Day 4: Kirtland and Niagara Falls

Day 4 was our short driving day! We only had about 5 hours of driving to do and it was all split up in 1-2 hour sections. We were extremely excited about this! We knew we wanted to see the Newell K. Whitney store and the Kirtland temple. Those were our 2 big things we HAD to see in Kirtland. We started with the actual church owned sites. As we started our tour and began walking towards the Newell K. Whitney store my insides dropped! It was under construction!!!! This had been on the top of my list of sites to see on our trip.

Don't worry they still let us in. Phew! Apparently they were just fixing the old paint on the building and we just weren't allowed to smoke by it but could go in. (Ha ha ha, I thought that was funny that there were signs everywhere that said you couldn't smoke by it when I'm pretty sure we weren't allowed to smoke there anyway.) The store was extremely cool to look at. This was the original store and everything inside was made to look like we had really stepped back in time to the pioneer days.Here is Kory in the actual store downstairs.

Upstairs of the store, I did not know this but Joseph Smith and his family actually lived here for a time. In this room it is said they would look over plans for the temple.
The School of the Prophets. So many great men gathered here and learned more of the gospel. It was one of the most overwhelming rooms we visited the whole trip. Visions took place in this room. Also, happenings in this room inspired the Word of Wisdom.

We saw a couple more places owned by the church and then hurried up to see the Kirtland Temple. The temple was beautiful, no pictures were allowed inside. It was exciting to see the different floors and see where visions had taken place.After we finished with Kirtland we headed to Niagara Falls. I think this ended up being one of Kory's favorite places to see the entire trip. It was AMAZING! I had no idea they let you get as close to the falls as they do but it was almost frightening to be right up next to it with only a bar separating you from falling. As we stood there we would be completely dry one second and the next the wind would change and it would be as if it was a heavy downpour when in reality it was just from the falls.I had to include this picture because really? Have you ever seen Kory look this excited!

Can you see how close we are to the water there!?! Holy cow. It still gives me the willies.

When we were done there we drove to Rochester, New York to meet my parents. Coming up: Palmyra, New York!