Water Water Everywhere and Only Diet Pepsi to Drink

Why oh why does this section of the country love Pepsi so much? Mark is glad and I am sad. My pop consumption is way down and I think I'm losing strength.

We sat in a queue wasting gas at the border crossing into Canada. The officials specialize in questions that make you feel so guilty.

• "How long are you staying?"  We're staying one day. Too long? Not long enough? Is 24 hours too little time to pay proper respect to our host country?
• Keith nearly blew it when he said we were staying 12 hours. "So you are leaving at 3:00 in the morning? Oh, sorry, we're really staying 24 hours, just long enough to pick up the drugs and make fun of some Mounties.

Call me naive but I had no idea that the Canadian side of Niagara Falls is totally whack. Our first clue was this upside down house. There are about 15 haunted houses where you can wander around in the dark being scared by tired mechanical creatures. There is a Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum. There is Louis Tussaud's Wax Museum. You get the picture. I thought Niagara Falls was a honeymoon destination but the Canadian side caters to families who have hyperactive children with bad taste. Which pretty much describes every family with young children.

Canadians are united in fashion - which is quite patriotic when you think about it.

If you ride the boat to the Falls on the American side, you board "Maid of the Mist". On the Canadian side you ride "The Hornblower". The horn really works. It almost blew me overboard when it blasted off.

It really was fun to cinch my plastic poncho around my face and get peppered by the spray.

Mark's goal was to get soaked and he pretty much did that in the front of the boat on the bottom deck. Keith joined him.

After crossing to the American side, we parked on Goat Island and explored the National Park. It was nice to have a less commercial atmosphere. The park is beautiful.

You can cross the Niagara River on three different bridges and get close to the falls.

We found ate a great mid afternoon meal in Niagara Falls, NY at a place called Pizza Bistro. Thank you Yelp.

Across the street from the restaurant was an old empty building. The words over the building are shadows left by long gone letters. I wonder what kind of church was here. We are so used to seeing these words emblazoned in beautiful gold letters over the entrances to our temples. This building looked so forlorn. It made me think about the temple the Mormons were forced to abandon in Kirtland, Ohio - which is where we are heading next.

On the Honeymoon Trail

We found a stake center in a little New York town where we could watch the Sunday morning session of general conference. As we got close we saw this funeral home and stopped to take a picture because we thought the name was so funny.  

In the stake center was a very large friendly woman, wearing sweats and slippers and carrying a fleece blanket to snuggle in while she watched conference. We visited back and forth. She seemed so interested in us that I showed her this picture I had just created, thinking she would enjoy it. I asked her "Is this funeral home really pronounced Am I Gone?" She said "Yes, and funny thing, I just lost my husband 8 weeks ago."

I thought I was going to die of embarrassment. I said, "Oh! I am so sorry for your loss.".She said, "Oh that's ok, its a part of life." We continued to talk until conference started. She said that when they came to pick up her husband's body, they labeled her home a hoarder's house and she has 5 months to get it cleaned up or it will be condemned. Wow, you never know what is in a stranger's heart

We drove over the border into the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. It has the best view of both falls.

All this water is unfathomable to an Arizona girl.

Carol and Keith are so fun to be around.

I told Mark that this was our second honeymoon. He said, more like the third or fourth.

The Beginning and the Now

This is the small Whitmer cabin that saw the beginning of the organization that would share a great spiritual awakening on this earth. 50 or 60 early saints crowded in this humble room and made legally official what had already been set in motion by a far greater power. 

The cabin is reconstructed of old timbers and materials. I loved the wavy glass.

As we sat in the visitors center/chapel and watched conference - sustaining 3 new apostles, I couldn't help but contrast the vast crowd in the conference center with the little cabin only a few yards away. 

We had great and noble leaders then and we have great and noble leaders today. 

It was our delight to be guided through the Grandin Building and the Whitmer Farm by Sister Lay and her Elder. She was funny, warm and genuine. Brother Lay recommended a great Mennonite Grocery store where we had a sub sandwich that thrilled our bellies. We are trying to think of a way to recruit the Mennonites to Arizona. I need a Sauders in Mesa!

Sister Lay's testimony and goodness touched our hearts, lifted us and we are so grateful. 

A Grove and a Hill

For many years I have anticipated a visit to the sacred grove where Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to a fourteen year old Joseph Smith. It was cold and windy as we walked from the log home the Smiths lived in. The air was calm in the grove, only the tops of the trees were moving. We split up, each taking his own path through the grove.

I sat on a bench and read Joseph's account of the first vision, recorded in his history in the Pearl of Great Price.

I rose and walked some more, enjoying the solitude and the leaves that would fall in little showers when the wind blew.

It felt peaceful and it did feel like a sacred place. But then this thought came to me.

I have felt this feeling many times before. I have felt it in the temple, I have felt it in my home countless times as I have talked with my children, rocked a baby, served a meal, read the scriptures or a good book, said a prayer or played games with my family.

 I have had many "sacred groves" in my life. Heavenly Father has answered my prayers. He has testified of His son to me through the scriptures, my own feelings, and in the beauty of the earth. There have been times that I have felt the powers of darkness grip me. I have felt utter fear and despair. I have felt light and hope when the Spirit came. 

The Father and the Son that appeared to Joseph Smith are real to me.

