visited Fort Madison and Warsaw

We are still pulling weeds, first we had to finish up in the Women's Garden then it was off to the Lyon Drug store.  I will take pictures tomorrow for sure.  There is an herb garden here and we only finished 1/4 of it today.  My fingernails look like a manual laborer's but I now have very strong hands, plus now I can touch my toes, which I haven't been able to do for years.  We have site sister's that come and work a day in the garden with us.  We have only had one request not to come back as she said those sister's work way to hard for her to handle.  There are 8 of us regulars, and we all work so well together.  Before starting the herb garden, Dural Neilson our hortaculturist  gave us a tour to tell us which plants were weeds and which were herbs.  We are getting so good at identifying the weeds that we knew most of then already.  Again we worked for 6 straight hours with only 1 break.  Most of us can't seem to stop once we start.  I was even looking forward on Saturday (our day off) to weeding on Monday.  I know that sounds crazy but I am really enjoying this work.

After our shift we came home took a quick shower, changed our clothes and went to a training meeting for an hour.  After the meeting we drove to Fort Madison to see what the downtown area was like.  Nothing to rave about, Placerville is so much better.  We then drove to Keokuk had dinner then took a wonderful ride along the Mississippi River for about 20 miles.  There is so much history here.  In the town of Montrose is where the saints crossed the Mississippi from Nauvoo to head west.  When they left in February 1846 it was 30 below 0.  The river had ice on it and it was one of the worst winters.  I just can't imagine doing this.  Approx 10,000 people left Nauvoo in 1846.  These pioneers were very special and endured so much.  Those who are not members probably have never heard the history of all that they went thru.  We went to the town of Warsaw and then took a road to get back to Nauvoo.  Jonny thought he heard banjo music in the background.  It was a one lane semi paved road that was like a roller coaster.  It was great fun.  It was unbelieveable the size of the farms here probably most of them were over 100 acres.  Looks like they plant a lot of corn here.  It was such a nice day of driving and not being in a hurry and seeing parts of the country we have never seen before.