Fri Sept 17: A 'Bonus' Day in Palmyra

In which we have religion on our minds ...

Palmyra, we were told, houses 5 (tiny) unique (no doubt meaning random) museums covering interesting (all relative) areas of history (yes, even more history).  So we decided to spend a bonus day here and take a guided tour.  Sadly (was it though??), upon arriving for the 10:30am tour we discovered all the 'museums' closed due to something local called the Purple Painted Lady Festival. Huh...

Phelps General Store & Home Museum

 

Museums that we didn’t see were:

- William Phelps General Store

- Allying Coverlet Museum (not sure Rick was too disappointed that it was closed - coverlet is not a very compelling name)

- The Book of Mormon Print Shop

- Erie Canal Museum

- Historic Town Museum

It turns out that Palmyra is where The Church of Latter Day Saints/Mormonism was founded.  Since we had no luck with museums, we decided to take a bike ride out to the Smith Family home and the Sacred Grove where, in 1830, a 14 year old Joesph Smith was visited by the Angel Moroni.   He was led to the golden tablets which he translated to produce The Book of Mormon. 

The Smith Family Home outside of Palmyra, NY

Smith Family Home - can you imagine a family of
10 living in this building?

The Sacred Grove

We pedaled our bikes the 4 miles to the Sacred Grove visitor center and were welcomed by 'uniformed' Mormons (white shirts/ties for men and long dresses for women).   They give tours but we decided just to walk through the grove, which was indeed a very peaceful forested area.  Unfortunately we did not see any angels or have any other visions, religious or otherwise. We did, however, have an interesting and far-ranging conversation about religion vs cults, and what kind of reaction a modern-day visit by a religious icon (Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha, etc) might provoke.  The TV series 'Messiah' had gotten us thinking about this last year - would such an icon even be recognized, or accepted, used politically, etc.  I'm afraid such a thing would bring out the worst in many people, in all kinds of different ways...  

This is probably why we weren't honored with any visions - we are the kind of lower-life forms that find a sign for the rear entry to the fudge stop to be very amusing!

 

With some extra time on our hands in the afternoon Rick had an important chore to attend to:

Rick using acetone to clean the grime off his balls!

My response to Rick cleaning his balls: That's just Knot Rite