Day 17: Niagara Falls

Our last day in New York included a trip to Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls is actually made up of three smaller waterfalls: American Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, and Canadian/Horseshoe Falls. 600,000 gallons go over the Horseshoe Falls every second.

Niagara Falls is technically part of the New York Rochester Mission. At least, the American side is. However, I never saw Niagara Falls on my mission. I'm told, though, that the Canadian side is better.

It was a short trip. We crossed the Canadian border, where we presented our passports.

Then, we boarded the Maid of the Mist, which is a boat that takes a short trip toward the falls, close enough to get all of the people on the boat wet, and then comes back.

We got these nifty rain ponchos to put over our clothes to keep us dry:

They didn't always help.

We made a brief stop at a souvenir shop where I bought a Toronto Maple Leafs' shirt.

I didn't buy many souvenirs on this trip. However, I did make an effort to get a t-shirt in every city we visited that had an NHL team.

I bought a New York Rangers' shirt, a Pittsburg Penguins' shirt (it looks like Sidney Crosby's jersey), and a Philadelphia Flyers' shirt.

Another tidbit that no one will find interesting is that I have managed to collect t-shirts from four of the Original Six NHL teams (Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Redwings, Toronto Maple Leafs, and New York Rangers). At some point, I am sure I will get one from Boston. I have trouble imagining any reason that I will ever been in Montreal.

We ended up back in Ohio, where we had a giant chef's salad and a fruit salad for dinner. Tomorrow we will be visiting Kirtland.

Day 16: Palmyra

Our morning started early. We had to get to the Sacred Grove before the other tour buses.

Our tour has been almost completely in reverse order from how things happened chronologically. The Sacred Grove is where it all started. It was here that Joseph Smith, confused about religion, first went to pray.

It was here that he was visited by God and Jesus Christ and told to join none of the existing churches.

It's a pretty amazing place to stand in. I've been many times before, but this was the first time for my parents, so we split off for a little while.

Also on this property is the home where Joseph's family was living at the time. It is a replica of the one that the Smith's lived in, built on the original foundation.

It was in this house that Joseph Smith was visited by Moroni, an angel, and the last person to write in the Book of Mormon, about 1400 years before his visitation to Joseph. This happened a few years after the he was first visited by God and Jesus.

He told Joseph about the record of the people in America, his people. He told Joseph where to find it, in a hill nearby.

This hill, the Hill Cumorah, was our next stop.

But first, we stopped by the Palmyra Temple, which is within walking distance of the Smith Farm. It was built in 2000.

Here's the spire:

The angel on the top is the same angel who visited Joseph Smith, Moroni.

We headed to the Hill Cumorah next. We would be back there later that night for the pageant, so we just stopped long enough to look at the monument on the top of the hill.

That is also Moroni.

Our next stop was the building where the Book of Mormon was published. For reasons I can't explain, I do not have any pictures of this.

We went back to our hotel for the afternoon. The pageant did not start until about 9, so we had several hours to kill.

One of the things that I love about my dad is that he is adventurous. He is always willing to explore, and ready for any suggestion.

When I lived in New York, I fell in love with Perry's Ice Cream, particularly a flavor they have called Piece of Cake. In the last few years, everyone from Dreyer's to Cold Stone has come out with a cake batter flavored ice cream, but this was the first I'd ever had, and, in my opinion, still the best. The ice cream is yellow cake flavored. It has a ribbon of chocolate frosting running through it, and little pieces of pound cake. I have yet to find anything like it anywhere else.

Luckily, there was a Wegman's nearby. Wegman's is another thing I miss about New York. It is a chain of grocery stores in New York and Pennsylvania. The flagship store was in one of my areas, a place called Pittsford, NY, and included not only several restaurants, but also a section for furniture and dishes. I have included this link to a Wikipedia article about Wegman's. The one near our hotel was not as nice as the one in Pittsford, but it did have the ice cream, as well as sponge candy, another upstate New York delicacy.

My dad and I decided to have lunch before loading up our cooler with ice and packing a half-gallon of ice cream in it. Across the street was a Tom Wahls. Tom Wahls was a popular place for the missionaries to eat. It features some pretty good hamburgers. However, my dad and I decided to have, instead, the 55 Junker Plate.

The Junker Plate is actually a knockoff of another dish from another restaurant called Nick Tahou's. They are famous for something called a garbage plate. Here is the Wikipedia description of a garbage plate (if you get queasy easily, you may want to skip this part):

A Garbage Plate is a combination of one selection of cheeseburger, hamburger, red hots, white hots, Italian sausage, chicken tender, fish, fried ham, grilled cheese, or eggs; and two sides of either home fries, French fries, baked beans, or macaroni salad. On top of that are the options of mustard and onions, ketchup, and Nick's proprietary hot sauce, a greasy sauce with spices and ground beef. It's served with rolls or Italian toast on the side, which is made fresh at the bakery next door. Health.com named the Garbage Plate the fattiest food in the state of New York.

