Odometer: 149327
Distance So Far: 4609
Days On the Road: 18
Final Stop: Horseheads, NY

Mom celebrates her birthday today! It’s the three days a year when she gets to date a younger man. Her young buck treated her to the American Standard– Denny’s! Who needs a ribeye when you could have it country-fried? Hope they got the early bird special. A gift from the kids was laying in wait in the glove box due to some good forethought on Cindy’s part.

This week, Mom and Dad are visiting some old sites that they haven’t revisited since the release of Harry Potter 7, when they had a 12- and 8-year-old in tow (read: a very long time ago). Time may have changed them, and the former 8-year-old now has a 3-year-old, but the buildings and sites seem to be largely the same. A few land acquisitions here and there, a couple more visitor’s centers and tours to be had, but the same stories and colonial charm.

From Mom

Yesterday we had the best time going through Cuyahoga National Park and getting to walk up and down about a million stairs to see Brandywine falls. There wasn’t as much water going over the falls as usual but it was still pretty. Then we traveled to Kirtland and took a tour through the temple and then a tour of the Joseph and Emma Smith house and then down to the old Kirtland village and took a tour of the store, ashery, log mill etc. I loved every bit of it! I really, really love church history. Then we drove to Headlands Beach and went wading in the Erie Lake. That’s the 4th Great Lake we have gone wading in this trip and I would have loved to stay and swim, but it was late and we had to go…besides, the mosquitoes came out and wouldn’t leave us alone! But oh how I loved it!

Today we got to just quickly stop by the John Johnson house and take a couple pictures. I got Dad standing on the front porch where Joseph stood and preached the morning after having been tarred and feathered and other things. I would have really loved getting a picture of the room where he and Sydney Rigdon received the revelation about the 3 degrees of glory, but we just didn’t have time to go up there. We have a long way to drive today and we are going to the Priesthood Restoration site in Harmony, Pennsylvania, and we plan on swimming in the Susquehanna River. I need time for all of that! We have already seen a lot and have much more to see! And…on Saturday we will get to see Dono and Olya at the Hill Comorah!!! They are coming for the dedication of the Visitors Center that Dono helped with! Their neighbors are going with them to help out. I’m so happy we will get to see them! Such a great vacation!

…

[We] spent so much time in construction and “incident” traffic that we barely made it to the Priesthood Restoration site 10 minutes before they were going to close. There was another couple who came in right after us. But the missionaries were very kind and took us on the tour anyway. They took us around on golf carts and it was wonderful! But by the time we got down to the river it was almost dark. We decided to just wade for a minute and it felt wonderful, but there was hardly any water in the river. I’m sure glad we went with you guys and did what we did back then. I have such good memories of doing that! But it is fixed up so nice now and I’m sure there is lots more water at other times of the year. I’ll send a few pics.

From Dad

September 18

Linda’s birthday. [Editor’s note, I think this deserved an exclamation point]  We drove on I-80 across a good chunk of Pennsylvania today, then swung up to the Priesthood Restoration Site on the Susquehanna River.  It was rolling hills and valleys (tall and deep) covered with forest (colors changing) for the entire trip.  Really gorgeous.  I thought I had allowed plenty of time, but there was so much construction narrowing traffic down to a single lane, time after time after time, that we got to the Restoration site 10 minutes before it closed.  But another couple arrived at the same time, so the Senior Missionaries took us on the 1 hour tour anyway.  The visitor center and replica homes of Joseph and Emma and Emma’s parents weren’t there when we visited in 2005, and when we visited during Covid in 2020, we couldn’t go inside.  We finally got the grand tour, but it was getting dark at the end, and they needed to lock everything up for the night, so we couldn’t do everything we wanted.  The river was also lower than we had ever seen it.  So we waded in it up to our ankles.

We stopped at Denny’s in Binghamton for dinner (Happy, happy birthday) and went on to our hotel in Horseheads, NY.  Weird name, but I guess it’s better than the other end.

We also passed a town named Vestal.  It got me thinking what the mascot of the high school would be.  Maybe Vikings. 😊 I can only imagine what the opposing teams would do with that one.  They are, after all, in New York!