Summer Summary

That's kinda catchy, isn't it? I just thought of it as i typed it. Maybe it should just be Summery. But i begin digressing...

We've been traveling and working all summer, and haven't really had a ton of time to update. Well, i haven't and Rikki has chosen not to...so here we go.

We spent the majority of our summer in Rochester, NY. During this time, we made quite a few little side trips around the north-eastern portion of the country. First off, we went to Niagara Falls, which was an awesome experience. We just walked around the rim and hung out for a while on the canadian side. Played video games and mini golf while we were there, and that was fun. A week or two after that we were able to make a short trip over to Palmyra and to see the hill Cumorah. The next week we were able to go to the Sacred Grove, which was a pretty amazing experience. We also made a trip down to the finger lakes with the other couples from our office, just hung out there. The scenery in New York was beautiful, if not a bit monotonous. When Sierra and Chandale came to visit, we were able to go to the Hill Cumorah Pagent, which was amazing until they had to cancel the second half due to rain. We did make a return trip up to Niagara Falls the next day though. This trip we went on the Maid of the Mist boat, which was really cool. We got some cool video from there. See:


Then for the rest of Sierra and Chandale's visit, I was working down in the hole that is Erie, PA. we did take advantage of this though to spend my birthday in Cedar Point, OH. And i do have to say, it was the best birthday I've ever had. It was the most amazing theme park that i've been to, and we had an absolute blast. Sierra and Chandale then went home, but before we went back to Rochester from Pennsylvania, we made a short drive down to Kirkland Ohio. We were able to see the Newel Whitney store and the School of the Prophets, which was an awesome spiritual experience. Then we went to the Kirkland Temple, which was a complete polar opposite. The Church of Christ now owns it, and has taken all the spirituality out of it. On the way back to New York from there, we stopped in Buffalo and went to the Anchor Bar, which is where the Buffalo Wing was invented. So that was cool.
After that we took a little break from our excursions. We did one last one before we left New York, and we went to New York City. It was great because we were able to stay with Rikki's aunt Dona and uncle Augusto, and they were able to give us a guided tour all around the city. We had brunch at this amazing little place that had pictures of dogs lining the walls. After this we took a walk through Central Park and saw John Lennon's memorial, as well as the place he used to live where Yoko Ono still lives. Then we got to go to the top of Rockefeller center which had an amazing view. Then we went to times square and had charactures drawn of us, which cost way too much money and didn't turn out very well at all. We also ate dinner at this amazing Peruvian restaurant, and finished off the night at the underground apple store. It was a really fun trip.

After that we finished up our summer in New York, but decided to do an extended stint of selling in Dallas. So while driving between Rochester and Dallas, we decided to stop at all the church history sites that we could. The first place that we stopped was Nauvoo. We stayed in a really cool hotel for the night, it was really close to the Temple. The next morning, we woke up pretty early and were able to do a session in the Temple, and it was a truly amazing experience for both of us. After seeing the rest of Nauvoo, we were able to take a nice drive down the side of the Mississippi River for a while on our way to Carthage Jail. That was a somber place, but good to see. From here we made a short trip down to Hannibal, the birthplace of Mark Twain. This little stop was more for Rikki than me, but we were able to take a picture with a statue of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Then we were on to Far West where we were able to see the temple site where the cornerstones were laid. It was a very serene place, and it was really nice to be able to go there. From there, it was a quick drive over to Adam-ondi-ahmen. That was another really beautiful place.

We stayed that night in a small hotel in the middle of nowhere in Cameron, Missouri. We got up the next day and went to Far West, where we saw the temple site where the cornerstones still sit. It's kinda strange...it's right out in the middle of nowhere with nothing around it. Just empty rolling hills, but it really is a beautiful place. From there we drove to Liberty Jail. We had a really spiritual experience here as well, it was amazing to learn of all the inspiration that were received there. Rikki also had a really cool opportunity to sing there and the spirit was really strong. It was unfortunate that we had to do all this so quick, but because of our time crunch, we ended up having to squeeze it all into two days. It was still an amazing experience.

From there we finished up our drive down to Lewisville. We stayed there from a month and a half doing more alarm system sales. Not too much exciting happened there at all, except that the first weekend that we were down there we were able to drive a few hours south and see one of my old college roommates, Craig. We got to meet his wife and little girl, and were able to play a round of golf in the rain, which was a blast. The rest of the time that we were down there was pretty uneventful.

On the way back from Texas, we got to stop in Arizona for week and a while in Vegas too. But seeing as this is long enough and i doubt that anyone will even read this far, i'll end this right here and live the second part for another post.