There are many variations on this at various restaurants in upstate New York. I never had one as a missionary because my first companion and the name of the dish itself led me to believe that they were gross. However, I thought being at Tom Wahl's with my dad was as good a time as any to try one, so we split it. We had ours with fries, macaroni salad, and white hots (bratwurst). It was covered with hot sauce, which was similar to chili, mustard, and onions.

After lunch, we went back to Wegman's and bought the ice cream, a few other New York foods, and a giant bag of ice, which we put into the cooler we had brought, and headed back to our hotel.

The ice cream was soft, but not melted when we got back, so between Dad, Mom, and I, we managed to eat a good portion of the half-gallon of Piece of Cake before it melted.

Around 8, we headed back to Palmyra for the pageant.

The Hill Cumorah Pageant was started in the 1920's by a group of missionaries in the area. It used to be held on the Joseph Smith farm, but it was moved to the Hill Cumorah in 1934. People from all over the world apply to be in the Hill Cumorah pageant. They come for three weeks, during which time they learn their parts, perform, and do volunteer work in the surrounding community.

As you can see, the pageant actually takes place on the hill. If you look closely, you can see the Moroni statue through the trees on the left.

The pageant itself displays scenes from the Book of Mormon, from the time the prophet Lehi left Jerusalem with his family, through the time Jesus Christ appeared to the people in America after his resurrection, and finishes with Moroni burying the record in the Hill Cumorah, and then appearing to Joseph Smith to tell him where it is.

Here is a man in costume, who was playing one of the Wise Men in the scene where one of the prophets, Nephi, prophesies of the birth of the Savior. The cast members mill around with the people in the audience until right before the pageant starts, talking to people and sharing their testimonies.

We also ran into an elder from my parents' ward in Salt Lake, Garrett, who is a friend of my brother Danny. He is serving his mission in my mission, though he is teaching people in American Sign Language.

It's a pretty spectacular production.

Please note the large man who sat in front of me two minutes before the pageant started. He didn't block my view much, but I couldn't seem to take any pictures without him in them.

Day 15: Susquehanna River, Peter Whitmer Farm

The four days preceding were spent at various sites related to American History, or American pop culture. This day marked a return to LDS Church history sites.

The first site we visited was the Susquehanna River. While Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were translating the Book of Mormon, they came across passages about baptism. They prayed to know more about baptism in the church of Jesus Christ, and they were visited by the resurrected John the Baptist, who gave them the Aaronic Priesthood, or the power to baptize. This happened here, at this river.

Here is a picture of the men in our tour group singing "Called to Serve":

At some point as men age, they lose the ability to carry a tune. Unfortunately, this seems to have happened to some of the men in our group.

We made a brief stop in Harmony, Pennsylvania. It is here where Joseph Smith met his wife, Emma. After they married, they lived here for a short while.Their first child, whose name was either Alvin or Alva, was born here and died shortly thereafter.

We then headed up through the southern tier of New York state toward Fayette, where the Peter Whitmer farm is. The Whitmer family were friends of Oliver Cowdery, who was helping Joseph Smith translate the Book of Mormon. When they began to have trouble in Harmony, they relocated to Fayette, and stayed with the Whitmers, where they finished the Book of Mormon translation.

On April 6, 1830, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (then called the Church of Christ) was organized in the Whitmers' tiny home:

This is a recreation of what it looked like. It is in the same spot.

Fayette, New York, is also the last place I lived as a missionary, over six years ago.

This was the house where I lived with three other sisters, and a senior missionary couple. It is across the street from the Whitmer home.

Additionally, the Fayette ward meets in a building on the same property:

In many ways, it was like coming home.

Day 14: New York City

When I went on my mission to Rochester, NY, I never anticipated how many people would ask me how I liked New York City.

The truth was, I had never been to New York City. It was outside my mission boundaries (by several hours). It wasn't until this trip that I actually had the opportunity to see it.

The ridiculous thing about it was that we only spent a day there, part of which was taken up by a Broadway play.

For this reason, most of what we saw was from the inside of the bus.

Like Ground Zero:

Trump Tower:

And Radio City Music Hall:

We did take the Staten Island Ferry

to see the Statue of Liberty.

We stopped in Chinatown to do some shopping. We also stopped at a street vendor to get authentic New York City hot dogs:

And we got off the bus briefly, just to walk through a small corner of Central Park with a tribute to John Lennon:

When we stepped off the bus, I snapped a picture of this man:

Who I am pretty sure is this man:

Who is this man? His name is Noah Emmerich. I know him from Frequency, The Truman Show, and Miracle. He played the second banana in all of them.

I was so distracted by this celebrity sighting that I stepped in dog poop. I got it pretty well cleaned off my shoe before heading back on the bus.

Eventually, we headed to Times Square, where we killed some time before the Broadway show we were going to see.

