Autumn in New York...

 In order to get the full beauty of this photos you will need to double click on each photo. We pass this tree in town everyday and decided to stop and take a picture of it.  I love this color.

 The yellow leaves are great...but I love the golds.

 If you look closely you will see a streat of water in the bottom of the picture.  Also an old wooden bridge crosses the stream.

 I thought this one was cool because the leaves were the same color as the rust on the old railroad bridge.

 We passed these three trees on the way to Wal-Mart and I had to stop and get a photo before the leaves started to fall off the trees.

 This is the Sacred Grove taken in the autumn.  It is a beautiful place during the others seasons, but multiply it by 10 when autumn comes.

 Another of the grove.

 Another of the grove.

 I thought this would a good photo.  The church put several benches around in the grove.  This one had leaves all over it and all over the ground.

 Here is a photo of the temple as seen from the Sacred Grove.  It is really a beautiful place.

 This is my favorite.  This is of a pathway on the Hill Cumorah.

This is of the entrance to our "home"...Zion's Camp.  You never see dirt....only grass, trees, and water.  What a place!

Letchworth State Park...

 Our group took a trip (about 1.5 hours) to Letchworth State Park.  The people in New York call this the "Grand Canyon of the East."  Having lived in Arizona for the past 42 years, I think that is a bit of a stretch.

 We felt like Lilly Tomlin when she would sit in the oversized chair on the TV show "Laugh-In."  I know my kids will not have a clue what I mean by that. 

 This is how deep the canyon is.  We are on the west rim of the canyon.  There is a small amount of water now...but in parts of the year there is much more.

 This photo is too dark to look nice.  It is a photo of the falls that is located at the south end of the canyon.  I need to lighten it a bit with my Nikon program.

 This is a restored home that is now a restaurant.  The cool thing is that you have to pay $8 to enter the park...but if you eat here they will give you the $8 back toward paying your bill.

Another dark photo of Mary istting by the falls.

Ryan & Amy's Visit.....

 This is not a very good picture.  If you double click on the photo and look at the bottom you can see Ryan, Amy, & Mary.  This is the on the top of the Hill Cumorah.

Ryan & Amy with the Palmyra Temple in the background.

A photo of the cutest sister missionary in all of New York.  I had to put this photo in.

This is a better photo of Ryan & Amy and the temple.

Patty's Visit (cont.)....

 This is the sign outside the Grandin Building where the Book of Mormon was printed.  It is located in downtown Palmyra.  The Church has gone in and completely restored the building.

 The sister missionaries are the guides and take you on a great tour of the building and tell you all about the printing of the Book of Morman.  It is really interesting to realize just how slow and tiresome it was to print each page.  Yet the entire book was finished in about a third of the time it should have taken.

 Two "old people" sitting on a bench in the Sacred Grove.  This is really a special place.  I never tired of visiting it.....so peaceful and quiet....the spirit so strong.

 Here is Patty in the grove.

 This is a photo of Mary and Patty at the Sodas Point Lighthouse.  It was a very windy day.  This lighthouse is one of the many located on the shore of Lake Ontario. 

 This is a photo of the cabin located on the David Whitmer farm.  We attended church services at the chapel located in the visitor's center.  This is a very special place to me.  I felt the spirit there more than I did anyplace else.

 A sister missionary took this photo of us as we came out of the old log home.  This is the building where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was established on April 6, 1830.

 On our way taking Patty to Buffalo to the airport we stopped in Lockport and took a boat ride on the Erie Canal.  It was a rainy day....as usual.

I took this picture during one of the brief moments when the rain was not coming down.  we had a great time with Patty.  She was the first of our family to come and it was great to see family.  Having had all boys I really love and appreciate both of my nieces...Patty and Toni.

I've been pretty lazy...

For the last couple of months of our mission and since we arrived home a couple of weeks ago I been pretty lazy when it comes to keeping the blog up to date.  I know it is November...but I've made a resolution and I'm going to finish posting pictures of the last of our mission and our travels as we came home....I PROMISE.

The Famous "Jet Boat" Ride.....

