Palmyra, New York

For Thanksgiving, I made a trip out to the East Coast. I flew into Maryland, and the plan was to take a trip through New York over to Vermont, and finally to Dad's in New Hampshire.

Early this morning, I rode with Jacob and Camille and the family form Odenton, MD to Palmyra, NY. It took all morning to get there....6-7 hrs - something like that.

Our first stop was at the Hill Cumorah. We went in to the Visitor's Center to look around.


There was a Christus statue.

The Christus and my niece, Justice.

It was a chilly and windy day, but after the vistor's center we made the hike up to the top of the hill. For more information on the Hill Cumorah... go to: http://josephsmith.net/josephsmith/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=014968f0374f1010VgnVCM1000001f5e340aRCRD&locale=0

This is my niece Abbi.

Walking up the hill....

At the top is a monument.

And a view from the top of the hill.

Abbi has a flower.

Pictures of some of the sides of the monument.

By the waving of the flag, it was VERY windy...

Then we were off to the Smith Family farm house. This is the first house they lived in when they first arrived in Palmyra, before moving into a bigger, nicer home just a little walk away.

The Sister missionary, liekd telling us stories of the Smith Family. I like this picture because of the sun breaking through the clouds.

From the area where the Smith Farm is, you can see the Palmyra Temple. The trees are trimmed back, so you can see the Farm/Sacred Grove from the Temple.

This is the second home that the Smith family lived in. Which was nicer than the other one.

Just across the path from the second home, is a large barn. And also a little shed where the Smiths would make barrels. Barrel making, and Maple sugar was how they made a majority of their money.

And just a little down the path was the Sacred Grove. Even though it is brown, and we are approaching the wonter months, it was still very peaceful.

This is my niece, Anni. In the Sacred Grove.

As the story goes... Joseph Smith awoke one morning in the Spring of 1820, and walked to the Sacred Grove. This is how far it was from the grove to the back of the Smith farm house.

During a quick bathroom break, waiting to go find some lunch, my niece Justice found some caterpillers.

She wanted to see if they would be 'friends' but they just rolled up into balls, and eventually blew away in the wind.

We went to neardby Newark, NY and found a good resturaunt called Tom Wahl's. They had really good burgers... you know... the kind that hang off the egde cause the buns aren't that big?? Yeah... it was good.

Our next stop was the Grandin Building, where The Book of Mormon was first published back in 1830.

Once the sheets were printed, they had to be folded in a certain way, so when it was cut, the pages would be front and back... like a book. :)

My nephew Jake, liked learning how to fold the BIG page, into what would be little pages.

This is a panoramic view of the third floor, where the book was actually printed.

After that we headed to the Palmyra Inn. We played games, and with eating a big lunch - some of us weren't that hungry.

The night was interesting... I didn't mind sleeping on the floor though.... thats all I'm going to say about that :)

What a fun day. Tomorrow is going to be a "early start" day too.