Moving toward Fall

It has been an eventful and busy five weeks since my last post. 
Where to start, where to start...?

Even though life has been busy, things are actually starting to slow down at the sites, with school in session in most parts of the country and summer fading.  It will pick up again for a while as the leaves turn in October and the color-seekers pass through.  

After a very comfortable July and first couple weeks in August, Mother Nature turned up the thermostat here in Western New York. It has been more what I expected the summer to be:  quite a few days in the upper 80's and low 90's along with some serious humidity. 90 and 90 reminds me why I like living at 6600 feet in Colorado!  However, I'm sure we'll wish for a little of this heat in February!

We continue to have great experiences sharing both the secular and sacred history of this great area and while working in our assigned ward.   

This group of young men came into the Hill Cumorah Visitors' Center while we were on shift there.  They are farm laborers from a small village in Mexico who have come up to work the apple harvest in the thousands of acres of orchards up by Lake Ontario. This is their first trip to the US and most had never heard of Mormons before and none spoke English.  Only their sponsor/leader (who lives in Texas, but is from the same village in Mexico) spoke any English, so communication was a bit of a challenge until one of our Spanish speaking sister missionaries came from one of the other sites and rescued me!  We had a great experience teaching them about the Gospel!

We've had several missionary couples leave in the past month and have several replacements arriving in the next few weeks.  We'll certainly miss the couples who have departed for home, but look forward to meeting the new ones.  We've changed apartments in the shuffle and are now on the ground floor with big windows to watch the snow from!   

People we know and people who know people we know continue to pop in, which is really fun.  It is indeed a small world.  Ralph and Flora Miller, some old friends from Colorado Springs who we haven't seen for 30+ years surprised us with a visit.  They are temple workers at the Palmyra Temple, so we'll be seeing them fairly often.  

The Millers

Our daughter Sarah came for a visit a couple of weeks ago.  We had fun showing her the sites and the sights.  

Sarah and some of the Sister Missionaries at the Grandin Building

Ann giving Sarah the lowdown on the Book of Mormon Manuscript

We drove up to Sodus Point on Lake Ontario one afternoon and had a picnic.   A beautiful day at the Lake, as you can see.  

Lake Ontario

At Sodus Point Lighthouse

 We also took her down to Watkin's Glen, where we had been in the Spring.  It was a little rainy, but nonetheless beautiful.  Note the scale in this first shot - small little people at the top...

Watkins Glen

I tried my hand at some long water exposures, but didn't have my tripod along, so they weren't overly successful.  A rock wall provided somewhat of a stable platform for these two...

Really wished I had my tripod for this one...

The wildflowers are starting to fade around the area, but there are a few still lingering...

Smith farm wildflowers

Apples on the farm are ripe!

We picked a bunch of apples from the orchard on the Smith Farm the other day.  A couple of the trees are the "Heirloom" variety and they're as big as grapefruit - about five of them fill up a plastic grocery bag!  They're by far the biggest apple I've ever seen.  I took this shot in a store, but it's the same size as the ones we picked.

We drove down to the Church's new Priesthood Restoration Site in northern Pennsylvania with our neighbors the Beans a couple of weeks ago (it's about 140 miles from us).  It has just opened and is well done, with a beautiful visitors' center and two reconstructed homes.  It's in the gorgeous Susquehanna River Valley.

Priesthood Restoration Statues

Joseph Smith Home

Issac Hale home

Original Priesthood Restoration Monument

Susquehanna River

Ann and the Bean's

A couple of weeks ago, we cobbled together a morning shift, a p-day and an afternoon shift and drove up to Thousand Islands, NY.  It is a spectacular place where Lake Ontario empties into the St. Lawrence River/Seaway system about 160 miles from here.  There are over 1800 islands and for more than a century has been a favorite place for the mega-rich as well as the humble to build island getaways.  And, yes, it's where the salad dressing comes from...

 

International Bridge between Canada and US

We took a long boat ride through the islands, seeing "Millionaire's Row" as well as some of the lesser folks' places. 

Millionaire's Row

Mother-in-Law Island 

We stopped and toured Boldt Castle, which was built by the Waldorf Astoria magnate for his wife.  She died suddenly and so it was never occupied.  It's got like 175 rooms and is waaaay over the top...

Boldt Castle - kids' playhouse in foreground (with bowling alley)

The slightly ostentatious Pump House

These two islands are owned by the same guy (he's Canadian).  The big one with the house is in Canada, the small one is in the US.  He says whenever his wife is mad at him he does some international travel and goes fishing...

Border bridge

More Boldt Castle

Boldt Yacht House

From a Castle balcony

This lighthouse sits out on Cape Vincent where Lake Ontario becomes the St. Lawrence River.  

A few miles south of Capt Vincent is the scenic little town of Sackets Harbor, where a War of 1812 battle took place.  It had started raining by then, so we didn't linger, but want to go back. Interestingly, Zebulon Pike (the discoverer of Pikes Peak) is buried there.  We tried to find his grave to take a picture, but the rain got the better of us.  

The flowers are still magnificent around Palmyra, even as the leaves show signs of turning.  This giant Hibiscus is growing outside our front door.  So is the yellow one below.  Pretty spectacular!  

Speaking of botany...  Here's your test for this post: 

They're getting harder, aren't they?  It's a Black Walnut.  How about this one?

This one is a Black Locust.  There is a magnificent 200 year-old Black Locust tree near the Smith's frame home that is about 5 feet in diameter and 100 feet tall.  Beautiful!