Prairie Grass Fire

Glenn's brother, John, has been visiting this past week. Saturday we drove to Springfield, IL to visit the Lincoln Presidential Museum. It is worth the 3 hr drive! Here we are posing with manikins of Abraham Lincoln and his family. We also visited Lincoln's tomb which is quite impressive.

We have had a great visit with John. He has spent his days visiting all of the sites here in Nauvoo and has also taken some side trips

These pictures are in front of the magnolia tree in our yard. It is in full bloom now and beautiful!

Every since we arrived in Nauvoo we have heard about the burning of the Prairie Grass field which is across the street from our home. Well the big day was last Monday! The missionaries and visitors who heard about it all gathered along the street to watch the lighting of the fire and the burning of the field. We decided that it would only be appropriate for us to hold a hotdog roast at our house just before the burn! E/S Hill who are known for their homemade rootbeer brought some for the picnic. A few of the missionaries brought additional food to go with the hotdogs. We served approx. 160 hotdogs! We had a great time. The missionaries seemed to enjoy being together and the casual visit. The prairie grass before the fire.

Missionaries & visitors eating hotdogs.

The city brought two fire trucks down to the area just in case!

Boy was I glad - the wind was blowing the direction of our house.

Men started the fire around the outer edge of the field. It only took seconds for the fire to start roaring and it moved through the field in approx 4-5 minutes

Seeing this fire helped us understand how dangerous the big prairie fires were in the days of the early settlers. They moved fast and covered a lot of area. We were told that the prairie fires moved more quickly than a running horse.

Lots of smoke for a few minutes. We were surprised that our home didn't smell of the smoke any more than it did.

Already we are starting to see green shoots of new grass growing in the field!