We have been exploring! As I have mentioned in the past about the beautiful waterfall at Watkins Glen, we went to another waterfall last week. It is called Taughannock Falls. We have been so fortunate to see all of these falls when the amount of water going over them have exceeded all expectations. We hit the falls at just the right time. We didn't have to climb 800 steps to see Taughannock as we did to see Watkins Glen waterfall. There was a 3/4 of a mile trail on level ground. The hike takes you along the path of the Taughannock Creek which looks more like a river than a creek. There were many school children there the day we went and a lot of them were playing in the creek. What a great field trip! The Taughannock Falls are located near the Cayuga Lake, one of the finger lakes and the longest of them at 40 miles long. I can attest to that, as we drove to Taughannock Falls, I wondered how long Cayuga Lake was. It seemed like it never ended. As all the Finger Lakes and waterfalls are here in New York, Cayuga Lake didn't disappoint us.
We have loved seeing as many of the Finger Lakes as we can. (The ones with * by them are the ones we have seen). The Finger Lakes are old and natural, none of them man made. American Indian legend explains the Finger Lakes this way: the Creator looked upon this land with special favor and reached down to bless it, leaving the imprint of His hand, hence, the Finger Lakes. What a wonderful legend and way to think of the Creator's love for us in giving such beautiful sights for us to see. We have definitely felt His hand in all that we have seen here.
There are 11 Finger Lakes. They lie within an imaginary triangle between Syracuse, Rochester and Elmira-Corning. And these Finger Lakes are only a part of the many waters located in New York. At the northern tier lies a great lake, Lake Ontario and the historic Erie Canal. We remember being taught about the Erie Canal in US history but didn't remember what we were taught. So we relearned how important this Canal was to the young nation for travel and shipping. It is amazing that the Erie Canal brought to Palmyra, New York, the most modern of all printing presses used and the printer who printed the Book of Mormon. Things were all in place for the Prophet Joseph Smith to get the book printed. Every day we see the Lord's hands in all things. Nothing happens by chance!
We took a boat ride down the Erie Canal on Monday for our Family Home Evening. It was amazing. We went through Lock 32 and I had no idea what a lock was or what it did. Now I know. The lock system was an engineering marvel of its day and still operates.
The New York Canal System includes four historic canals: Erie, Champlain, Oswego and Cayuga-Seneca. Together, they create an inland waterway that spans miles of upstate New York, connecting the Hudson River with Lake Champlain, Lake Ontario, Cayuga Lake, Seneca Lake and Lake Erie via the Niagara River. (The Erie Canal was the transportation used by many Saints as they came to Palmyra). There are 57 locks on in the Canal System. So a lock is a device (steel gate which works kind of like a dam) for raising and lowering boats between stretches of water of different levels on the canal waterways. The boat passes through open gates. The gates shut and water is pumped into the area where the boat raises up at a rate of one foot per 10 seconds or 3 million gallons. Our boat, the Sam Patch, then turns around and the water is pumped out, the boat lowers and the gates open and our boat passes back through the lock. It may have been an engineering marvel in its day, but it is still a marvel to me! It was great!
Now back to the 11 Finger Lakes. The Finger Lakes is a central part of the Iroquois homeland. The
Iroquois tribes included the Seneca and Cayuga tribes for which the two largest Finger Lakes are named. Onondaga* and Oneida* Lakes are namesakes of their tribes. These lakes are not considered part of the Finger Lakes, but nonetheless are lakes in the region. The Seneca is the largest lake.
The Otisco Lake is the most eastern, the Skaneateles Lake, another eastern lake, is the trendy vacation spot for famous stars and former Presidents. They are probably the only people, other than the locals who know how to pronounce the name correctly! The Owasco Lake comes from the Mohawk word meaning "crossing". Cayuga Lake* (southern end) is the home of the city of Ithaca, home of Cornell University. (Go Julia Lyons!) Seneca Lake*, largest and deepest is near Watkins Glen. Keuka Lake* is in the shape of a wishbone. Located to the north is the village of Penn Yan, which in one of the recent rain storms incurred some flood damage. Canandaigua Lake* is near the Indian village I wrote about in one of the blogs. Honeoye Lake* is known for its clear, clean water. It is near the pottery shop where the infamous cloche was purchased. Canadice Lake is the smallest lake. Hemlock Lake is renowned for its land locked Salmon as well as various species of trout, bass, perch and crappie. It is largely undeveloped and pristine. (Thinking of Phil Homer here). Conesus Lake, western most Finger Lake, small and shallow, maximum depth 66 feet. Not too shallow in my opinion.