 Last winter, when we found out we were coming to Palmyra, we were told by Ron Sparks that we had to go to Niagara Falls and if we did we had go on a "jet boat" ride.  I made a mental note of that and didn't think any more about it.  Then when Pres. Kartchner set us apart he also said that we had to go for a ride on a jet boat if we made it to Niagara Falls.  So we put that on our bucket list of things to do.  When we heard that Patty was coming and we would have the chance to go to the falls we made reservations to take a ride.  A couple of weeks ago I call and reserved three seats.  They have "open" boats and a "enclosed" boat.  Mary said that she would not go if she was going to get wet.  So we bought tickets for the enclosed boat.  This is a photo of the boat.  There are six rows of seats and about 4 or 5 people on each seat.  They lower the windows and it goes.  You can double click on the photo and see it in more detail.  There was never any indication that this ride was going to be "over the edge" for people like me.  We put on life jackets and took our seats.  The lady said that it would a rougher ride in the front and easier in the back.  Naturally Mary and Patty were saying..."We want to sit in the front."  After taking our seats on the second row the lady started telling us, as we started down the river, that we would be going through sever Class 5 & Class 6 rapids. (Class 6 rapids are the biggest rapids....like in the Grand Canyon)  She then told us that they will show us just how great this boat is buy making a "Hamilton Turn" three times.  A Hamilton Turn is when they get the boat going about 45/50 mph and throwing the boat into a 360 degree spin on top of the water.  One spin is made on top of the Class 5 rapids.  She told us that if we liked the turns the use our index finger and circle it over our head.  If we were getting sick we needed to pat our head with our hand.  It was so hot inside the enclosed boat and with that mixed with my fear of tight places I was heading in direction I didn't want to go.  After the first spin Mary, Patty, and every other person in the boat were spinning their fingers above their heads and I was slapping my head so hard it hurt.  The lady came over and asked it I was OK.  I told her that NO I was going to lose my candy bar and soda I had just eaten.  I asked here for a barf bag.  She said she didn't have one.  So I started to use the canvas bag used to store the headphones that each of us had on.  She didn't want me using that particular bag and quickly helped me move to the back of the boat.  There I was sitting at the back with my head out the back window and sitting next to some lady for India or Paklstan.  Miracle of miracles....she produced a barf bag from her pocket on her life vest.  About that time we hit the rapids and another spin.....I didn't really want to keep that Snickers and Diet Pepsi in my stomach.  She came back and asked it I was OK.  I told her that having flown with Steve Allen before that I knew that I was not going to die but I think that I'm seeing a light and I want to walk toward it.  She cheered me up greatly by saying to "Hang in there...we have one more spin coming."  That really made my day.  I didn't really want to keep that waffle I had at the motel this morning.  And I didn't.  The ride finally ended and she helped me out first.  After kissing the boat dock I went over and sat down in the shade and waited for Mary & Patty.  After about 45 minutes I was back to full strength...so much so that we stopped and ate Chinese on the way home.

 These two quite enjoyed the experience and had nothing by praise for the ride.

 Here are some photo Mary took of the waves coming over the front of the boat.  I really believe this boat was one of the boats used by the Brother of Jared.  I bet if you looked really hard you would be able to find a cork in the roof and in the floor.

 Another wave....think of me in the back of this boat barffing out my guts.

Here is a photo Mary took of the Class 6 rapids that we were spinning around on.  Looks like fun....not so much.

Niagara Falls From Canada....

After picking up Patty in Buffalo we went on to Niagara Falls.  When our temple president set us apart he also gave us our "little white Bible" that each missionary gets.  He then did something else that was different.  He told us specific pages that we should tear out of our handbook.  He said to get rid of the page that says that you can not watch TV or movies, the page that said you have to wake up at 6:00 a.m. and go to bed at 10:00 p.m., and the one that says you can not travel outside your mission.  Since our temple district covers three missions and three states he said we could go anywhere we wanted inside our temple district.  If we wanted to go into Canada or any other place that was outside the district...just let him know we were going and have fun.  That is the reason we went into Canada.  That and the fact that everyone says that the falls are better from that side rather than from the US side.

This is a TON of water going over the falls.  I wish we could run a pipe line from one corner of the falls and send it to Arizona.  Hard to believe the amount of water that goes over the falls each and every minute.

 This is a better picture of the amount of water.

 We also rode the elevator to the top of this building.  It is pretty cool up there.  You can see well into both Canada and the US.  The following pictures were taken from the top of this building. 

 Notice the "Maid of the Mist" boat that is just starting to go into the mist created by the falls.

 This is just a wider view of the same thing.

The Largest Train Museum in NY...

 On our way to pick up Patty at the Buffalo, NY airport we made time to stop in Medina, NY and visit the "Largest Railroad & Toy Train Museum in New York."  It was quite the place.  It was built in an old train station. 

 The layout had a mountain running down the middle.  The layout was 55 YARDS down one side and 55 YARDS BACK THE OTHER!  That is a really big layout to build.  This photo gives you a little sense of just how big this place was.  He has 3 trains running at all times.  Each train was atleast 35 cars long and some had more.  He would hook three engines together to be able to pull all the cars.

 I loved this part of the layout.  This was about a sawmill and lumber yard.  This crane (that is mounted on a railroad car) is a spitting image of the one that my dad operated for 25 years at Caldor.  He would move lumber from storage piles onto rail cars or from the cars to the yard...just at this part of the layout shows.

 This is a great classification yard.  I tried to count the number of rolling stock he had in this yard...but soon lost count.  Way more cars than I have money to match.

 This is a really cool operating "round house."  Trains come out of the shop onto the turn table track and then to turned to a open line to be put in service.  Great model.

All the things on this layout are "scratch built" meaning that they are build by hand...not a kit.  I couldn't believe the amount of time and effort that went into building this canyon to canyon bridge.