upstate new york : we like you!

one time roommate maren said she was going to palmyra to see the hill cumorah pageant. 

one time i felt jealous and decided right then and there i was going to recreate her trip the following weekend and luckily it worked out! 

we traveled to palmyra friday night, pitched our tent at like one a.m., and then woke up bright and early to head up north to see niagara falls. i kept hoping to find a cute diner to eat breakfast at but all we found was an east coast chain that was the equivalent of ihop. their pancakes saved them is all i have to say about that. 

(facts i left out about friday night include finding ultimate cheddar munchies at a random gas station and buying three bags because i was so happy, forgetting to grab the two sleeping bags we were going to borrow from a friend, semi-freezing because of said mistake, and sleeping in a tent for the first time in who knows how long - which could have been assumed since i said we pitched a tent but i figured i would add it in there just in case)

and then a few hours later we arrived! look at those nice falls!

rainbow!

i really wanted to go to the canada side so i made everyone bring their passport. it was weird going to another country by just walking over a bridge and maybe because of that it really wasn't a big deal but hey - another country is another country - so i documented every moment and just felt so happy my canada dreams were coming true. 

ontariooooo

i'm way glad we did go over to the canada side because 1. how cool is it that we just stopped by canada and 2. i liked the falls way better from that side

i kind of wish we would have paid to go down right next to them because not only would it have been awesome but it was so blasted hot that day so i guess that will have to happen next time. 

we did, however, get pretty close to them without paying and still got soaked. i wanted to stay in that magic mist forever but no one enjoyed it as much as i did so we left shortly after this picture was taken. wah waaaaah

i really just liked the little bit i saw of canada and hope to go back again soon and stay longer than an hour.

after driving back down to palmyra we decided to go to a cute little farm that maren had told me about. we loved that thing! especially their homemade fruit popsicles that i need to make because they are the best. (and need to never think i can share with someone else ever again because that was a bad decision because i hated john more and more with every bite he took!)

and this friend!

after that fun detour we (very excitedly) headed to walmart (they are so rare on the east coast) to grab some water bottles and while in there i kept telling john how much i wished they just had a subway because that is all i wanted and then we looked up and hey there was a subway in that place! it was the best surprise. 

then we headed over to the pageant and saw some great things along the way.

like this house full of treasures on the lawn

and this field with the best row of trees!

and one hundred church friends with orange vests to help navigate all the cars

(and there is that subway for documentation purposes)

MORMONS EVERYWHERE
and not documented would be the mormon haters on the side of the road being so uncomfortable/embarrassing as usual

i basically failed in trying to creep the cast members. i don't know why i was being so creeper shy that night but i just didn't want to take pictures of anyone so here are the only three i have. 

i must have been expecting it to be the worst thing ever because i was really surprised at how well done the pageant was! there was water and fire and dancing and nice costumes (please click that link and read it - i died) and their voices were pre-recorded so no one messed up and it was just all sorts of cheesy greatness. i was impressed they pulled it together so quickly and glad i got to see it because that is definitely something i never even thought of seeing in my life, ever. 

of course the weekend couldn't slip by without some sort of awkward encounter. don't worry that i sat down in sacrament meeting the next day to look down the aisle and see not only ryan's mtc companion (curly top) but the girl who i did efy with and pretended to go to my mission but really left the mtc early and then went to taiwan for two weeks and came back (for the record - two weeks in the field is not a mission, it is a vacation) calling herself an rm. needless to say she drives me nuts and i just thought it was so funny to see the two most random people i could have ever seen in palmyra, in palmyra. 

after church we wanted to go check out the palmyra temple which was just so cute and baby sized! we had been told the temple was closed for the weekend and found out this day it really wasn't so that was a huge bummer. i wanted to go to that magic celestial room that overlooks the sacred grove dang it!

(i wasn't lying, that middle window above was left without anything on it so people could see out to the sacred grove, which is pictured on the right. isn't that a dream?)

after the temple we headed on over to joseph smith's fake real house!!

this house above is really where joseph's house was growing up but really isn't the real thing. it is the same dimensions and as close to the real thing as they could get though so we will take it!

this house, on the other hand, is real as real can be. 

alvin began building this house for his fiance before he died (how did i never know about this fiance?) and so the smith's finished it and actually lived in it for awhile

the floor boards aren't original but the walls are! look at all that good 1800's wood!

AND GUYS JOSEPH SMITH REALLY PUT THE GOLD PLATES UNDER THESE BRICKS ONE TIME. I was way stoked about this part, obvi. 

and then i just really liked everything about that smith farm and couldn't stop taking pictures of how nice it all looked.

and then. and THEN. it was finally time to go to the sacred grove which i was excited and nervous for all at the same time - i didn't quite know what to expect going into such a place. 

we walked and walked on the trail through the grove in silence as i kept looking for the perfect spot to stop and reflect. i eventually saw this view above and felt like the sun coming through the trees looked very sacred grove-esque so we stopped on the bench in front of it and just thought about what had happened somewhere in that grove almost 200 years ago.

i kept looking up and trying to imagine what it would have been like for joseph smith to see God the Father and Jesus Christ come down and speak to him. i just wanted to know where it happened! and kind of hoped i felt inclined to sit where i did for a reason. 

as we continued sitting i read joseph's account for a bit and then john and i continued discussing the logistics of the event. which trees had been there to witness this  happen? what does nature do in the presence of God? how were the trees able to behold His glory? we just had lots of questions and no one to answer them for us until my old institute teacher walked by!

we had just finished bouncing questions back and forth to each other when brother christensen walked by. i did a double take and said in a loud whisper "john! john! that was my institute teacher!" but brother christensen seemed busy and i didn't want to bother him so i just felt happy to see him and thought that was the end of it. then all of the sudden he turned around, walked back to where we were, and said "i was your institute teacher!" haha that little guy caught me so off guard. 

it turns out he is the mission president for the area and actually walks around with an arborist quite a bit and informed us that the tree directly in front of us (in the middle back of the first tree picture) and the two trees directly behind the bench we were sitting on (the two in the middle of the picture above) were all witness trees and there are only a handful of witness trees left (witness meaning they were there in 1820). he also told us we "picked a nice spot because we were in the highest elevated point of the grove".  i don't know why but i just loved everything he was telling us and felt like it was such a tender mercy to run into him and hear those things that we would have never known otherwise. 

after the sacred grove it only seemed right to go see where they first published the book of mormon!

it was so cute and nice and the hardwood floors were even original!! just walking on the same floor that all our best mormon friends walked on in the 1800's. nbd.

we learned all about how everything worked from nice sister missionaries (one of which i got to speak chinese with!) and it is just crazy how much work was put into printing that book, or any book for that matter. 

they also had a ton of artwork, a lot of which were the original pieces like the one above

(is that not so cool? i don't know why but i'm just obsessed with stuff like this)

and then we drove past lots of great churches in downtown palmyra, which all looked so good and even had people singing in them that you could hear in the street! i wanted to go inside them so badly but everyone else wanted to get on the road and head back to boston so i lost that battle. (sad)

anyway. so that is that. never in my life did i think i would go to palmyra but i'm so glad that living on the east coast has opened up so many opportunities/possibilities to do so many wonderful things that have enriched my life and allowed me to experience so much. like i probably say about every six months, life really isn't anything how i thought it would be at this point in the game but i sure can't complain.