Last weekend we had the chance to head up to Palmyra for the final day of the Hill Cumorah Pageant this year. We left at the crack of dawn on Saturday (9:00 is early for some of us, don't judge) since Jon didn't get off of work until the wee hours of that same morning. The drive clocks out to be just over 7 hours, but it was beaUTiful and 100% worth it. Jon and I love road-tripping, and we always make a soundtrack of our roadtrips in advance--making a playlist of our latest music finds, then burning them onto a CD so that those songs will remind us of that trip in the future. This trip's soundtrack was a hit, our favorite being a recommendation from Dave Cox called I Sing I Swim by Seabear. Thanks for the tip, Dave!
Our drive took us past the finger lakes in upstate NY just before we hit Palmyra, and Lake Canandaigua was incredible. It tempts us to throw normal jobs out the window, pack everything up, and move to a small middle-of-nowhere town, making a living selling pies or something (Monica's Pies shop tells me it's possible). Or maybe having a hot chocolate shop, which is our real dream. Alas, I'm pretty sure I'd die after some time of feeling cut off from the real world and its modern conveniences. And people. Either that or become totally sold on it and never go back. It's a definite contrast from DC, we'll just say that.
The pageant was great, I forgot how many "special effects" they have. We managed to watch the pageant sandwiched between two major rainstorms--one about an hour before and the next about an hour after. The windows of heaven thankfully shut for a few brief hours so the show could go on. I'm not talking about a little shower, I mean SERIOUS downpours. These downpours followed us the entire weekend. And we were camping. :)
Here's a feature photo with King Noah himself, as well as one of 3rd Nephi chapter 11. I don't know how they every do all their moving and fighting and whatnot on that stage. They seriously made Abinadi RUN down the entire set to get burned at the stake so they could get him there before the next scene started. But what could this stage NOT do? It rained, flooded, turned into rivers, and spontaneously lit on fire or crumbled in earthquakes. The cast only has a week to rehearse for this, and we heard they choreograph their own fight scenes with very little coaching. Pretty impressive.
I SO wish we had pictures of our tent next to the tents of the two couples we camped by, it was so hilarious. Remember our tent from our Labor Day trip last year? Same one, this time with a monster 8-man tent rain fly staked on top of it like a big X landing pad and a broken tent pole duct taped at a 90 degree angle holding up the front of the fly by the door so we could get into the tent without army crawling. This was a must because the fly our tiny tent came with was probably 1' x 1'. No joke. So we may have looked ridiculous, but we survived every storm of the night and came out dry as ever. In the morning when I saw all our tents together I asked everyone if they thought our tents were reflective of our actual housing we were living in at that time. This would be so much funnier (that's totally a word) to you if you could see the picture, especially after my huge post on housing. But we were limited with pics because we were having a memory card problem which we didn't solve until after we got home, so we actually had to limit ourselves--that's like a swear word in our home for vacations. There will be no photo-taking limitations!! So our photos are lacking, just take that as a disclaimer.
Sunday we went to church with the Morris' and the Nichols in the building in Palmyra across the street from the temple. We got ready in a tent to get more in touch with the scriptures and what the children of Israel must have felt like. Thus we were feeling very wilderness-esque, somewhat like Lehi and Sariah. I'm kidding, but my hair was sporting some awesome humidity waves, and those can get pretty wild.
After church we went back to the county Fairgrounds where we'd camped (this is not how you 'rough it', although the bathrooms were pretty gnarly. This is how you get back from the pageant before all other pageant goers because it's the closest) for a little Sunday picnic, which was sunny and pleasant and ended in a sudden monsoon, at which time we cleaned up in literally 30 seconds and made a mad dash for the cars. If you're out there for longer in that kind of rain you'll be drenched for hours. Those drops were HUGE! Then we headed off to visit all the Palmyra church sites, which were also visited sporadically by sudden downpours, followed by direct sun and humid heat. The sky was so emotionally confused!
The photo totally doesn't show it at all, but we witnessed a large monsoon from a small tent pavilion in front of the Joseph Smith log home. The sister missionary had to yell over the roar to be heard by our group. The next pic is us in the replica of Joseph's room where Moroni visited him, followed by a pic outside in the previously stated direct sun and humid heat, just down the path from the log home, across from the temple.
Next was the Joseph Smith framehome, the original, where we got some sweet shots of the group. My favorite is the one with everyone intently listening to our tour guide while getting the prep course outside of the house. Or maybe the one with Jon palming my basketball belly.
We got pics of everything AND the kitchen sink.
And of course, some Sacred Grove and near-the-grove photos, which includes bugs, nature, fences, Jon putting out the vibe on a bench, and me sporting a well-rounded and continuously growing baby in my body. This trip definitely allowed for ample belly shots, which you'll definitely see more of.
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