So that's the lake, canal and creek/river water report. However, we cannot forget the amount of rain water that falls each week. Seriously, no one here has sprinkling systems. They don't need them. We have become used to the rain storms and we love the rain!
We are getting busier every day in the temple. Bus loads of youth come to do baptisms. It is so great to see them. And then a few tour buses also have been by. This seems to be the place where young people like to come. There is a lot to see. They bring a great spirit with them. The youth are wonderful.
We have an exciting week coming up. My sister, Kim, is coming on Thursday. We will travel on Friday to Stony Brook Long Island, New York for my aunt Carmen's 100th birthday. She is my Dad's younger sister. It's a surprise, so don't tell her! We are excited to have someone from home come to see us. We have lots to show her, especially the beauty that no one ever thinks could be part of New York. I know we had no idea.
So we leave you, in preparation for my sister's visit and the birthday party. Until next time, much love to everyone...............
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
"It's a Small World"
We have been driving a lot in New York. It's Durg's hope that he will drive every back road in the state before we leave for home at the end of October. On our (expeditions) drives we have found some very interesting names of towns. For instance, we can drive to EGYPT, ROME, and MEXICO all in the same day! But that is not all, we can make a deposit in a bank in the town of DEPOSIT. You can celebrate INDEPENDENCE in the towns of FREEDOM or LIBERTY.
This has intrigued me, so I decided to see what other city names are familiar. We have found that there are cities named after cities and the countries they are in. Every city in New York state that is named after a city and their country are in capital letters. Any of these places we have been are marked with an asterisk. LIMA (PERU), STOCKHOLM (SWEDEN), COPENHAGEN* (DENMARK*), ROME*, VENICE, NAPLES, FLORENCE (ITALY), CAIRO (EGYPT*), WARSAW (POLAND), HAMBURG, BERLIN (GERMANY) and a little stretch on this one, ANDES (CHILI-Chile).
The following are towns named after countries; CUBA, HOLLAND, RUSSIA, NORWAY, NEW SCOTLAND, NEW LEBANON, MEXICO* and COLOMBIA.
The next group are city names that we are familiar with. They are in capitals and their countries, which are not city names are in parenthesis in lower case. ANTWERP (Belgium), LISBON and CASTILE (Spain), PARIS (France), MADRID (Spain), ATHENS and CORINTH (Greece), GENEVA (Switzerland), NASSAU (Bahamas), BELFAST (Ireland), BRUNSWICK (Canada), DELHI (India), PERTH (Australia), HAGUE and AMSTERDAM (Netherlands).
From the Bible: JERUSALEM, PERSIA, BETHLEHEM, CANAAN and BABYLON.
When you think that many immigrants came to this country through Ellis Island in New York, it becomes apparent that many of them settled in places in New York and named their new home towns after the country or town where they came from. That is pretty fascinating to me. So it's a small world here in New York State.
We now leave the cities and countries and go to the cities named after states, such as OHIO, WASHINGTON, MARYLAND, FLORIDA, ALABAMA and DELAWARE.
As you can see, we have a lot more exploring to do to get to everyone of these interesting sites.
I really have too much time on my hands while we are driving. So this is just more useless information. My favorite of all towns in New York is MECHANICVILLE. Wonder why?
Love all the mechanics (Durg, Josh, Jake) in our family!
We also drive by cemeteries, lots of them. Seems there is one or two in every town and every town is less than 10 miles from the next town. Whenever we see a cemetery, we think of Joel. While doing all this driving, Durg's back has a tendency to give him fits and we think of our Physical Therapist, Ryan. And we think of Nikki every day, several times a day, because she is the only one who texts, emails, facebooks and calls us several times a day! And when we think of our children, of course, our thoughts go right to our grandchildren. We are really missing them!
