OK, assuming that I haven’t scared away my loyal readers with three consecutive entries about Michael Moore, I promise that I’m done talking politics for a while. Today I thought I’d throw a bone to you armchair travelers looking for vicarious Mormon history-tour thrills by catching you up on Anne’s whereabouts…<\/p>\n
She reported that she and her folks were unimpressed by JFK when they did land. She said it looked pretty run down, which was also my assessment of La Guardia<\/a> when I visited New York. In addition, I would guess that she and her folks — relative neophytes in the air-travel game — were intimidated by the size and bustle of the place, but I won’t presume to speak for her on that point.<\/p>\n Anne didn’t say too much about Palmyra<\/a> — although her mother shouted from the background that it was “incredible” — but was very excited about having been to Niagara Falls. She and the fam rode the famous Maid of the Mist<\/i><\/a> tourist boat, which takes sightseers right up under the falls themselves, and Anne said that the spray was so heavy it was like standing in a shower. She said that the Canadian town of Niagara was like “little Las Vegas,” with lots of neon and tourist traps, and then we got sidetracked talking about how her poodle was getting along with my border collie. (If you’re interested, the poodle’s fine but my Shadow may never recover from the trauma of having to share his home with a frisky little dustmop about one-fifth his size.)<\/p>\n On Saturday, Anne and the folks drove into Kirtland, OH, the significance of which I don’t know (I’m going to try and talk Anne into writing a “guest entry” for Simple Tricks when she gets back, so perhaps she’ll explain what this place means to Mormons), then on Sunday they moved on to Cleveland for an afternoon at the Football Hall of Fame<\/a>. This was an concession for Anne’s father, and I’m certain both of the ladies were bored stiff. The fun of traveling with other people… Later today, I hope to post another entry in which I’ll reveal one of the dark corners of my psyche. Stay tuned…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" OK, assuming that I haven’t scared away my loyal readers with three consecutive entries about Michael Moore, I promise that I’m done talking politics for a while. Today I thought I’d throw a bone to you armchair travelers looking for vicarious Mormon history-tour thrills by catching you up on Anne’s whereabouts…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSo, without further ado, let us turn our gaze to the Midwest, where today we find Anne (according to the itinerary she gave me) checking out the Gateway Arch<\/a> in St. Louis before driving through Mark Twain’s hometown of Hannibal, MO<\/a> en route to Nauvoo, IL<\/a>. That’s assuming that she and her family have been able to stick to their planned schedule, of course.
\nShe called me Friday night from somewhere in Ohio and reported that everything had been going fine up to that point. She didn’t give me much in the way of traveler’s tales, saying that she wanted to wait and tell me everything when she got back, but she did give me a couple of highlights. She said that she did not see any of Manhattan on the approach into JFK International<\/a>, which disappointed me. I visited New York City about eight years ago and I really hoped she’d be able to catch a glimpse of the Empire State<\/a> or the Chrysler Building<\/a>, while her mom really wanted to see the Statue of Liberty<\/a>. Ah, well — c’est la vie, I suppose.<\/p>\n
\nFrom Cleveland, the intrepid trio were supposed to take a short air-hop to St. Louis, with a layover at the Cincinnati Airport (which, oddly enough, is in Kentucky, a fact that baffled me when I passed through there a few years ago). Today, as I already mentioned, they’re in St. Louis and Nauvoo. Tomorrow will be a second day spent in Nauvoo and a visit to the Carthage Jail<\/a> where Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, and his brother were killed by an angry mob. After that, they’ve got a lot of driving and sightseeing ahead of them, culminating with their return to SLC on Friday night. As I said, I’m hoping that Anne will write a little something about her adventures when she returns. And I’m certain that Shadow will be more than happy to have our fluffy houseguest back at his own apartment…<\/p>\n