VERMONT: JOSEPH, BEN, AND JERRY

What do Joseph Smith and Ben & Jerry's ice cream have in common?  They were both born in Vermont, and on our recent trip, we stopped at both places.

Joseph was born in Sharon, now a booming city of about 1400. 

There was a fairly long drive from the highway to the actual monument . . .

. . . and along the way was a cemetery unrelated to the Smith family.  I especially loved this stone with its numerous "typos" and corrections:

 Some guy surely got in trouble when he reunited with "Elizabe Chuch."  I wonder who made the corrections--Saml or someone else?

Just a bit farther up the road, we came upon the monument, which would be pretty hard to miss.  I was surprised to learn that it was dedicated way back in 1905 on the 100th anniversary of Joseph's birth.  The obelisk is exactly 38 1/2 feet tall, one foot for every year of the Prophet's life.  (With the base included, however, it stands 50 feet tall.)

 The area includes a nice Visitor Center and a church building closer to the main road.  Everything is beautifully landscaped and tenderly cared for, just like all of the Church history sites we have visited.

 The large slab of cement on the left is the original hearthstone of the Smith Family cabin:

 The home was pretty modest, but probably just a bit larger than this replica:

 I always like a good Avard Fairbanks sculpture. It just doesn't seem like a true Church site without one:

It seemed a bit heretical to rush through the Joseph Smith Birthplace so that we would have plenty of time at the Ben & Jerry's factory, but (gulp) I must confess that is what we did.

It was pretty fun to see the birthplace of an important food item:

Pretty much it was a day that went from the sublime to the ridiculous, but we had an awful lot of fun on that downward slope.