Susquehanna

We stopped and visited the grave of Joseph and Emma's first child, Alvin.  I love how some of these graves have been restored.  A modern version of the grave on one side, and the original grave on the other.

Alvin Smith's Grave

 Emma Smith's parents graves

This monument has been here for a long time.  My dad remembers contributing to the fund to build it when he was younger.  The Aaronic Priesthood was restored near here by John the Baptist to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery.

Ron & Brett

This area is under major construction.  First thing is they are moving a road.  They are also making a giant visitors center with a tunnel underneath the road.  They are resorting a couple of houses as well. We weren't able to go in any of those.  We were able to visit Joseph Knight's house.  This is where the first branch was established.  The church doesn't own this.  A couple of members do.  Three or four different couples.  They have spent the last ten years or so fixing up the place.  They live in Utah and Arizona and come out twice a year to work on it.  Two of the ladies were here now and talked to us about their experiences.  Wow.  Such dedication.  Different random members have also helped on the house.  They have a blog about some of their experiences at colesville-restoration.com.

Joseph Knight's house

 Joseph and Hyrum

The lady is pretty sure this was the original floor.  She had us step on it. Joseph Smith probably stepped there at one time or another.

Stephanie

 Mina feet, Marie feet

 Mina & Marie

 Princess Mina

 One of the ladies who has fixed up the house talking with K.

 Fun antique bench.  The baby railing comes out when not needed.

 Mina

 Joseph & Emma's house

15 revelations given here

Book of Mormon translated here

 Tunnel leading to the soon to be visitor's center

Next we worked our way down to the banks of the Susquehanna River. This is where Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were baptized.

Marie

 Marie & Mina

 I love this picture!  Love the personalities.

Brett, Grace, Marie, Mina

We didn't stop here, but Dan drove really slow.  I took a picture out both sides of the bus.  This is around the area where Peter, James and John visited Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to restore the Melchizedek Priesthood.

Over the river is the Josiah Stowell home, which is being restored by the same families.  This is where they stay when they come to work. Here is a picture of one of the ladies that has been doing this for over ten years.

 Joseph & Emma

This mantle was originally in the Tarbell Home.  That is where Joseph and Emma were married.

Josiah Stowell owned a lumber mill.  These floors were made from the first cut.  I guess the owner would get the first choice.

Brett and Rachel left after this stop to drive back to Virginia.  We are headed to Ohio.  It was so fun to have them on this trip.  I'm glad they were able to pull it off.  I didn't expect them to be able to make it to as much of the trip as they did.  I was pleasantly surprised!  I was also surprised at how well behaved their girls were during the many presentations they listened to.  Brett texted me that they made it home. They sure are troopers!

I snapped a picture of my seat on the bus.  Every seat has two outlets. Plus the bus has wifi.  Talk about roughing it!

 Text Stop

We visited Elmira College.  This was the first college that allowed women to get a four year degree.  It was an all women college for awhile, it is to now.  We listened to a presentation on Mark Twain in this beautiful chapel.

 Mark Twain

 I thought this was Paul Revere

 Turns out it was someone who died after collecting

a donor's pledge on horseback in a rainstorm.

 The first year the girls had to carry their chair from their

rooms to their classes to the cafeteria.  Tight budget.

Mark Twain's study has been moved to this college campus.  He wrote many, many works here.  Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper.  Lots and lots of stuff.  How fun to have a little writing room.  Too bad is probably smelled really bad!

We drove to Ohio and had dinner with Dan's family.  His family had driven about an hour and a half so they could see him.  His wife and three boys, two of them are teenagers.  Once we were all loaded on the bus his family sang two songs.  Their voices are amazing!  The entire bus loved it.

We had a bit of a drive to our hotel.  Dan entertained the bus with stories of him trying to date his wife.  They were hilarious.  He kept asking her out, she was always busy.  Meanwhile he got to know her mom.  He worked security at a big mega church that their family attended.  He would always help her out of her car and be really attentive to her.  When she saw Dan with her daughter she was very pleased.  He had so many stories, the entire bus was laughing most of the way to the hotel.  We got in pretty late.  I'm super tired.  It is past midnight.  I am not a night person.  Hopefully I didn't make too many errors in this blog entry.