Homeward Bound #3

 

Palmyra Temple - it has three clear windows to allow viewing the Sacred Grove, which we were near in this view from the other direction. The guide is walking backwards at this point while talking and must have some landmark to tell them when to say "look over there"- The Temple was closed for maintenance unfortunately for us.

#3 because it's the third time going home from a mission. Brazil was going to be traveling and sightseeing on the way home, instead we were in the Great Covid Migration in a big hurry. Salt Lake was going to be straight home but we got hung up in Wyoming for several days due to weather. Boston was planned ahead of time to stop at Palmyra and Kirtland, and it happened! And Durk had wanted for years to see the Air Force Museum in Dayton so we added that in, and amazingly everything was right in line with the way home and hardly added any driving time to the total.

Just enough hints of color to show that if we hadn't ended up going home a little early we might have traveled in the height of the famous New England fall color.

We thought it might be possible to beat Boston Traffic if we left early enough, but there was still plenty of traffic on the way to the mission office to drop off apartment keys in the mailbox, but within a short time we were actually out of Boston. (We had to look up the transponder info to make sure we would be good for the toll roads outside of Massachusetts). Arrived in Palmyra around the middle of the day and the first thing we got to was the Hill Cumorah Visitors Center, which was about to be rededicated after renovation/remodeling. You can take the long path that's nice and wide and concrete but we did the shortest steepest one where tree roots are almost steps - then back down yet another  - fine gravel that was a bit slippy at times - one. They are letting the hill go back to the original forest (it was completely cleared by the earliest photos) - much has been growing for years but the area that used to be used for the Hill Cumorah Pageant as now growing as well. 

I think its the Boyhood home but not sure

Then we went to the Sacred Grove visitors center, with a tour to Joseph's boyhood home, Smith Farm home (built mostly by his brother before his death), Cooper shop and threshing barn, after which they leave you to take your time in the Sacred Grove where there are a variety of paths. Everywhere there were missionaries interested in where we were serving, etc. It would be interesting to be a guide but possibly boring after doing the same thing over and over. I admit the one we had overdid it on repeating the principle that Joseph did all he could to preserve the plates so God protected them  - though it is cool to see actual places they were hidden and you get a good sense of why Joseph had to leave the area to really get working on the translating.. The next morning we visited the Grandin Printshop and Martin Harris Farm. Seeing the printshop and how they put the books together with about 15 people working on printing and binding them (took 18 months to get them all done) is definitely educational. We went out to the Whitmer Farm but almost didn't get any tour because the visitors center is also a chapel and the sign in front that says Visitors Center has an arrow pointing sightly up and to the right, so we went to the right and tried every door all the way around the building. Finally we found the right door just behind and a hair left of the sign so if the arrow had pointed up for straight ahead, we would have been fine. 

Sunlit path into the Sacred Grove, where our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ appeared to the young Joseph Smith and started the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ.

(I didn't realize there is a lot to see and learn at the Priesthood Restoration Site but we still probably wouldn't have included driving about five hours total out of our way.) We drove to Kirtland to arrive in that evening, though we had to stay a little ways away because for some reason all the hotels were super high, like $4-500 a night - apparently a big concert in Cleveland?

The visitors center is mostly a room with this wonderful view of the temple

and then we toured it, its amazing to me how much natural light they managed to get in through windows and interior windows even the stairs don't go all the way to the wall in places to allow for windows. It was very interesting to learn more about it and be in a place where so many amazing things took place. There are lots of places rebuilt or restored and they are very clear these days about what has been done - letting you see what is original and where they had to fix or restore or replace. I found the Ashery very interesting as I didn't know much about potash and had no idea it was a really big money-maker. (Until people realized you could just dig it up, though I don't know how you tell where to find it). 

Eventually this store became more Bishop's Storehouse than money-maker and at one point they remodeled the upstairs so Joseph and Emma could live there.

Durk's sister-in-law told us the John Johnson Farm is her favorite historical site and we are grateful because we might not have driven out there otherwise and it was one of our favorites as well. We arrived just after some of the people we'd been with earlier had started a tour, and the senior elder said he just got moved there the day before and maybe we'd want to wait for the sisters, but I'm glad we didn't! When we were in the room used for meeting and teaching, the guide told us how he had gone to the Holy Land and asked often if there was someplace he could see/be where we know Jesus was, and they always said, "well, he could have walked along this road, he could have been here or there" but in places like Kirtland we know the exact location, such as in that very room where Joseph and Sidney Rigdon saw the Father and Son in vision and spoke as it was happening. Also one of the scriptures that helped him through his mission as a young man was received by revelation in that very room and he shared a strong testimony. 

The wing James Garfield's widow built to help the family remember him

We enjoyed the James A Garfield mansion as well, he seems to have been a really good man (who had no intention of running for president!). The place is considered historically significant partly due to the first "front porch campaign" where he actually talked for himself to thousands of people. One of the interesting things to me was the "gasholder" - they not only had a well with windmill for pumping water but also had natural gas on the property and the gasholder was a structure to store it to send on to the house. I hadn't known of this method of being "off the grid".

We had more time than expected so we asked at the hotel about things to see. The lady at the desk had lived there all her life (we were actually in Painesville) and she sent us to the Steele Mansion, a restored mansion of a friend of Garfield's that was totally rebuilt after fire and neglect into a lovely site for tourists and a bed and breakfast. Here's something the owner had been searching for for a long time since her grandmother had one but someone else inherited it, the sound was impressive with lots of parts playing at once (its at least as big as a record, if you are old enough to know what that is)

I have seen the Erie Canal now, and FairPoint lighthouse but it was closed so we couldn't do the museum or go up in the lighthouse. 

The white thing is a rescue pod to pull along behind 

Hadn't known there was a link to the church

We did, however, have a cultural experience at the 

La Flor Michoacana Paleteria & Neveria where a few of the ice cream flavors include Mazapan, Mamey, Maracujá, Soursop, Black Zapote, Mango y chamoy,  Chango, zamoranos, Rum with raisins, Rice pudding and there were at least 20 more. We had mango popsicles and they enjoyed Durk speaking Spanish so much they wanted to give us another one free but we had no room since this was after eating a big lunch and we had no cooler - they offered ones made to look like the Mexican flag with the different colors and oreo on the white stripe.

Friday morning was up and off to Dayton, and wow that Air Force Museum is a major destination. We were talking about how long it would take to see and read everything and one worker said he could tell us, he'd seen someone there repeatedly and found this gentleman had come from Canada just for the museum and determined to see and read every single thing - it took twelve full days. We lasted about four hours and were worn out. We mainly went through the WWII part, with a walk through the early days from balloons to WWII and a bit of Vietnam era. We didn't see a T28 that Durk flew briefly but we did look at the B29 my dad was a radio operator in and almost lost his life in when they ditched into the ocean - obviously not the same B29.....

took two photos to fit it in, not a little plane!

Driving all day Saturday to get home, Durk says never again will we travel a whole week. Lots of hugs back in Jefferson City Ward, released after church by President Hainsworth, sons kept things up nicely at home, cat seems confused.