We saw this:

Found ourselves on the Times Square camera (we're by the top of the 2):

Had a cupcake (even though, according to Jack Donaghy, people in New York are off cupcakes and back on doughnuts):

And had dinner and fabulous cheesecake at Junior's before heading here:

The sign is a little hard to see in this picture, so here's a better one:

Seeing a musical on Broadway is pretty high on my bucket list. I am a huge fan of musicals, whether they be new shows or old classics like The Sound of Music or Oklahoma. Add to that getting the opportunity to see Kristin Chenoweth (the original Glinda in Wicked) perform, and have the opportunity to see a cast originate a production, and you can imagine how excited I was.

Immediately after I snapped this picture of the theater, I was chastised by an usher. Note that the show has not started yet, and that the seats aren't even close to being filled yet. A look at reviews from regular Broadway-goers leads me to believe that this is how the ushers there are.

The musical was fabulous. This production was a revival, and it had the look of the 60's era for which it was originally written. It looked like Mad Men. The songs were written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, the book was written by Neil Simon, and this production included popular songs like "I Say a Little Prayer" and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again." I couldn't get over the fact that I was actually watching Kristin Chenoweth. And while I wouldn't say that Sean Hayes (of Will and Grace) was much of an initial draw, he did a pretty good job with his part.

The only bad part of the whole day was that our show got out late, and we had to leave before the curtain call was over in order to make it back to our bus on time.

Day 13: Baltimore and Philadelphia

I love that, on the east coast, everything is pretty close to everything else. We were headed to New York City from Washington, D.C., but, on the way, we were able to see some pretty amazing sites:

Baltimore, home of the Ravens and the Orioles, and the setting for one of my favorite movie/musical/movie musicals, Hairspray.

Fort McHenry, where Francis Scott Key wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner":

Independence Hall, the site of the signing of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution:

The Liberty Bell:

And the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which has the steps Rocky Balboa famously ran up in the first Rocky movie.

It's hard to say what I was most excited about.

We got a cheesesteak, too, which could have easily been the highlight of the trip.

We got to our hotel in New Jersey that night, had a late supper, and were joined by my dad, who flew in from Las Vegas for the last few days of our tour.

Day 12: The Smithsonians

Our day picked up where we left off the day before: back at the monuments.

We made a stop by Iwo Jima, which I had never seen before. To give you an idea of how giant the monument is, I have included this picture of it next to some average-sized people:

As you can see, it is massive. Also, there is a hand on the flag pole that does not belong to any of the other soldiers, which, they say, represents the hand of God.

We made a stop at the World War II monument, which I already went into a lengthy diatribe about when I was in D.C. about a year ago, so I'll spare you.

We were given the rest of the day to explore the Smithsonian Museums. Our first stop was the Holocaust Museum, which I had never been to before, but which my friend Kim recommended highly. One of the reasons that I had never been there before was that one of the times when I was in D.C., a security guard at the museum had just been shot, and they had closed it down.

It was the only museum we went to all day where we had to have tickets to enter. They give you different entrance times to keep people from all showing up at the same time, which is very important because you take an elevator to the top floor and wind your way down. The floors go in chronological order, as you learn how Hitler's political rise affected Jews, how they were exiled, imprisoned, and eventually exterminated. The final floor deals with their release, and the people who hid people during the war.

To say the least, it is intense. We were not allowed to take pictures in the main exhibit, which was probably for the best, as the images of cells, the dioramas of the gas chambers, and hundreds of shoes left behind by people who were killed were haunting. But I am glad we went, and I would encourage anyone else who has some time to visit the Smithsonians to make it a priority.

We had spent over 2 hours in the museum, and, by the time we left, we were hungry. We stopped by a pretzel vendor whose prices were suspiciously absent from her cart. For two bottles of soda and a pretzel, she charged us $10. We didn't care. It was enough to keep us going through two more museums.

Our next stop was the American History Museum. Below is a picture of Archie Bunker's chair from the TV show All in the Family. I have never been a fan of the show. It was off the air before I was born. However, there is a reference to the chair itself in an episode of Gilmore Girls, making it picture-worthy.

One stop we had to make in this museum was here:

Those of you who have seen the movie Julie and Julia will remember that Julia Child's kitchen was donated to the Smithsonian when she left her home in Cambridge, Mass, a few years before she died. It's quite a sight. It is covered in glass, which made it hard to get a good picture. There are displays along one wall of the exhibit of the kitchen gadgets she used. They are pretty incredible.

The most popular exhibit that we saw was the one that housed all the First Ladies' inaugural ball gowns. For some reason, I don't have any pictures of those.

This particular museum also housed the flag which inspired "The Star-Spangled Banner." While we were there, they were unfurling it on the floor below:

Pretty cool, huh?

We also made a brief stop at the Museum of Natural History.

This made me think of Ross Gellar. It is clear that I probably spend too much time watching TV.

We had dinner that night at IHOP, having learned our lesson the day before about getting too adventurous trying local places.