To the Ohio Trip {Day 3}

Day 3: Thursday, 10 May 2018

Erie, PA --> Niagara --> Palmyra

There was a little cafe attached to the hotel and that's where our complementary to-order breakfast was served.  What a fun and delicious thing!  We stuffed ourselves on french toast, eggs, hashbrowns, sausage and all the fixins.  The highlight for Sam, though, was the walk past two car carrier trucks parked in the lot between the restaurant and our room on our way back to pack up.  

The plan for this morning was to get to New York and see the Palmyra church sites before crashing in Canandaigua at the Holiday Inn Express for the night.  We had toyed with the idea of Niagara, but had sort of ruled it out since it would take up quite a bit of time to detour there.  It was basically a last second decision to take the exit for Niagara.  Why not?  I mean, how often are we this close to such a place?  I'm so glad we did.  We started at Prospect Point (here's a map of the park to get you situated) and got the views from that angle, avoiding all the towers and tours that cost any extra cash (we're cheap like that).  Then we took the Lower Grove Trail to cross over the American Falls Pedestrian Bridges and followed the North Shore Trail to Luna Island where we could see both Bridal Veil and American Falls up close and personal.  We peeked down at Cave of the Winds as we walked over to Terrapin Point to observe Horseshoe Falls.  Everything across the bridge was a new view for me, since when I came 18 years ago we spent our time on the Observation Tower at Prospect Point and the Rainbow Bridge into Canada.  It was magnificent and amazing to see all that water!

On the road again.  We put the kids' car seats
on opposite sides of the car from our usual,
just to change things up for our trip.

Cool bridge on our way to Niagara.  This may
have been the pay-by-mail toll bridge?  We had
to text a certain number on a billboard which then
sent us a link to a form to fill out with our info
(date, time, car make/model, license plate number,
and credit card info) to charge us the $1 toll to cross.

What a waterfall!  I thought Sam would be a lot more excited
about these falls since he used to be obsessed with waterfalls,
and I think he liked them, but he didn't go crazy like I thought he
might.

From front to back: American, Bridal Veil, and Horseshoe Falls.

Crossing the bridge over the Niagara River.

Bridal Veil Falls from above.

The Cave of the Winds Boardwalk (I think?)

The other side of American Falls, with Rainbow
Bridge and Canada beyond.

Horseshoe Falls in the mist.

Maid of the Mist tour boat and a rainbow!

Horseshoe Falls.

We were pooped after all that walking, so it was back to the car for snacks and naps as we drove the rest of the way to Palmyra.  We stopped somewhere along the way for lunchy/snacky things to keep in our cooler bag. (Pro tip: if you can fit a cooler bag in your luggage, along with a few gallon size ziplocks, you can fill your ziplocks with ice from your hotel ice machines each day and keep your food nice and cool while driving between hotels!)

Our first stop in Palmyra was the Hill Cumorah Visitor's Center.  We had to ask for the super abbreviated tours at all our church sites since the attention spans of our wee ones were only so long.  But we did get to see around the center before walking up the hill to the monument and back down the woodsy trail to the car afterward.  We then stopped at the Smith Family Farm, and the Sacred Grove.  We finished up our Palmyra tour with a drive by of the temple and Book of Mormon Publication Site.  Dinner that night was a microwave feast (mac 'n' cheese and personal sized frozen lasagnas) in our hotel room.  And the best part of the day, if you were to ask Cal and Sam: swimming in the hotel pool!  (I realized as we were getting ready to head down to the pool that I had forgotten my own suit amid all the packing of everyone else's - bummer!)

Hill Cumorah Visitor's Center.

Up the hill we go!

Gee, they're cute.

Two things about this photo: 1 - check out that
flag (it was windy!) and 2 - Sam is "crawling"
up the last stretch to the top (don't ask me!)

Diaper change on the front lawn.  Always classy.

Family shot in front of the Frame Home on the
Smith Farm.

Inside the Frame Home kitchen.

Clever use of stumps as beehives.

Entering the Sacred Grove.

Big fluffy-tailed squirrels abounded in the grove.

I kept singing a new song we've been learning
in primary (written by our own primary president)
as we wandered through:
"When Joseph was a boy he learned that he could pray.
He walked into a grove of trees one bright spring day.
He knelt down on his knees and there began to plead,
when Joseph was a boy."

The Log Home on the Smith Farm.

Dinner is served!

Happy fishies.

Too stinkin' cute for words.