7.14.2012

Saturday morning we had planned to go to the temple in Palmyra with my parents. They forgot to bring their temple clothes, so they couldn't go, and then Jaime and I didn't get out of bed. I still regret that, actually. I wish we would've just gotten up and gone.

Instead, we slept in (which was also nice), and had lunch with my family before they headed to the Hill to start their day's worth of rehearsals and preps for their second show. We went to Chill 'n' Grill, which is apparently famous in Palmyra. It's a burger and ice cream place where you order at a window and then sit outside in the sweltering heat to eat your food. The ice cream and burgers were pretty good. Apparently, not good enough for Thomas who got...the dump plate? Something like that. It was pretty much everything they have piled on one plate. It looked disgusting. Don't let the picture fool you into thinking it's a nice plate of regular chili cheese fries. 

Before we got on the road again, we visited the memorial on top of the Hill Cumorah which has a statue with Moroni on the top (he was the angel that showed Joseph Smith where the plates were hidden).

Before we started this road trip, my mom suggested we get a book called "A Lamb and a Lion" to read as we drove. The book is about Willard and Rebecca Bean, who were called to live in the Joseph Smith house in the early 1900s and prepare the area for the Church to return, since the feelings about Mormons hadn't been too positive there since Joseph Smith had to leave to avoid persecution. The book was really entertaining and I loved learning about the history of the area and all the time and effort that went into gaining possession of the sacred sites in that area, including the Hill Cumorah. If you haven't read the book, you should. We both really enjoyed it and it made our drive go much more quickly.

We headed up to Niagara Falls that afternoon. We'd both been before but it had been several years.

We were crossing over into Canada anyway, so we decided to see the falls on the Canadian side. We had to go through a checkpoint and promise we weren't planning on staying the night in their lovely country. (Which turned out to be really boring, anyway. At least the part we drove through).

The Falls were, of course, incredible.

As I mentioned before, I love bodies of water. The great lakes are some pretty significant bodies of water. And they're beautiful.

Finally, Michigan! Seriously, the drive through Canada from Niagara Falls to Michigan was one of the worst parts of the trip. We were tired, we were both over driving, and the scenery was not impressive. And I couldn't convert the kilometers into miles so I couldn't even figure out how close we were to being done. I was so happy to return to the United States. Not like the United States isn't boring sometimes, but at least it's home. We crossed back over in Michigan where we had to stop at the immigration checkpoint again. As luck would have it, we chose the line that had an agent who was the nosiest man alive. He wanted to know what we'd bought in Canada. Why I had so much stuff in my car. Why I had Utah license plates if I was from Indiana. Why I would choose to drive across the country. I'm pretty sure three cars went through the other lines in the time it took us to get through ours.

We made it to Detroit that night and finally found a hotel after much searching and only a little bit of quarreling.. In additional news, we saw 8 Mile. The 8 Mile. No Eminem sighting, though. More importantly, we ate at Texas Roadhouse, and it was delicious.