Church History 2021, Week 1

Years of planning finally paid off and we joined with the Hall family on an epic two-week church history trip! We drove around 5,500 miles, logging somewhere around 92 hours of driving! (Thanks for keeping stats, Marlene.) The days were hot so we'd wake around 6am each morning to get several hours traveling done while it was still relatively cool. Most days we drove for 8+ hours. Many of our RV parks had pools ponds, which the kids really enjoyed at the end of a long day in the vehicles. Happily, we stayed two days in Palmyra and three days in Nauvoo. Everyone enjoyed the break from driving although we stayed super busy taking tours!

Day 1

Drove all day and stayed the night in Restway Travel Park in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Just a little minor transmission trouble!

Day 2

Drove all day again and reached Leland & Lindsey's home in Lincoln, NE! This turned out to be some of the kids' favorite parts of the trip.

Day 3

Broke up another full-day drive with a stop in the World's Largest Truck Stop. Spent the night at Pleasant Creek Campground, Oglesby, Illinois.

Day 4

Drove all day (see a pattern?) and spent the night at Lakeside Campground on Lake Erie in Ripley, New York. It was very windy so the lake had huge waves. Most of the kids enjoyed swimming for a bit, and we all appreciated the gorgeous sunset. 

Day 5-6

Drove about half a day, with an epic stop at Niagara Falls! This was one of my personal highlights. We took a ride on the Maid of the Mist, which is kind of a euphemism. It should be called Maid of the Drenched. So, so wet! It was hilarious.

Spent the nights at Twilight on the Erie in Palmyra, New York. This campground had some crazy strict rules, including driving 3 miles per hour (and you would get yelled at by people if they thought you exceeded this) but we still had fun. We visited the Smith home and farm, the Sacred Grove, Hill Cumorah, Palmyra Temple, and the Grandin Building where the Book of Mormon was published. In the evenings we enjoyed some corn hole and a little swimming. Some of the kids got kicked out of swimming in the Erie Canal because evidently it has dangerous snapping turtles. We had the blessing of a caliper completely falling apart on our Excursion exactly as we were pulling into our campsite, so that we were in a great position with enough time to fix it.

Day 7 

We only had a few hours to drive through the finger lakes region of New York. The trip took us through Ithaca where the Hall vehicle stopped at a children's garden. We visited the Aaronic Priesthood restoration site, along with the fancy Hale home, the Susquehanna River, and the cemetery where Joseph and Emma's first child is buried. Stayed the night at Pine Crest CG in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. This campground had a nice, but cold, swimming pool and in the evening it rained and rained.