We had a great excursion last Thursday. We went to the Wizard of Clay Store. Not only do you get to see all the beautiful pottery (and there are several rooms full), you can watch the Wizard actually make the pottery out of clay on his pottery wheel. Durg could not take himself away from the clay cloche (a glorified dutch oven for baking) and of course, he had to have one. He has posted pictures of it and the bread he has made in it on facebook. I need Sheena to show me how to put pictures on this blog. The loaves are much bigger and the bread recipe is the same he uses in the other dutch ovens except it has some sugar and yogurt or cottage cheese. The texture of the bread is different, but really good. It's also just as good toasted. The good thing about him making all this bread is that we never get any (so we aren't gaining too much weight) because he gives it away, and the bad thing is we never have any bread!
We also went to the outskirts of Victor, New York to see the bark longhouse. This is a replica of a place where the Seneca Indians would sleep and cook (circa 1655). Many families could live in one loghouse. Inside is a museum of authentic Seneca objects; animal hides for bedding on bunk beds, weapons, cooking tools and beaded necklaces and belts. The Indians traded beaver pelts for beads. This place honors the people who once lived in 150 longhouses on this site. More than 4,000 Seneca Indians lived together in harmony there. The place is called Ganondagan and means Town of Peace. In 1685, a raid was launched on Ganondagan by the French for domination of the international fur trade. This event changed the lives of the Seneca forever. After this, the Iroquois Nation was formed of the tribes of the Seneca, Mohawk, Cayuga, Oneida and Onondagas to help protect each other. Our guide was an actual Mohawk descendent and could speak the Mohawk language. She works at the longhouse museum and historical site of Ganondagan, but lives with her Mohawk family in their community several hours away. She said only Mohawk is spoken there. Ganondagan, in later years, became the meeting place for the Iroquois Nation. Every year, on the last weekend in July, the tribes of the Iroquois Nation meet for the Native American Dance and Music Festival. The following are a few of the ways the rich heritage of the Seneca people have influenced the way of our lifestyle and interests:
*The U.S. Constitution was modeled after the terms of the Iroquois Confederacy,
*Seneca social and political structure asserts that all should have the right to influence government regardless of gender, or material wealth. The matrilineal aspect of Seneca traditions gave rise to precepts of women's rights and socioeconomic equity.
*Lacrosse was a gift from the Creator to the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). The name "lacrosse" comes from early French observers.
I hope all of this isn't useless information. I can go on forever, as most of you know. But I will let you go and will keep you up on our adventures. Until next time, we leave you in beautiful, green, tree lined upstate New York..........................
This has intrigued me, so I decided to see what other city names are familiar. We have found that there are cities named after cities and the countries they are in. Every city in New York state that is named after a city and their country are in capital letters. Any of these places we have been are marked with an asterisk. LIMA (PERU), STOCKHOLM (SWEDEN), COPENHAGEN* (DENMARK*), ROME*, VENICE, NAPLES, FLORENCE (ITALY), CAIRO (EGYPT*), WARSAW (POLAND), HAMBURG, BERLIN (GERMANY) and a little stretch on this one, ANDES (CHILI-Chile).
The following are towns named after countries; CUBA, HOLLAND, RUSSIA, NORWAY, NEW SCOTLAND, NEW LEBANON, MEXICO* and COLOMBIA.
The next group are city names that we are familiar with. They are in capitals and their countries, which are not city names are in parenthesis in lower case. ANTWERP (Belgium), LISBON and CASTILE (Spain), PARIS (France), MADRID (Spain), ATHENS and CORINTH (Greece), GENEVA (Switzerland), NASSAU (Bahamas), BELFAST (Ireland), BRUNSWICK (Canada), DELHI (India), PERTH (Australia), HAGUE and AMSTERDAM (Netherlands).
From the Bible: JERUSALEM, PERSIA, BETHLEHEM, CANAAN and BABYLON.
When you think that many immigrants came to this country through Ellis Island in New York, it becomes apparent that many of them settled in places in New York and named their new home towns after the country or town where they came from. That is pretty fascinating to me. So it's a small world here in New York State.
We now leave the cities and countries and go to the cities named after states, such as OHIO, WASHINGTON, MARYLAND, FLORIDA, ALABAMA and DELAWARE.
As you can see, we have a lot more exploring to do to get to everyone of these interesting sites.
I really have too much time on my hands while we are driving. So this is just more useless information. My favorite of all towns in New York is MECHANICVILLE. Wonder why?
Love all the mechanics (Durg, Josh, Jake) in our family!
