Day 2 (continued)...Palmyra

After we finished at Niagara Falls, we headed toward Palmyra.  An interesting thing while we were driving.  By the side of the freeway, Ella and I saw what looked like two small deer.  Cool, but not that amazing...except that one of the deer was white.  I asked Ella several times if she had seen it too...just to make sure I hadn't imagined it all. I was driving on the freeway, so we didn't get a picture.  Then a couple of days later, we were driving through a small town and I thought I saw 3 white deer in a grassy ravine near a house.  I flipped around so that I could get a picture...only to realize that they were fake, just lawn decoration.  But I wondered why someone would have fake WHITE deer as lawn decoration.  So I did some research.  Apparently what I saw was a  Seneca white deer.  There is a herd of white tailed deer living on the Seneca Army Depot in upstate New York.  Apparently, white tailed deer can have a recessive gene that causes their coat to be white. They are not albino.  Typically this recessive gene isn't expressed much in the wild because those with white fur will be more easily noticed and caught by predators.  But because the army depot is fenced off and hunting isn't allowed, the deer have thrived.  The herd is now about 700 with about 300 that are white. senecawhitedeer

Once we arrived in Palmyra, we went to the Palmyra Temple and walked around the grounds.  I had hoped we could do baptisms there while we were on our trip, but I waited too long to contact them and by the time I did, they had no appointments available.  But it was nice to walk around the grounds together.

Both sporting our BYU shirts!

Ella loves to take goofy selfies...this is just one of many that she took during our trip.

 After we walked around the grounds of the Palmyra Temple, we went to the Hill Cumorah Visitors' Center.  We walked up the Hill Cumorah.  I got a bit emotional as we stood in front of the monument that commemorates Moroni appearing to Joseph and teaching him about the plates and eventually giving Joseph the plates to translate.  I'm so very grateful for the Book of Mormon and the countless ways it blesses my life.

We also spent some time in the Hill Cumorah Visitor Center.  There are some great displays about the Book of Mormon, about teachings of President Monson and about Joseph Smith.  We also got to watch two new segments of Meet the Mormons.  

After time at the Visitor's Center, we got New York Style pizza at Mark's Pizzeria.  Yum!

Then finally we headed to the bed and breakfast we were staying at.  It was a cute room and the owner, Leann, always had nice little touches...cookies or other snacks each night, chocolates on our pillows, delicious breakfasts.  We enjoyed our stay there.  In fact, she had 4 cute children and Ella enjoyed talking to them.  One of her daughters even made Ella a little gift before we left.