Palmyra, NY

Peter Whitmer Farm – We had a total character as our guide (Brother Hamblin- proud descendent of Jacob Hamblin).  During the course of the tour, he told us several early church history stories that seemed so anecdotal (and that we didn’t remember ever hearing) that I had to look them up online the minute we got back in the car – they were all true, of course.  In 1980, General Conference was held on site at this farm in the chapel/visitor’s center and both were dedicated by Spencer W. Kimball in the first ever satellite broadcast of conference.  The kids were impressed that the first two general conferences had also been held in this small farmhouse.  Which led Mason to do the math and figure out that, even without calculating for members that have died in the last 150 years, the Church has grown at an average rate of 198 baptisms a day since 1830.

Joseph Smith Home & Sacred Grove - The Smiths had a pretty good thing going in their property, farming and barrel-making enterprise before they were persecuted enough to have to leave it all behind.  The Palmyra temple and the Sacred Grove today both stand on property that the Smith family owned originally - pretty cool! The kids loved imagining Joseph as a young boy, sharing a room with 5 brothers, doing work on the farm, studying the Bible with his family around the fire, etc… We were once again literally the only people here, and spending some time walking through the Sacred Grove with just my little family was really a wonderful experience.

Hill Cumorah - By the time we made it back to Hill Cumorah (we had started there earlier in the day but hadn’t actually gone up on the hill), the visitor center was closing and it was nearly dark.  They said that if we hurried we could drive to the top of the hill and see the Moroni monument, but to hurry down because they had to lock the gate.  I double checked to make sure that we could turn our RV around at the top and they said that it would be “no problem.”  Well we made it up and it became readily apparent that this was not actually the case.  We checked out the monument as speedily as we could considering Avalon’s face plant down a cement staircase (no major damage) and the fact that we had to detach and re-attach the Acura.  Alas when we came down the hill, the gate was locked.  I guess they thought we had left.  After Greg determined that we couldn’t pick the huge padlock, he started to resign himself to a night spent actually on the Hill Cumorah (and on a very steep slant).  I decided to hike back to the visitor center (in the rain) on the off-chance that someone was still there, and I got lucky due to a late tour that was still chatting with the couple missionaries.  They graciously agreed to unlock the gate – “we thought you’d left ages ago, you said you were just going up there for a quick look” – I am not sure whether they even understood why it was that took so long, despite my explanations,  but they did a pretty good job hiding their annoyance.