards Adam-omdi-Ahman. It wasn't very far away mileage wise, yet as we got closer the roads were smaller and the speed limits were likewise. This place is important to us because it is a place that we believe Christ will teach to many after His Second Coming. It was beautiful and very peaceful. Just like when we visited the Sacred Grove, we were some of the only people there, so it was nice to be able to think about what will happen there.

We then made our way to Far West where there is a memorial of the cornerstones of a Temple that was planned to be built in the earlier days of the church. As we were traveling to this site we passed a little shop and because we were close to the end of our visit in Missouri, I was a little worried we wouldn't find a magnet. So, Matthew and I decided to give it a shot, and we went back to the store and were lucky enough to find a package of four small magnets that named each place that we were visiting. They weren't much, just simple magnets with a little saying for each location, but they are some of the strongest magnets we bought.

Our last stop in the Missouri tour was to Liberty Jail. It was a cool display where the experiences of the men who were in the jail were told. It was also interesting because the display gave me an understanding of how the jail was fortified by several different layers of material in order to not only make it difficult to escape but also for it to be attacked.

After our visit to Missouri we headed toward Colorado. The plan was to drive as far as we could so that we could get to Denver sooner the next day, but we were tired and because we hadn't made specific plans for Missouri I knew of several KOAs we could stop at. We decided to stop in Salina, Kansas. We got there early enough that we were even able to use our swimsuits before going to bed, but we didn't sleep too well that night because we were in Kansas and if you don't recall, Dorothy lived in Kansas.

Luckily we weren't swept away by a tornado, but the wind howled and shook our tent all night. At one point I recalled that we had left our swimsuits out on the picnic table to dry and made Matthew go get them so they wouldn't blow away. He wasn't too excited about it, but what can I say I have a great husband!

Oh and Although I know this is embarrassing, for me more than anyone else. I wanted to share a video of one of the many random things Matthew and I did along our journeys. And don't ask why because I have no idea why I was talking the way I was, but I know we were having fun!