Anyone that isn't tempted to roll down the Hill Cumorah has never been a kid

This Angel Moroni is holding the Book of Mormon. I bet he was so grateful when he got to bury it and quit lugging it around. I bet he was equally grateful to deliver it to Joseph Smith and see it come forth to the world.

Carol and her missionary

The Grandin Building where the first editions of the Book of Mormon were published was a wonderful stop, mostly because of remarkable Sister Lay, who gave us a tour and bore testimony of the truth she believes. Of all the great things we saw that day - her testimony was the best.

Way Down Upon the Susquehanna

In what was once the township of Harmony, Pennsylvania, there is now a beautiful LDS visitor's center and many historical sites. You can read about them here.  This statue by Avard Fairbanks is also on Temple Square and depicts John the Baptist conferring the Priesthood on Joseph and Oliver Cowdery.

This is the road between Isaac Hale's home and the first one owned by Joseph and Emma.

Carol and Keith Brook and Mark and me in front of Joseph and Emma's home

Joseph added the "summer kitchen" and almost immediately they had to leave Harmony.

Grave of Joseph and Emma's first child

To me, one of the most poignant parts of this site was a film in the Visitor's Center. It begins with the sound of a shovel and Joseph digging a grave for their first child. Later, while translating the Book of Mormon, Joseph recites to his scribe, Oliver Cowdery one of the revelations about little children having eternal life (Mosiah 5:25 And little children also have eternal life) Joseph jumps up from the table and we see him through the window as he runs to Emma who is hanging clothes on the line. He speaks earnestly to her and then they embrace and weep. The good news of the gospel is personal and beautiful.

Visitor's Center at Priesthood Restoration Site

There is a lovely grove of sugar maples where Joseph and Oliver were given the Aaronic Priesthood by John the Baptist

Joseph and Oliver baptized each other here in the Susquehannah River

Wait a Minute Man

There was a rainy deluge the day we toured the Minute Man Park in Lexington. Hurricane Joaquin in the Atlantic and a huge front moving in from the west opened up the heavens. I loved it! I left dry Arizona to see some rain.

Bridge where the shot heard round the world was fired (recreated)

Some of the things I loved learning about were:

• Paul Revere probably yelled "The regulars are out" not "The British are Coming". Everyone was British at that time.

• Paul Revere was eventually captured that night, but let go when the fighting started

• There was reluctance on both sides to fire, neither could believe it was really coming to this

• The command to fire was given by a local leader whose home is just over the hill. This was all very personal to the colonials

Memorial to British Soldiers

I loved the inscription on the memorial to the British Soldiers. It is the stanza of a poem and says:

They came three thousand miles

and died to keep the past upon its throne.

Beyond the ocean tide

Their English mother made her moan.

This statue depicts a colonial militiaman. In back of him is the plow he is leaving. The personal nature of the sacrifices made in the Revolutionary War are more real to me now.

The Other Adams Family

John Adam's birthplace in Braintree (now Quincy) Massachusetts

My first Adams hero was not John, but Abigail. She was strong, intelligent and an able partner to her strong willed and opinionated husband. I do not believe John Adams would have been such a mighty force for good in our nation without her. I loved the tour of John's birth home as well as the small home next to it where John and Abigail spent the first 10 years of their married life.

After serving in England as ambassadors for 4 years,  the Adams purchased a larger home and property and called it Peacefield, in honor of the peace after the Revolutionary war. Four generations of Adams would live here and then it was eventually donated, complete with original furnishings to the United States government. It is now maintained and operated by the National Park Service.

There is a separate ivy covered brick building that houses a library, built by Charles Adams. Charles was John's grandson and the son of John Quincy Adams. He became wealthy the old fashioned way by marrying a rich woman. He built this beautiful library to house his father's extensive book collection, as well as his own.

Charles was very interested in world religions and had many volumes about the subject. Before I could ask, our guide told us about Charles traveling to Nauvoo where he spent hours speaking to Joseph Smith about the Mormon religion. Joseph gave him Emma's own Book of Mormon. When we asked if we could see it, the guide pointed it out, lying open on the library table. He was not allowed to handle it, but showed us copies of the spine where Emma's name is engraved, and the fly leaf where Joseph wrote a message and signed his name.

The front entrance of Peacefield

The reason our Mormon history trail began in Boston is rather obvious. The restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ could not have begun in any other environment. The freedoms recognized by wise men like John Adams, and established by the constitution, were the soil in which the church eventually flourished.

After the tour, we returned again to Peacefield to walk the grounds and explore this building

Carriage house built by Charles Adams

One of the most touching stories about John Adams takes place on his deathbed. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had a long and complicated relationship. They worked together closely in the early days, writing the constitution, but then fell out during the tempestuous years when each was President. In their last years they were reconciled and fast friends, leaving a treasure trove of correspondence to each other.

Unbeknownst to John, Thomas Jefferson died just an hour before he would,  on an auspicious anniversary, July 4, 1826. John was unresponsive for some time,  and then rose up in his bed and said "Jefferson lives!"

As our national park guide took the four of us around this carriage house in a personal tour, I was able to tell him what I believe, and that is that John Adams saw his dear friend Thomas Jefferson's spirit - recognized him and knew that not only did Jefferson live beyond the veil, but that he would too. My guide said, "Well, that's an interesting thought."

CONFESSION: I couldn't help myself and touched the handle of John Adams cane. Sorry not sorry