Niagra Falls, NY; Harmony, PA; Cooperstown, NY

After an early start (Saturday, October 3)we headed west to Niagra Falls. I had initially thought, "No big deal," in reference to visiting the Falls, but after speaking with friends andhearing their experience, I was really glad that we had kept that on our itinerary. We pulled into Niagra by 9:30 AM and got in line to buy our tickets for the Maid of the Mist. There was a bit of a line, but we ended up being able to go on the first boat out which had been Michael's plan all along. We and perhaps a hundred of our closest friends boarded the boat with our blue ponchos on and headed out to the Falls. We got wet! It was great! In fact it was fantastic. It was a big deal. I highly recommend Niagra Falls to anyone who has the opportunity to visit that area. After our trip we sloshed back up to the park, checked out the falls by seeing them topside versus boatside and then left around 1:00 PM to continue south to Bradford, PA our stop for the night. On our way to Bradford, we passed through Boston (New York, not Massachusetts)

We had a quiet night in Bradford and then started out for Cooperstown. This was slated to be one of our LONG drive days (nearly 300 miles and approximately 5 hours of driving). We broke it up with covered bridges along the way in Pennsylvania and New York. One of my favorite stops was Harmony (now Oakland), PA.

For those of us that are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Harmony, PA is a significant location. It's where a majority of the Book of Mormon was translated; important revelations occurred there: the Aaronic Priesthood was restored there and Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdry were baptized in the Susquehanna River. There isn't a visitor center or guides or missionaries at the site. There is a bronze monument placed in 1960 commemorating the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood. There's a cemetery next to the monument where Emma Hale Smith's parents are buried as well as Emma and Joseph's son Alvin (named in honor of his older brother who had passed away. Plaques set on posts mark the locations of Emma's parents home and Joseph and Emma's home. There's directions on how to walk to the Susquehanna. We did that. I picked up a smooth stone from the river to remind me of the significance of that spot. I'm very grateful to have been able to visit there.

We swung back up into New York state and to Cooperstown. I had read about more covered bridges and found that the oldest one in New York state isn't very far away so we determined to visit that in the morning before we headed to the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. After dinner at a local BBQ place we turned in.

Monday, October 5 we got up early, had breakfast and drove to Glimmerglass State Park. We found the bridge. It was in a lovely location and we had it to ourselves. Then it was back to town. We were too early to go to the Museum so we wandered around Cooperstown. I'm showing my ignorance in that it didn't "click" until I saw James Fenimore Cooper's statue that Cooperstown has significance beyond baseball. Yes, Cooperstown is where James Fenimore Cooper (Last of the Mohicans, etc.) is from. The cemetery there shows that his family goes back a ways there on both sides. We didn't get to the Fenimore House museum, but you get the idea. It was a fun discovery. Cooperstown is also on Ostego Lake (as is Glimmerglass State Park). Glimmerglass State Park gets its name due to J.F. Cooper using it as a place in one of his writings and calling it Glimmerglass instead of Ostego.

The Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum was a lot of fun! It's very user/people friendly. They encourage , yes, that's correct, encourage you to take pictures with the memorabilia, etc. I'v never been in a museum before that allows that. Michael was hesitant to do that, but I did persuade him to get his picture taken with the representation of Comiskey Park-the home of the Chicago White Sox. I really enjoyed reading and viewing all the artifacts they had from people that I knew about (Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, DiMaggio, etc.) and finding out about some other interesting players. It was an enjoyable morning.

Back to Massachusetts!
NS