Kirtland, Ohio Day 9

Kirtland, Ohio holds a special place in Mormon history and given it was along our way to Boston we decided to include this city on our road trip this summer.  In case some of you don't know, yes, I am Mormon though the church has asked us to tell people we are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as it is the proper name of our church and not Mormon. Mormon is just the nickname others have given us because we believe in the Book of Mormon which we believe to be another testament to Jesus Christ mission here on this earth.  I will leave it at that, but I wanted to clarify the reason why we included this destination on our trip.  It, however, is not my intention to preach to you on how you should live your life or not as I respect all faiths.  Stopping in Kirtland was a special treat for us as my best friend of 33 years daughter is a missionary in Kirtland and was able to give us a tour of the historic village.  Kirtland is much smaller than Nauvoo and missionaries who serve there do not wear historic time clothing.  The site only has a handful of preserved buildings.  Shortly after the church was organized a member of the church traveled to Ohio to share with a friend of his about the church.  There the church took off and because it was so successful the members of the church moved from New York to Ohio. The members lived there for about 5 years before moving to Nauvoo.  Today the church maintains a small visitor center and the small historical park for all to see and it is all free! My children enjoyed visiting with our friend's daughter and learning about how the early pioneers lived.  I even learned something.  I had never heard of an ashery and there we learned what purpose they served and how the process takes place.  After we left the historic park we ate lunch at a local restaurant which sadly I can't recommend as it was pretty yucky.  Then we went to a play park along Lake Eerie and at ice cream at Kirtland Cremery.  The next day after going to church we visited the Kirtland Temple which is owned today by the Community of Christ Church.  It was a pretty interesting tour. We then drove to Syracuse where we overnighted before continuing on to Boston.  Wish we had some time to explore the area, but sadly the GPS took us the backroad way of getting there to avoid toll roads and it took us an extra hour to get there.  On a positive note, we did see a ton of pretty New York countryside.

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