Wanderings around the northeast

Did I mention that Jared and I went to Niagara Falls/Palmyra/Kirtland this summer? We did. It was about a 9 hour drive from where we were in Greenville, Ohio. At first, I wasn't really looking forward to all that driving (and in such a short time period...we left on Friday and came back on Sunday), but I'm really glad we went. It was a lot of fun and I was glad to be able to see some places I had always wanted to see.

First, we went to Kirtland, Ohio and saw the historic Kirtland temple and community. Did you know the Kirtland temple doors were originally green? At some point, they must have been painted white, but once it was discovered that the doors were initially green, they were restored to their original color.

Next, we went to Niagara Falls. We got there Friday night just in time for the weekly fireworks show. That was pretty cool. We had missed the fireworks on Fourth of July because our poor dinky town got their fireworks confiscated, so we were excited to see an even better show than Greenville could have put on. We camped in the area and went back the next day to see the falls in the daylight. It rained really hard while we were there. Plus, we went on the Maid of the Mist boat ride, so we were pretty much soaked by the time we left.

But it was warm, so we still had a good time. And we went to Canada. We parked on the American side and walked across the bridge to Canada. I thought it was hilarious that the Canadian border patrol asked us "what is the nature of your visit today? Where are you going? Why?" I was tempted to say, "I don't know...we're really into natural landmarks...is there anything like that around here?"

But to Canada's credit, getting into Canada was a bazillion times faster than getting back into America. Those people were SLOW.

After a few hours of getting drenched at Niagara Falls, we headed to Palmyra. We went to the Palmyra temple...

...took a tour of the printing shop where the Book of Mormon was published, saw the Smith farm and the Sacred Grove...

...and then we headed to the Hill Cumorah pageant. It was great for the first 40 minutes, but then the sky unzipped and started pouring. Apparently rain doesn't usually stop them and they rarely have to cancel the show, but there was lightning in the area, so it had to be done. So I only got to see the first half of the show. I was really looking forward to seeing Jesus come in on a zip line, but alas, maybe some other time.