New York, New Yorrrrrrk!

Actually, it was upstate New York, not New York city, but that was the best title I could come up with at the moment. And it will probably be just fine, because I don’t ever want to go to New York city, so chances are slim that I’ll blog about being there. (knock on wood, right? ha!)

Anyway.

We went on a little trip with my family and some family friends to upstate New York. One of the main things we were going to do while we were there was to go to the Hill Cumorah Pageant. So. Awesome.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. On Thursday we traveled endless hours (okay, like six) in the car to upstate New York to just outside of Rochester. We stayed in this dinky, somewhat scary and falling apart Days Inn. (We didn’t plan to stay in a scary hotel…the online pictures always look so nice!) At least we were just sleeping there. With 200 of our closest friends also going to the Pageant. ;) Anyway…Friday was the day we planned to see the Pageant. But it didn’t start until 9:15…PM. (it needed to be dark and it was held outside) So we spent the day in Palmyra, seeing church history sites and getting very hot and sweaty.

We started off at the Sacred Grove, which has pathways to walk all through it. It was very beautiful and peaceful.
After the grove, we walked around the Joseph Smith farm. We saw the barn, the cooper shop and the house. Here is the barn:
After that, we drove by the Palmyra Temple. I’m glad I got this shot as we drove by, because we didn’t have a chance to go back before we left for the Pageant.
After the Smith farm, we went to the site of the publication of the Book of Mormon. So cool! We learned about how books were assembled and bound and it was really interesting.
Here is an original first edition copy of the Book of Mormon. Awesome!

We stopped by the Peter Whitmer Jr. farm as well, and took a short tour of the place where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was first organized.

After the Whitmer farm, we went to grab some dinner. What was on the menu? Ice Cream! Yep, we had ice cream for dinner. We went to a place called Chill n’ Grill and got ice cream before the Pageant. Tasty. :)

It was finally time to head over to the Pageant, even though it wouldn’t start for another 2 hours, it was time for us to stake our claim – or a spot to watch. We ran into our friends the Rosenbergs, who were part of the cast! So fun!
We also got pictures with some other members, like some people who played Nephi and Laman.

Here’s where the Pageant would be performed. It was a pretty cool stage!
After we set up our chairs and blankets, some of us went to the visitor’s center and checked out some of the costumes they used to use. Pretty fancy!
Lehi and Sariah
A Nephite warrior
Samuel the Lamanite. Side note: We learned the Donny Osmond played Samuel the Lamanite in the Pageant at one time. Mom was super excited…and I thought he was looking way too pale to be a Lamanite in that picture Mom’s pointing to… ;)

The Pageant was awesome. I loved it! It was so fun to able to go and see it. With the Pageant starting so late, we got back to the hotel and in bed around 1AM. Whew! What a day.

On Saturday, we went to Niagara Falls. I’m just going to tell you I’ve never been, though I was apparently there with my parents when I was about a year old – therefore they insist I’ve been there already, but I’m not going to count that. I don’t remember! It’s my blog, so there. ;)

So if you have to pick only a few things at the park, I highly recommend doing the Maid of the Mist and the Cave of the Winds. The Aquarium and the Discovery Center might have been cool in the 70’s…but I don’t think they’ve really changed it since then…and as such…were a bit of a let down for us older peeps. The kids really enjoyed the Discovery Center and the Aquarium though. We started off with the Aquarium (which smelled like a family run Asian seafood market…if you get my drift). The penguins were pretty fun :)

After the Aquarium, was the Discovery Center. There was a little exhibit to walk around, and a 20 minute movie to watch. Our friends and my brother and sister made it into the movie, but my parents, John, and I did not, as there was not enough seating. So we amused ourselves while we waited.

You can tell by John’s face that he looooooved being squid. ;)

After that we had some lunch and then we went to the Adventure Theater to watch the adventure movie. I got really stressed out watching the film…it was about people going over the falls. Yikes!

Finally, after all that, we got to actually see the falls. It was my running joke that day that all I ever wanted was “to see the water fall down”. We started over at some observation areas.

Then we went on the Maid of the Mist boat ride, that takes you right up to the falls! It was so fun! We were given ponchos to wear, but we still got a little wet. I guess not putting your hood on will make that happen… ;)

Look! There are the falls!
And I managed to capture the rainbow in the mist!
The sheer size of the falls was just amazing!
And here we are, a little wet after the ride. But this is nothing compared to what we did next!

The last thing we did was the Cave of the Winds. Super awesome. You get to go on this walkway right up next to the falls and there are different levels going upward – the highest being called the Hurricane Deck, because you are practically under the water as it is coming down!! So fun!

Before the walkway, however, we had to pick up our ponchos and our special (read: tacky) walkway shoes. They were supposed to be really good at keeping us from slipping. I suppose I believe them because no one slipped. ;) But we got to keep them afterwards. Cool! Free shower shoes! *snicker*
It was so cool to be so close to the water! The raw power of the falls is just awe-inspiring.
We didn’t take any more pictures beyond this point because we didn’t want the camera to get wet. Because we got soaked at the hurricane deck! It was so much fun!

And that was our day at the falls. Definitely do the boat ride and the walkway. Those were the best parts! We finally found some dinner at a Denny’s nearby around 10pm and made the hour and a half drive back to the hotel. Which meant another 1AM bedtime. But it was a very fun trip!

After another 6 hours of driving, we were home. I can tell you right now I was glad to be going to bed at a decent hour and sleeping in my own, not-scary room, in my nice bed ;)  Thanks for the fun, family!