Elise's graduation from Syracuse University

We had about a week and a half before it was time to drive to St. Louis again (thanks so much to the Southerland’s home for being a parking lot and to Emily for being our taxi to and from the airport)

This time, it was for Elise's graduation from Syracuse University with her Master's in Library Science

 

Here is a rather blurry shot of Elise giving her speech during her convocation.  She was only one of two students invited to talk and it was in conjunction with a leadership award she received!  None of us attended her commencement (which was the day AFTER convocation – the opposite of BYU) because it was Sunday morning and we all felt attending sacrament meeting would be the better choice.

The buildings on campus are SO impressive.

 But, before all the pomp and circumstance occurred, we made a trip to Palmyra and Niagara Falls.  We attended the temple in Palmyra 

 

 

and stayed overnight in a lovely hotel, the Palmyra Inn, right around the corner. 

 The next morning, we headed to Niagara Falls.  This time, we brought our passports and we got to see the view from the Canadian side.  It was REALLY impressive.  Below is the view from the bridge as we walked over to Canada.

 

Horseshoe falls.  See that white stuff to the left of the falls?  That is ICE/SNOW!  And, when you caught the wind just right, it was downright chilly as it blew off the ice.

 

It is incredible to watch all the water that spills over the falls every second.

Upstate New York was about two weeks behind Missouri in their spring and it was delightful to enjoy daffodils and forsythia for a second time this year.

We enjoyed walking around all the tourist-y sites on the Canadian side.

 

 

Yes, that is Carl in Elise's arms.  He went to Canada, too. (without a passport!  Shhh, don't tell)

 

 We didn't go in to this Lego-type amusement but still took a photo outside.

 

 It was a perfect day!  Graduation was the following day.  Then, Sunday – Mother’s Day – and church.  Aaaand then, the travel nightmare!  We had tickets booked for Sunday evening to fly through Chicago to St. Louis.  But, weather intervened.  Storms in Chicago caused delays to our flight until it became evident that, even if we made our flight to Chicago, we would not catch a connecting flight to St. Louis that night. So, we booked a flight for the next day and went back to Elise’s place to spend another night.  (Elise was "thrilled" to spend another night on her couch, I'm sure) 

On Monday, we headed back to the Syracuse airport thanks to a ride with some of Elise's church friends (since she had to work).  Our flight this day was through Cleveland to St. Louis and all went well until we didn’t land in Cleveland.  We flew low over the city, and kept flying low, and then the plane started to ascend and the pilot announced that since there was a TORNADO THREAT to the Cleveland airport, we were re-routing to Pittsburgh!  And, that is where we landed and de-planed and hung around for a couple of hours while the severe weather moved away from Cleveland.  We were assured that all flights in and out of Cleveland were delayed and not to worry about making our connecting flight.  But, when we finally re-planed and flew back up to Cleveland (about 100 miles away) and landed, we HAD missed our flight to St. Louis by just minutes!  Aaaaaaaa.  So, after waiting in a very long line for another flight the next day to St. Louis-this time through Houston, we spent the night in a Days Inn near the airport.  The airline didn’t completely pay for the hotel, unfortunately, but at least paid for part.  I thought the room had a funny cleaning-solution smell but it came with a free breakfast.  And, by now, both Steve and were out of medicines and I was low on gluten-free food.  We had to call our workplaces and find substitutes and cancel appointments for yet another day. We were getting worn down by all this rigamarole.

 Tuesday morning had us back in the Cleveland airport awaiting our afternoon flight.  We had thought to try flying earlier on stand-by but when we learned that we would have to go through Chicago – and risk being booted off the second leg – we said “no thank-you” and decided to wait for our confirmed flight.  The airport has lots of these over-sized guitars all over because Cleveland is the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Not something this classical nerd would know....

 

 And, guess what???? Yep, our flight was delayed.  So, it was back to standing in another slow-moving line to see what our options were should we land in Houston after our connecting plane left for St. Louis.  The only other later flight from Houston to St. Louis had just one confirmed seat so that meant the other was a stand-by seat.  Not good.  And that is when I texted the family and said “prayers would be good right now”. Of course, Steve and I had already been praying.  And, we boarded the plane for Houston and hoped.  That is a LONG flight – long enough for an in-flight movie – and when we landed, we had just 15 minutes to walk/run the huge distance from terminal C,  down long hallways,  down escalators, and ride a shuttle to terminal B and walk down more hallways and up another escalator to arrive at the gate with 2 minutes before the plane was scheduled to take off.  And, although all the passengers were already boarded, seated and buckled, the gate was still open!!!!! With just two seats left-for Steve and me!  How did this miracle occur?  A broken toilet.  A ground serviceman was on the plane fixing it and THAT is the only reason Steve and I made it to St. Louis that night.  I wonder who the lucky angel was who got to break that airplane toilet?  Our prayers were full of gratitude when we got back to Columbia very late that night. And now, after a year of traveling to Arizona, London, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Hawaii, California, Wisconsin, Utah, New York, Ohio, and Texas, we are DONE traveling for a while.