I 'Heart' NY

Time to take another stab at this whole blogging thing. To start things off, let's talk about a fun trip!

As part of his job, Danny had an assignment to help the recruiting team at his company with college visits and job fairs. Danny helped coordinate and set up events and interviews with soon-to-be college grads. His favorite part was actually visiting the colleges and talking to the students at career fairs. Danny went to Texas A&M, University of Texas, Oklahoma University, Texas Christian University, University of North Texas and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).

The last school, RPI, is located in Troy, NY. Guess who got to tag along? I did! Danny's company did not have any issues with it. So we paid for my plane ticket and I finally visited the north-east!

Can I tell you how much I loved this trip? If you said no, you might want to stop reading right here because that's pretty much what the rest of this post will be about.

We flew up on Sunday with a lay over in Chicago. As we flew into Chicago I had a lovely view of Lake Michigan and downtown Chicago. I have been itching to go to Chicago so that was a pretty exciting bonus of the trip. Obviously, I still want to go to Chicago because, as awesome as it was, flying over it doesn't really count.

Danny's work events did not begin until Monday evening so we took a side trip to Palmyra, NY. Palmyra is where Joseph Smith and his family lived when he received the  first vision and translated the Book of Mormon. We visited the Smith Farmhouse, Sacred Grove, Book of Mormon publishing site, and the Hill Cumorah.

I am completely fascinated by history. To visit these places that I have learned about for as long as I can remember was exciting, to say the least. Being able to stand in a place that is so central and important to the history of my religion left me feeling awestruck and humbled. So combine that with my love of history in general and you'll realize I transformed into a big-ball-of-giddy-dorkiness that poor Danny had to deal with.

Looking towards the Sacred Grove from the Smith Family Farmhouse

E.B. Grandin Publishing office. The first copies of the Book of Mormon were published here. In downtown Palmyra.

One of the reliefs at the base of the Hill Cumorah monument. 

A lovely view from the top of Hill Cumorah

After our adventures in Palmyra, Danny drove a little out of the way so I can say hello to a great lake. We stopped in the middle of a lake front neighborhood so I could look over Lake Ontario. I felt like I was standing at the ocean. There was nothing in front of me but water and sky and a row of Canada geese (we assumed they were patrolling the border between US/Canada). The lake was beautiful and blue and much clearer than lakes in Texas.

Lake Ontario. The brownish splotch on the water in the middle of the picture is the group of border patrol geese.

It was time to start heading back to Troy. We drove through lovely towns and passed so many apple orchards full of apples. We stopped at a farmer's market for lunch and ate homemade apple sauce made on the premises with the apples from their orchard. It was the best applesauce I have ever eaten. We bought a small container of it to eat during the rest of our trip.

Where Danny and I stopped for lunch. Dang good applesauce.

Monday evening Danny had a dinner to attend. I opted to hang around the hotel and get ready for the next day's adventure. Which I will talk about in a new post because this one is already quite long.

Now onto my next post...