The Vacation - Part 4 Palmyra and Niagara Falls

The last stops on our east coast trip!  The first place we stopped was in  Fayette at the Peter Whitmer farmhouse.  We saw the chapel there and got to go inside the farmhouse where the church was organized.  It has been re-done to look how it may have looked back in 1830.

Plaque on front of the chapel

Peter Whitmer farmhouse

Inside

Next up was Palmyra.  The first day all we had time to do was go to the Hill Cumorah.  The front of the hill was busy with preparations for the pageant.

The next morning was Sunday so we got up and went to church.  Luckily the church was close to our hotel, so we had a nice 2 minute walk to get to church.  After church we went to see the Palmyra Temple grounds.

The E.B. Grandin building where the Book of Mormon was published

We saw pages hanging as they would have hung to dry back in 1830.  The kids all got to take a copy of one of the sheets and learn how they were folded to make all the pages in the right order.

Smith family log cabin re-built on the site of the original cabin 

Inside

Smith family frame house just down the road from the log cabin

Julia's photos of the Sacred Grove

 

The next day we headed for Niagara Falls

Julia took more pictures than I did of Niagara Falls (try 218), so I decided to use her pictures for this part.

American Falls - taken from Goat Island

The railing really is right at the edge of the falls

We saw the IMAX movie about the legends of Niagara and about the people who have tried to go over the falls.

The Maid of the Mist boats take you right to the bottom of both falls.

View of American Falls from the Maid of the Mist observation deck.  You can see the mist rising from Horseshoe falls on the right.  It is kind of cool because you can even see the mist rising from the falls miles away.

After the Maid of the Mist boat ride, you can walk up this path right to the side of the bottom of the falls.  We did it.  It was very wet.

View from the boat of the bottom of Horseshoe

The protective ponchos

Everyone got soaked!

After the boat ride we walked over to Horseshoe falls.  It started to rain on us, but luckily we had our handy ponchos on and we were already soaked, so it didn't matter. 

The hotel where we stayed had a basketball court.  Everyday Josh wanted to make sure that we made it back before dark so we could play some basketball.

On our last day we took a tour of some old locks on the Erie canal in Lockport.  Josh was actually OK with this tour since we got to go in a tunnel that had been blasted in the rocks to get the water downstream.  We also got to see the new locks in action.  Lockport is one of the only places on the Erie canal that is a double lock.  Boats have to be raised or lowered through two locks to get through.  

 Lake Ontario

After that we headed to the Buffalo airport.  Las Vegas and St. George here we come!