Vacation Finale

We left Detroit at 8 AM on Saturday morning, according to plan. Rachel and I worked hard to keep to our plan for the whole two weeks. She's such a trooper! Me Love. We toyed with the idea of just going through Detroit center, and let the GPS do it's job to find our way around the closed I-75 - but to be safe, we decided to take the detour. Doing that added at least a half-hour to our trip and ended up ticking me off. I knew I should have just followed my instinct on that one. Oh, well. We had decided to use one day of our trip to go and see the historical sites in Kirtland, Ohio either on the way out or the way back. Ben and Sarah said they might want to join us, so we decided to go on the way back home. It ended up that they weren't able to go, but we did. We got to town about noon, after stopping for lunch. We dropped into the visitor's center, and saw the 20 minute film they put on for everyone. Then Elder and Sister Caviness, from Spokane, Washington took us on a tour of the complex. Apparently, Main Street Kirtland used to go right through where the complex is located now. It used to be just two buildings: the Newell K. Whitney store, and the Whitney home that served as the old visitor's center. You had to run across the street from the visitor center to see the home. Well, the city had been petitioned like 4 times to move the road for safety's sake by the church - and with help from Steve Young, it finally passed on the 5th time (if you want the whole story, I'll email it to you.) So, the road was moved and Kirtland underwent some restoration. They built a sawmill, ashery, schoolhouse, the Johnson Inn, and restored the Whitney store and home to as close to original as possible. Here's a picture of us outside the Whitney Store:

We took leave of the Caviness' so that we could make the 2:30 PM tour of the Kirtland Temple. The Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized LDS church) have been in possession of the building since the late 1800's, and have restored and kept the building in such beautiful shape. There was a $2.00 fee to tour the temple, but we gladly paid it to be able to walk in the Temple where so many sacred things were started. They didn't allow pictures inside the temple, but those of you who know me, shouldn't be surprise that I took some when the tour guide took the rest of the people downstairs to the first floor. I know that I am sneaky, and I'll repent if needs be.








These were the second floor, where the "teaching" part of the temple was located. There were benches and collapsable desks on the pews, so that depending on which side of the temple was being used, the people could turn and face whoever was officiating. I wasn't able to secure the lower level inner court, where much of the manifestation of spirit occured .. the tour guide didn't leave a chance to. You could, however, purchase pictures in their gift shop .. which I suspect is the real reason they wouldn't let you take pictures from inside the building. Oh, well. It's well worth the two dollars.


We left Kirtland, and headed out to Jim/Jess' house again, as they offered to let us stay with them for the night to help break up our trip back home. I am so glad they did, after our day in Ohio, we were beat and the kids were also tired, cranky, etc. We had a small cookout, spent a few hours in their pool, and mostly got the chance to spend another night with our dear friends. We wish there was more time, or we lived closer to them. Thank you Jim and Jess, we appreciate it.

Love to all.

On a side note, our camera died the death of being drenched in a rainstorm after being on the roof of our mini-van since Ohio and part of Pennsylvania after Aaron left it up there. I was shocked it was still there, but the memory card kept our memories intact ... an answer to prayer.