Road Trips!

Time to put up the next batch of pictures. These are from two different trips we made. Last weekend we went up to Palmyra and the week before we went to Great Falls National Park in Virginia. Great Falls is pretty close to Washington so we drove out for the afternoon on Columbus Day.

Last weekend we went to Palmyra. One of the guy here is from State College, PA and his parents were nice enough to let us stay at their house. We hung out there one day and drove up to Palmyra the next day. 

Great Falls National Park - I realized that I don't have a great pic of the falls. Google it.

We climbed down below the falls and played in the water.

Penn State Campus. I thought BYU was a big school, PSU has 45,000 students!

It was a little rainy. Luckily I found an umbrella at Ryan's house.

The Crew: Jordan, Ryan, Jordan (back) and Rachel, Allison, Jason (front). We are Ryan's high school's homecoming football game. Pretty exiting- they call them the "little lions" (PSU is the lions).

It was a 4 hour drive up to Palmyra, so by the time we got there we didn't have tons of time, but we got to see the important stuff.

On top of Hill Cumora.

Statue at Hill Cumora.

Palmyra Temple!

View from the Temple. The small hill you see in the break in the trees off in distance is the Sacred Grove. Very Neat.

View of the newer "frame home" from the original Smith cabin.

Pathway from the Smith cabin to the Sacred Grove.

The Sacred Grove.

Though it was a short trip I really enjoyed the opportunity to see placed that I have so often learned about. It was neat to see how close these sites are to each other. I especially appreciated being able to see how close the Sacred Grove is to the Smith Farm and to walk through the leaf covered pathways there. I know that is the place where God prepared and called Joseph Smith to be a Prophet.

Elder Oaks

This past week at work Elder Oaks came to testify before the Finance Committee. It was cool to hear him speak and sit so close to him. I got to go up after to say hi and shake his hand. Here is his speech; you'll see me sitting behind his left shoulder.

Fun at the Hart Senate Building

So we had some protesters in atrium of our office building today. It ended up being pretty entertaining to watch the policemen chase them all around and out. Click here to see a story about it with some pics.

Catching Up

Been a while since my Valley Forge post! I apologize to my three faithful followers, I'll do better :) Here are some pictures and major events from the past few weeks.

My internship is going well, it is getting more busy which is good. Homework is starting to pick up too, which isn't super fun. We still have time to do fun stuff though, it just doesn't feel as much like a vacation as it did for the first few weeks. Probably a good thing.

The two closest grocery stores are organic only -- I'm not sure what they are suggesting about the ice. Oh yeah, and the dry cleaners across the street is "organic." I don't know what that means.

K Street on my way home from work (on bike)

Paddling around the tidal basin in front of the Jefferson Memorial

This isn't a great picture, but if you look carefully you can a person rappelling down the side of the monument. They have been inspecting it for cracks from the earthquake.

White House. We asked the guard what would happen if someone jumped the fence. He said it happens on occasion and they usually make it about 15 yards before they are stopped by dogs.

Jefferson Memorial -- one of my favorites

Washington Monument from inside the Jefferson Memorial

 Last Friday for our class we went to the Newseum, which is basically a museum dedicated to the most important things in the news from the past century. It seems like a strange idea for a museum, but it is full of cool stuff.

A portion of The Berlin Wall

Really cool 9/11 exhibit: taxi door, lamp posts, jet engine, and landing gear from ground zero.

Radio tower from the top of the World Trade Center. The posters on the back wall are front pages of September 12, 2001 newspapers from across the word.

Observation deck at the Newseum!

On Saturday we went to Gettysburg and Harper's Ferry for the day. Cool to see places that I've only ever heard about in school and books. The tree's are just starting to change colors and the weather was perfect.

Gettysburg: view of the "Devil's Den" from the top of "Little Round Top"

Crossing Potomac river in the bus on our way to Harper's Ferry. Apparently Lincoln said it would be worth crossing the Atlantic to see the views at Harper's Ferry.

View from Jefferson Rock. The Potomac and Shenandoah rivers meet right behind the trees behind my head.

View from the bus as we drove away from Harper's Ferry. It is hard to see, but the river is interesting looking because the bottom is made of horizontal rock slabs that make cool ripples

Well that's all for today folks. Have a great week!