Palmyra – Day 4

Okay, back after a “short” break.  We flew upstate from NYC to stay in Rochester for a few days.  First things first, head to Palmyra.  We were lucky enough to schedule our trip during the Hill Cumorah Pageant, so we wanted to take in some sites, before we staked out our seat.  No worries though, it was a monsoon that day so there were plenty of seats to choose from.  I think we sat through Utah’s annual rain fall in just a couple of hours.  I have to say I enjoyed the cooling off though.

First stop was the Hill Cumorah, to check out the venue.  After Eva lead us to a different Hill Cumorah, we found the monument.  Way cool.  The normal path to the top was blocked off for pageant stuff, so we actually got to hike through a wooded area.  Pretty cool to think that we were in the same place as Joseph Smith.

The stage was amazing at the base of the hill.  Nothing like the Manti Pageant.

We got to see the performers run some last minute dress rehearsals, and then took off to get lunch and visit the Sacred Grove.  Unfortunately this is when the rain started.  Man, the thunder and lightening were amazing.

Alicia in the Old Smith home. 

  Dan in the Sacred Grove, sporting the sexy garbage bags they gave us to help stay dry.  Did not help at all.  We didn’t take too many pictures since it was so wet.  Alicia is still not comfortable enough with the new camera to risk it.  Not to mention we had 3 more days to get pictures.

After visiting the Sacred Grove we stopped by the printing shop where the B of M was first published.  Really neat experience.  Probably because of this:

We caught Sister Christensen (my sorta cousin…our dads are “brothers from different mothers”) during the tour.  We grew up next door to each other.  Can you believe I used to babysit her??  I can’t believe how grown up she has become. 

Jordin is a history major, and totally in her element.  It was neat hearing her testimony.  Not to mention, neat totally surprising her.  We’ll miss her for the next year or so.

So that’s a good view of what we did the 1st day up north.  We didn’t take pictures of the pageant, because, well, it looked like this for most of it:

Soaking wet.  Luckily we were able to pick up an umbrella and rain slickers, so we weren’t completely miserable.  Oh, and the show was pretty good.  Yeah, shoot me.  I wasn’t that impressed the first night.  I will blame it on the fact that it was the 1st performance of the year, and it was raining cats and dogs.  It was much better the 2nd night.