The Epic Vacation, Day 6

Day 6 – Wow, Niagra Falls was a lot of fun!  The Horseshoe Falls are the ones you always see in the pictures, but the American Falls were really pretty.   We got an “up close and personal” view of both of them.

 In front of the American Falls is the Cave of the Winds, which isn’t actually a cave, but a platform where you stand right in front of the water that is crashing over the precipice above.  The “wind” created by the falling water is gale-force, and if it weren’t for the “souvenir ponchos” that they give you, you would get completely soaked.  The kids enjoyed seeing all the seagulls that were nesting in the ledges along the way.  They even got to see a mama bird’s egg in one nest and a little chick in another.

After the Cave of the Winds we went to the Observation Tower and the Maid of the Mist.  The Maid of the Mist boat ride took us past the American Falls and then  up very close to the Horseshoe Falls where once again we got blasted by wind and water.  I was grateful to be there at a time of year when there weren’t so many tourists, but for the time that we were on the boat I felt like it was an activity more in line with July heat. J

We grabbed some lunch and hit the road to Palmyra, New York.  My goodness, what a beautiful area that is.  We made a brief stop at the Hill Cumorah and then drove down to the Smith Family Farm.  We passed the Palmyra temple, which I later found out is on the original property the Smith’s owned.  I love to think of how happy it must make them all that a temple is now standing in their old “backyard.”

We went through the log cabin and the frame home.  Since the frame home is original it was neat to think of Joseph Smith and his family working to build it and actually having been in those rooms.  My favorite part about the frame home, though, was the large tree standing behind it.  They call it Alvin’s tree because they are reasonably certain that it is the tree the family planted in honor of Alvin when he passed away.

On the property they also have the winnowing barn that belonged to Brigham Young’s father.  The Young’s lived not far from the Smith’s and it was fun to think of those two great men growing up not far from one another.

I really enjoyed my walk through the Sacred Grove.  I wasn’t paying attention to the sister missionary when she told me which way was the shortest and I ended up taking a very, very long route through the grove.  Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but it was very slow going on crutches and I ended up making us leave Palmyra much later than we had planned.  Not that I regret it, though.  It really was beautiful and peaceful and I was grateful to be there.

After some more driving we pulled into Stanford Court in Mechanicsburg, the happy residence of the fabulous Katie and Greg.