Day 2 Niagara Falls, the iPhone 4S and onto Chicago

We woke up early saturday morning and headed to Niagara Falls. It was another very wet, windy and cold day, but we soon learned the weather was nothing compared to the falls. We left looking and feeling a bit like wet rats but that didn't stop our (and by our I mean Jeff's) hehe determination to get the new iPhone 4S. We stopped at the Buffalo mall on our way back from the Falls and about 2 hours, lunch and a new phone later we headed back to Manzanares's home to pack up once again and hit the road. We pulled out at 4pm and had a 10 hour drive to Chicago ahead of us, if that gives you any sense of how we were feeling.

We pulled off the road to a little place called Kirtland, Ohio and walked into the visitor's center just 20 min shy of closing. They allowed us to watch a short film giving the history and then one of the elder missionaries was kind enough to let us go with him to lock up the buildings and gave us a short personal tour. It was pretty cool, we went into the Newel K. Whitney store, where Joseph and Emma lived for a short time above the store and also to the Newel K. Whitney home where Joseph and Emma also lived for a short time. Both places where Joseph smith received personal revelation that we now find in the Doctrine and Covenants. We drove by the temple and took some pictures before getting back on the road.
Around 1030 we passed a cop sitting in the median lane and I of course did a quick glance to my speedometer but I was keeping up with traffic and new I wouldn't get pulled over. An hour later however, I had just happened to glance in my drivers' side mirror and saw flashing lights. I said, "oh crap!" and that woke Becky right up! I told her she better text Jeff and tell him to pull over and wait for us. The officer asked me if I was moving once he walked up and took inventory of the car, I told him yes from CT and he asked me to explain my UT license plates. I gave him the readers digest version of the story and when he asked who I had in the car with me I told him my mother-in-law. He told me very nicely he had only pulled me over to tell me my plate light was out and it was only a warning to get it fixed. He took my registration back to his car, meanwhile by the time Jeff believed us and pulled over he was a few miles ahead. The cop came back and said, "ma'am I gotta go, here's your warning." And just like that he was passing us, lights and sirens. So Jeff is there waiting for us and a cop comes to his window and says, "you're not broken down are you? Actually you are waiting for your wife huh? Yeah, I just pulled her over, she'll be here in a minute." And before Jeff even has a chance to answer he's gone!

That woke us all up and we FINALLY pulled into Winnetka around 1:30 am.

The American Falls on the left

Umm...

Maid of the Mist
American Falls



Canadian Falls
It was a bit more than misty if we're being honest

Canada

USA
Our faces pretty much sum it all up. It's a once in a lifetime sorta thing

Day 1 Connecticut to Palmyra, NY

Becky flew out wednesday night, Friday morning we packed our cars up, in the pouring rain (of course!) and drove out of our apartment parking lot for the last time. It wasn't sad for me then, I know it probably should have been. Our last week there I was already missing how beautiful and green it was in CT and of course the first changing colors of fall but that friday morning I was ready to go. I was so excited and I know all 3 of us were anxious to get on the road and start the first of many long days of driving.

Jeff and I had been talking about all the fun things we got to do while out there and had only one regret, that we never made it to Palmyra, NY. After hitting up google maps on the iPad and discovering it would take us only 1.5 hours longer we decided it was worth it and planned to stop there and visit the church history sites and then spend the night with cousins in Buffalo.

Palmyra was cold, wet and awesome, the weather definitely made for a more unforgettable experience. We pulled into the visitors center parking lot and walked in to find more cousins sitting right there in the foyer. We got to visit with Wade and Angie and their kiddies before braving the winds and rains and "hiking" up to the top of the Hill Cumorah. Our umbrellas blew inside out and mine snapped in two, we made it a quick hike.

Next up we drove over to the Smith Farm which sits on the edge of the Sacred Grove. I always thought that the Hill Cumorah was in the Sacred Grove, but it turns out they are actually quite a few miles away. We ran into Wade and Angie a second time and walked through the Grove with them. It had such a, well, very sacred spirit and it was surreal to look around and know that is where the young Joseph Smith in 1820 knelt in prayer and was visited by two personages whose brightness and glory defy all description. It has to be one the most beautiful places I have ever been and no doubt we went at the best time of year. After leaving the grove we toured the Alvin frame home, the smith's temporary farm home and saw the temple through a clearing in the trees. Our prophet Gordon B. Hinckley had a window put into the side of the temple where one can look out and look directly into the sacred grove. He wanted it to be an eternal reminder of what happened in the grove and why because of it we have the gospel and temples today.

Our last stop in Palmyra was the Grandin Print Shop where the very first Book of Mormon was printed and published.

Before making it to Dave and Wendy's for the night we stopped at Duff's bar, one of the first two places in Buffalo to ever make the famous "Buffalo wings".

Saying goodbye

We couldn't get enough of those cute babies!

Hill Cumorah

Palmyra Temple

Inside the Grandin Print Shop
Where the first Book of Mormon was printed

The Alvin frame home, Alvin died before the home was completed
The very room where Angel Moroni visited Joseph 3x during the night

Inside the Smith Family home
The very bricks Joseph hid the plates under when the mob came into their home
Tree planted by the Smith family after Alvin's death
Barn where Joseph Smith hid the plates for a short period in the rafters
Palmyra Temple overlooking the Sacred Grove

what is blogger doing to my photos???
very first Book of Mormom