Here is your chance to write a travel piece!
Instead of the normal travel article, let us know how your trip somehow related to your writing. It can be an article about a conference you attended, or it can be about somewhere you traveled in order to do research or interview a subject. Include plenty of pictures. Tell us how your visit helped your career as a writer. Did the conference inspire you? Did you get an agent contract or did an editor seem enthused about your work? Did you find the information you were looking for to write that Pulitzer Award winning article?
Query the Travel Page editor at Louturn@aol.com to see your article and pictures posted here.
Photo by Kathy Bassette, Mt. Zion, Illinois.
Now come on, Kathy, write me an article to go with it!
Located on the western border of Illinois, near Iowa and Missouri, Nauvoo has a rich history. Nearly surrounded by a beautiful stretch of the Mississippi River, where water lilies line the peaceful river bank, Nauvoo tends to her history with a gentle hand. Only 175 miles north of St. Louis, the town made famous by Mormon founder, Joseph Smith, makes you feel you've stepped back into an era only read about in books.
Bryan Turner enjoys the lush gardens that surround the LDS Temple in Nauvoo, Illinois.
In the early 1840's, Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, began a five-year project to erect a building intended as a "sanctuary of spiritual blessing for the saints." The Nauvoo Temple was dedicated in 1846. After Smith's death, Brigham Young, the new leader of the Mormon faith, led a mass exodus west, leaving the temple vacant. Eventually, arson and a tornado destroyed the grand temple, and the materials were used for other building projects within the town. In April of 1999, the Salt Lake City LDS announced that it would build a replica of Smith's beloved temple in Nauvoo. The completed building was dedicated on June 27, 2002.
A statue of Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum overlooks the Mississippi River on the Temple grounds.
On the trip north to Nauvoo, this writer spent a few hours in the Missouri town of Hannibal. Everywhere you look in the sleepy Mississippi Riverfront hamlet, there is evidence of its most famous resident, Samuel Clemens. Mr. Clemens, writing under the name of Mark Twain, marked Missouri forever with his tales of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. This sign stands not 500 yards from the flowing Mississippi River where Clemens spent his days dreaming as a kid, and reliving those dreams in the pages of his famous novels for many generations of youngsters to come.
L.A. Suess plays his banjo outside a shop in Hannibal, Missouri. For more information on Mr. Suess and his music, go to: http://www.RiverConcert.com
The sign says: Marion County Jail, Built in 1858, Used as Federal Prison During the Civil War.
I know there's already been a few stories written about the Palmyra Massacre, but this sign could put the seed of another story into the head of any writer. In the heat of the Civil War, on October 18, 1862, ten Confederate prisoners were executed after the abduction of Andrew Allsman, a Union supporter. The officer who ordered the execution, Colonel John McNeil, left his mark in history and became known as the "Butcher of Palmyra."
Along the roadways on any trip, you can find old homesteads to photograph. If only we knew the stories behind these forgotten treasures, what tales we could weave.
I was really thirsty by the time I got into the scenic overlooks along Highway 79. But, this place didn't look like it had served any cold brews for a long, long time. I wonder who owned it? Maybe an old Blues man from down in the Delta who came north to avoid the law after he killed his wife's lover. He might have sat out front and picked a guitar and sang of loss and love and war. Could his name have been Bo, or Red Belly, or Preacher Man?
I followed a narrow dirt road just a little ways off the highway, drove slowly over a dilapidated wooden bridge, and look what I found. I bet the old woman sitting on the porch of the house, the one who waved when I got out of my car to take this picture, I bet she had her pappy's revolver hidden under that shawl draped across her lap. Just in case some uninvited Yankee might wander by. You notice I didn't try and take her picture. But, you can bet she's going to end up in one of my stories.
Sometimes you've just got to stop and smell the flowers!
I truly believe that like an artist notices colors in everything, a writer starts to see stories everywhere. Send your stories to LouTurn@aol.com
louturn@aol.com