Beautiful Nauvoo

Today is Sunday, May 23, 2010. The sun is shining in Illinois. And it is quite humid.
I cannot believe it has been this long since I last wrote on my blog. What are my reasons? Who can really tell? Anyway, here I am - back again.
What thing shall I write about first? I think I will talk about rain storms. When it rains in the midwest, it really rains. One night we had such a thunder storm. Now a thunder storm in this area usually means plenty of lightning, too. And that night the lightning played all over the sky and the thunder claps nearly shook the house. And the rain poured down. Someone said they thought there was 5 inches of rain. A neighbor tried to measure the rain the next morning (by the way it was still raining the next morning) but couldn't wade through the water puddles to get to the back of their pick-up truck.
So we have the lightning and the thunder and the rain. Then about midnight it began to hail. It sounded like the hail stones were pretty good size. Next morning someone heard on the news that the hail was as large as marbles. I think the ones on our house were like big, big marbles.
All this moisture keeps the grass green and the trees all beautiful and green. Driving around Nauvoo is like driving around in the Garden of Eden. The flowers, at least those, who weren't beat to death by the rain and hail, are in beautiful bloom. Each day when it clears a little the gardeners plant more and more flowers.
We love to drive down the river road. The Mississippi is a beautiful wide river. About every day there are barges going up and down the river. That is quite a sight.
Yesterday we drove north along the river road to a place where there were dozens of turtles sunning on the logs in the shallow part of the river. And lo and behold there were two pelicans there also! I was shocked to see pelicans. I think I will have to study about pelicans. Glen said I could find out more if I read "The Pelican Brief." Too funny.
It's a beautiful day here in Nauvoo. Wish you were here.