We also drive by cemeteries, lots of them. Seems there is one or two in every town and every town is less than 10 miles from the next town. Whenever we see a cemetery, we think of Joel. While doing all this driving, Durg's back has a tendency to give him fits and we think of our Physical Therapist, Ryan. And we think of Nikki every day, several times a day, because she is the only one who texts, emails, facebooks and calls us several times a day! And when we think of our children, of course, our thoughts go right to our grandchildren. We are really missing them!
We had a great excursion last Thursday. We went to the Wizard of Clay Store. Not only do you get to see all the beautiful pottery (and there are several rooms full), you can watch the Wizard actually make the pottery out of clay on his pottery wheel. Durg could not take himself away from the clay cloche (a glorified dutch oven for baking) and of course, he had to have one. He has posted pictures of it and the bread he has made in it on facebook. I need Sheena to show me how to put pictures on this blog. The loaves are much bigger and the bread recipe is the same he uses in the other dutch ovens except it has some sugar and yogurt or cottage cheese. The texture of the bread is different, but really good. It's also just as good toasted. The good thing about him making all this bread is that we never get any (so we aren't gaining too much weight) because he gives it away, and the bad thing is we never have any bread!
We also went to the outskirts of Victor, New York to see the bark longhouse. This is a replica of a place where the Seneca Indians would sleep and cook (circa 1655). Many families could live in one loghouse. Inside is a museum of authentic Seneca objects; animal hides for bedding on bunk beds, weapons, cooking tools and beaded necklaces and belts. The Indians traded beaver pelts for beads. This place honors the people who once lived in 150 longhouses on this site. More than 4,000 Seneca Indians lived together in harmony there. The place is called Ganondagan and means Town of Peace. In 1685, a raid was launched on Ganondagan by the French for domination of the international fur trade. This event changed the lives of the Seneca forever. After this, the Iroquois Nation was formed of the tribes of the Seneca, Mohawk, Cayuga, Oneida and Onondagas to help protect each other. Our guide was an actual Mohawk descendent and could speak the Mohawk language. She works at the longhouse museum and historical site of Ganondagan, but lives with her Mohawk family in their community several hours away. She said only Mohawk is spoken there. Ganondagan, in later years, became the meeting place for the Iroquois Nation. Every year, on the last weekend in July, the tribes of the Iroquois Nation meet for the Native American Dance and Music Festival. The following are a few of the ways the rich heritage of the Seneca people have influenced the way of our lifestyle and interests:
*The U.S. Constitution was modeled after the terms of the Iroquois Confederacy,
*Seneca social and political structure asserts that all should have the right to influence government regardless of gender, or material wealth. The matrilineal aspect of Seneca traditions gave rise to precepts of women's rights and socioeconomic equity.
*Lacrosse was a gift from the Creator to the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). The name "lacrosse" comes from early French observers.
I hope all of this isn't useless information. I can go on forever, as most of you know. But I will let you go and will keep you up on our adventures. Until next time, we leave you in beautiful, green, tree lined upstate New York..........................
Monday, June 2, 2014
"Climb Every Mountain"
And climb we did. We climbed the Gorge at Watkins Glen State Park. I guess, technically, it isn't a mountain, but pretty big for here. The climb was 500 feet. It was in a shale canyon with beautiful waterfalls, rushing streams and rivers. It was an overcast day, so it wasn't hot or humid, but just right. There were 20 of us temple missionaries who went. Now, I will confess, there were 800 steps to climb to the top, but it was so gorgeous. I made it to the top and was cheered on by all the other missionaries who were already there. I wasn't the last person, but the second to the last. I am pretty proud of my self. Durg said the entire hike encompassed 2 miles. I would like to go back and do it again.
After doing that, we had a nice lunch on Seneca Lake and then went to the NASCAR track. Durg always wondered where Watkins Glen Speedway was when he saw it on TV. He was so excited that it was just a few miles from the State Park. There were Porche's racing and someone in our group clocked them and said they were going about 115 miles per hour around the course. It was fun and I could just see us all at the NASCAR races for real. It won't happen though. Can you imagine telling people that on our mission we went to the NASCAR races? We do get to do fun things though.
Saturday, Durg changed the brakes on the lady's car who we stay with for church on Sunday. Of course, she was so grateful. She is so fun to be with. We have enjoyed staying with her and her boys, Nephi and Rudy. They are her children dogs. We have enjoyed them too. They are getting used to us.
So far, the heat and humidity has not been too bad. But we hear, it's coming. That will be another mountain to climb. I doubt I'll be able to climb that one too well.
