Palmyra

Horseshoe Falls, Canadian side

For EFY this year the older kids begged to go to Palmyra, New York.  We, being sucker parents, said OK.  When it came time to figure out how to get them there we realized that it was an 8 hour drive away.  Much too far to drive up and back twice to take and then retrieve so we decided to make a family vacation out of it.  We started out in Palmyra and visited the Joseph Smith family home and then spent some time at the Sacred Grove.  Turns out it is pretty heavily infested with mosquitoes so we did not spend as much time there as we would have liked.  We then went to the site of the printing of the first Book of Mormon.  After all this history the little boys were more than ready to run around.  Thank goodness the next stop was Niagara Falls.

Walking in the Sacred Grove

In front of the monument on Hill Cumorah

 There was plenty of space to let the kids run and play.  There were a lot of people but tended to go early and late missing the worst of the crowds.  We even rode our bikes along the trail at the lip of the gorge and found some geocaches along the way.  

Miriya observes the American Falls

We did Maid of the Mist this time

We ended our trip at a rental cabin in a Pennsylvania state park.  We call it almost camping because you can do all the hiking, biking, outside cooking and star gazing that you do when you camp,  but at night and during rain you can stay in your soft, comfy bed.  Since Tom won't consider a camping trailer and I am kind of done with tents this is a good compromise.  There were some mishaps along the way, as there always are on family vacations.  We lost the nut that holds the axle of Tom's rear bike tire in place.  Unfortunately, we were 10 miles from the car or a road.  Tom made a makeshift nut with a water bottle cap.  It wasn't pretty but it got us back to the car.  Whew, that guy should be named Macgyver.  We got home just in time for Taylor to start school today.  Isaac starts after Labor Day and Miriya leaves in 2 weeks for Idaho.  The summer is officially over.
 

Went on a bike trail that took us through an old train tunnel