We traveled to 6 States in 11 days
On one of the flights I sat by the window and watched the horizon of the setting sun. I wrote: The sun runs away, chased by the darkness. It takes all the light with it, abandoning us to the night like a neglectful parent. It pays no heed to the needs of man, even as it sustains us each and every day of the year. It's the reason we have a "year" at all. But the sun is an optical illusion. Because it never moves across the sky. It doesn't come up and then go down. We move circle it, not the other way around. It doesn't change color every time it slides across the horizon, either. It's basically a figment of our illusion. It's our master, without it we are nothing - unable to exist. It's not "our sun", it's our star! These are my musings at 30,000 feet, as the sun appears to slide down the horizon line like a glowing deep orange egg yolk from a cosmic chicken.
This was going to be another epic trip. First we were flying from Florida to New York, spend a few days there and then fly to Missouri. After Ron bought those tickets he threw in a change, after going to Missouri there would be one more stop! One whole day in Ohio. Ron got the first tickets on June 5th, and we flew out on July 1st.
I decided to put together a trip journal. Where did we the idea for these destinations? To see church history. To explore some new geography. Ron had never been to New York, neither of us had been to Missouri, I'd never been to Ohio. What are we interested in? Early history from the 1800's for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Forests and scenery. Waterfalls and caves. Feeling peace, and getting inspired. A town called Jamesport with an Amish population.
What is on the "must do" list? Go to Palmyra in New York, and see a place called the Sacred Grove, and Hill Cumorah, and check out Lake Ontario, along with Niagara Falls. In Missouri I wanted to see a long lost friend Julia, go to a place called Adam-ondi-Ahman, see Jamesport and the horse-drawn buggies, and Independence - which has history and is close to the Liberty jail museum. In Ohio we went to Kirtland where there is a temple built in 1836, and Lake Eerie (and see Cleveland, but that was more like a byproduct).
What did I do to prepare for this trip? Ron did all of the planning and arrangements for flights and car rentals and hotels, he's the brainiac behind our travels. The trip is 12 days, because the first flight is early in the morning, so we drove to Orlando and stayed the night in a hotel by the airport. This hotel had a cavernous lobby, going up several floors. It was designed so we could walk from the elevator to our hallway while looking down at the massive lobby - and we were on the 4th floor. I thought it was a silly question to write in my journal: what was on my packing list? But I suppose that's part of the prep work. It was easy though, we are each bringing one backpack. I threw in some clothes and toothbrush, no problem. We did laundry every 3rd day. It's such a great way to travel, it simplifies so much.
It's funny that some people can plan a trip and buy the tickets a year before they go, with a full itinerary of tours and things. We totally fly by the seat of our pants. We knew we were going to northern New York so I looked at the map and I said hey, look how close we will be to Niagara Falls, we should go there too.
I suppose there is a kind of basic flow to our trips. We talk about different destinations every week. We love travel adventures and learning about new things. Then Ron will pick one place that really catches his attention for more than a week. Then he says, "Well we could..... like on these dates....". Then he starts to look at flights more seriously. This part is exciting, he could change the destination at any time. The best moment is when he sends me the email with the flight details. Then he rolls up his sleeves for the rest of the details like hotels. Then it averages a 3 week countdown. Sometimes less. We got back on July 12th. On July 16th Ron bought tickets for the next flight already, leaving on July 24! This time we are taking two extra people with us, our granddaughter and her Mom - back to New York.
I love travel, it's full of anticipation. I love when we are on a plane and the pilot guns the engines for take-off, and the wheels finally leave the runway. I also love the moment when the wheels touch back down again. On our last flight into Orlando it was a packed plane with a lot of kids and at least 2 dogs. When the wheels hit the solid tarmac and the plane started to slow down - everyone started clapping. I loved it, I think it should be like that every time. But for all of my flights I think this is only the second time it's happened.
Sometimes it feels like a false start when we have to stay at a hotel the night before we fly out, but there is always that moment when we finally back out of the driveway, and we are now on the adventure! This adventure included keeping an eye on a hurricane named Beryl. It's one of the only 7 named storms that formed in the Atlantic ocean before July 4th. This hurricane is a 4 our of 5 so far, and it's headed to Mexico. This weather system ended up waiting for us when we flew into Cleveland the next week! But by then there was only a faint threat of tornadoes the night we arrived, and then some rain the next day. I'm glad we weren't including Texas in our trip, there were at least 22 deaths due to strong winds and heavy rainfall knocking over trees and causing floods. Power was knocked out to nearly 3 million homes. And that was after it had died down from a category 5 to a category 1.
The first thing we did on Day 1 was go to the shore of Lake Ontario, on our way to Palmyra. Some lake! I couldn't see the shore on the other side. It was an empty beach, but not a quiet one. The waves weren't big, but they were surprisingly noisy. Ironically, we came back to the same beach 4 days later to get a smooth rock souvenir for my granddaughter, and we couldn't get to the beach. It was the 4th of July and the once deserted parking lot now had people double parked. It was a beautiful sunny summer day. I wrote on Facebook to my American friends: The Constitution starts with "We the people", so let's BE "the people" and vote this year. The best part was flying into Kansas City, Missouri at 9pm. The view from above was amazing with all of the celebration fireworks on every street. Big and small, the pops of light and color were pretty cool for the entire descent.
Our hotel in Rochester, New York was nice but unremarkable. The hotel in Independence had 4 big fluffy pillows with a white blanket, and it was like sleeping on a cloud. I've often looked out the window and wondered what a cloud feels like, if I could run my hand through the edge of one. I've often marveled at the variations of color and shape and size of clouds. Then we picked a hotel closer to where we wanted to go, and it was a stark contrast. It was so bad, it was funny. The sign for the hotel was broken. The sidewalk to the front door was broken up in places. The walk up to the second floor was so smelly, we discussed what the stink was - a mix of maybe mold and weed. A couple came around the corner and no lie the guy was wearing a silver shiny suit and a hat. There was a very amateur patch job on the left as we walked into the room. And an even worse patch-up over the shower stall. It wasn't smooth and the paint didn't match. Good grief. The front desk lady has a big black dog she keeps with her, and at one point she was on the couch of the tiny lobby with the pit bull looking dog. I decided I should make friends with them both, and she told me the dog's name was Nipsy - because when he gets happy he gives little nips. We stayed that one night and then went back to the first hotel. We had been warned by my friend Julia, she said the homeless population was big around there. Turns out she wasn't exaggerating at all.
This post is long enough. Here are some pictures.
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