Today Durg and I were the baptismal coordinators. We did that on Wednesday mornings in the Twin Falls Temple. There were several families who came from Texas, Arizona, Utah, California and Buffalo, New York. This is definitely a destination temple. We had some people here from New Zealand not too long ago and a Stake President from Tasmania. We have done just about everything there is to do here in the Palmyra Temple. (I even vacuumed Endowment Room One, which I enjoyed very much.) We have learned how to do many things. I have done laundry and today I had a mountain of it. But I climbed it and got it done.
In a couple of weeks, we are going take a trip down the lazy river. Well, not really, but we are cruising down the Eerie Canal on a boat. I will write all about that when we go there. We are really looking forward to that excursion. Love being on the water. There are many lakes here too (the Finger Lakes) and we will be paddle boating.
Every time we leave to drive somewhere, Durg takes a different route. There are so many different ways to get places. He says he just likes to see new things. I think he just doesn't want to drive on a toll road. But I enjoy it too. When we started these drives, the trees did not have any leaves on them. Now they have leaved out and some are blossoming. This is apple country and one member of the Temple Presidency owns an apple orchard. And cows are everywhere. It's milk country too. The cows get to graze in green fields. I call them "happy cows" as opposed to cows in a milking machine dairy facility.
We love it here. We love the temple work, the missionary work, the people, the beautiful country and how special it is to be where the gospel was restored. We count our blessings every day. We have been here one month. We only have 5 months left. We will be sad to leave. We have met some wonderful people. They have become family to us. Heavenly Father has been so good to us. We are so thankful.
We leave you on our way to Family Home Evening with our temple missionaries at the Palmyra Town Hall to learn about the history of Palmyra. Take Care, until next time..........
After doing that, we had a nice lunch on Seneca Lake and then went to the NASCAR track. Durg always wondered where Watkins Glen Speedway was when he saw it on TV. He was so excited that it was just a few miles from the State Park. There were Porche's racing and someone in our group clocked them and said they were going about 115 miles per hour around the course. It was fun and I could just see us all at the NASCAR races for real. It won't happen though. Can you imagine telling people that on our mission we went to the NASCAR races? We do get to do fun things though.
Saturday, Durg changed the brakes on the lady's car who we stay with for church on Sunday. Of course, she was so grateful. She is so fun to be with. We have enjoyed staying with her and her boys, Nephi and Rudy. They are her children dogs. We have enjoyed them too. They are getting used to us.
So far, the heat and humidity has not been too bad. But we hear, it's coming. That will be another mountain to climb. I doubt I'll be able to climb that one too well.
Today Durg and I were the baptismal coordinators. We did that on Wednesday mornings in the Twin Falls Temple. There were several families who came from Texas, Arizona, Utah, California and Buffalo, New York. This is definitely a destination temple. We had some people here from New Zealand not too long ago and a Stake President from Tasmania. We have done just about everything there is to do here in the Palmyra Temple. (I even vacuumed Endowment Room One, which I enjoyed very much.) We have learned how to do many things. I have done laundry and today I had a mountain of it. But I climbed it and got it done.
In a couple of weeks, we are going take a trip down the lazy river. Well, not really, but we are cruising down the Eerie Canal on a boat. I will write all about that when we go there. We are really looking forward to that excursion. Love being on the water. There are many lakes here too (the Finger Lakes) and we will be paddle boating.
Every time we leave to drive somewhere, Durg takes a different route. There are so many different ways to get places. He says he just likes to see new things. I think he just doesn't want to drive on a toll road. But I enjoy it too. When we started these drives, the trees did not have any leaves on them. Now they have leaved out and some are blossoming. This is apple country and one member of the Temple Presidency owns an apple orchard. And cows are everywhere. It's milk country too. The cows get to graze in green fields. I call them "happy cows" as opposed to cows in a milking machine dairy facility.
We love it here. We love the temple work, the missionary work, the people, the beautiful country and how special it is to be where the gospel was restored. We count our blessings every day. We have been here one month. We only have 5 months left. We will be sad to leave. We have met some wonderful people. They have become family to us. Heavenly Father has been so good to us. We are so thankful.
We leave you on our way to Family Home Evening with our temple missionaries at the Palmyra Town Hall to learn about the history of Palmyra. Take Care, until next time..........
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