Back to Home Life

Does this look like a bank? This was a piece of furniture used when banking first was conducted in this area. Interesting!! And it was a beautiful piece!!

We have been doing the home body routine since Saturday and I think that Gary is having trouble sitting around. I keep thinking that one of these days he will get out his pencil art work. He has been washing and waxing the outside of the MH, reorganizing tools, and doing a couple minor repair jobs. Tis good for what ails him.

In the mean time, I have kept up with the photos for the blog. I finally have a handle on resizing, changing the files dates, and naming all of the photos that I have on the computer. Today I did laundry and cleaned inside. Took about an hour and a half which sure beats cleaning a whole house! We will move to Thousand Island area on Monday. Then we will have new sites to check out.

Oh yes, the dates on the photos are incorrect!! Seems I turned the date "on" in Gary's camera and did not realize that the date is WRONG.

Last Saturday we decided to go and check out Syracuse again. We started with the Carousel Shopping Mall and found lots and lots of stores. There was one large restored carousel in the food court. Many of the stores had 50% and 75% off items. I sure enjoyed that, but then Gary reminded me that for everything that I take in to the MH new I have to get rid of an old one!! Can't imagine what he is trying to tell me!

We then found the Erie Canal Museum downtown that we had looked for the day we took the cruise on the canal. It was very interesting. The canal that was in the front of this building did not come out well in the photos, but did get a couple photos of things in the canal boat that was restored there. Can you imagine sleeping on these bunks? They had replicas of both a passenger and a cargo boat. They also had a replica of two canals that were built side by side so that traffic could go both directions. The picture in the museum that Gary took a photo of is an actual canal construction site of that era. When reading the stories you realized that it was a very busy time in history and that the people then (even women) had to be very hard working.

Right after we left the Canal Museum we turned a corner where we saw this house. Captured it on film as I thought that it was interesting! We also thought that City Hall was an interesting piece of architecture.

We headed out west of the city along the Onodago River and came upon a fort that was museum and replica of an Iroquois Fort that was built for the Jessuit priests who came as missionarys to assist with confrontations that they were afraid would take place with the Tuscaraurus Indians from Ohio territory and the French from Canada. It was interesting to see the footwear, and a replica of a canoe that they used. There were demonstrations of spinning wool and weaving as well as a man using iron to make tools. Even though they did have buildings made from logs, they did not look comfortable! I am glad that life style has progressed to what it is today.

We decided this was enough for one day and for the month also. We look forward to going up to Lake Ontario at the end of June. We also hope that we will be leaving the rain behind us. It has been raining every day for more than a week and sometimes two or three times a day! That tends to cool the air more than we like, but we do have sun in between. It will be interesting to see just how much success we have in choosing areas where we will like the weather. I guess we do not have control over that! I am sure the rain is needed.

Side Tracked from errands

Gary has been on a mission to get a converter box installed for the TV to be compliant by January, and it may take him that long to get it done, if things don't begin to go better. He bought a box from Best Buy while in Salem and has not been able to get it to work on our old Magnavox. After many phone calls for help, he decided to go to Camping World and get a Winegard since the antenna in the MH is that make. On those trips near Syracuse we decided to take some side trips and sight see. After the sight seeing, Gary found that their box would not work either. So that meant another trip to Camping World. Of course, Gary says that if a repair job does not take at least three trips to the store it would be because he is not the one doing to repair! The sales clerk at CW thought the problem might be the aluminum antenna as it must be a painted one to work. So we made a purchase and after some more sight seeing, we came home and he got on the roof in spite of the acrophobia and installed it. Did it work?? Not!! We are not making another trip to CW but will stop there for them to install on our way through when we move on to Thousand Island area. Why isn't anything every simple? On one of the trips we stopped at the Harriett Tubman House to tour and as we arrived so did two couples in their 1930 Model A's. Guess where they were from! Avon Lake and east Cleveland - - - - Ohio that is! Harriett Tubman was a black woman who helped over 300 slaves to freedom over an 11 year period. She was called Moses of her people. She first lived in this brick house in Auburn NY which has not been restored yet. She later bought the white house next door and turned it into a home for elderly and those in need. She lived here until she died at age 92. They were not homes of the Underground RR. There is a Seward home in Auburn NY that was U RR and I would like to go through it yet before we leave the area. William Seward was her life long friend. This carving depicting her leading the slaves on their journey is the original that a life size was carved from by Kellogg of Kellogg cereals of Battle Creek, MI. It was very interesting. We also stopped in Seneca Falls, NY as it has much to see. We looked at locks on the Seneca River which are now operated by hydraulics and a flood gate that is used to keep the river from flooding the locks. This is also the location of the Women's Rights Museum and a monument to this. I liked this church which was built right on the river's edge. Wonder if it every gets flooded? Gary liked this sail boat and would have liked to take more photos but thought it might bother those on board . This was in the canal area that was actually rebuilt to encourage industry to move in along the river. After all of this industry died off or moved away the only actual factory left standing is The Knitting Mill you see here. It is a shame, but the locks were actually flooded and covered. Today we stopped in Baldwinville, NY for lunch along the River and watched a couple boys fly fishing and also watched this mama duck and her young ones. I guess that it is time for me to quit for the day. Hopefully, I will get time tomorrow to finish the scrap books that I am doing. I still have a couple projects to finish before I can get back to my photo scrapbooking. You'd think that I should have lots of time, but we keep running around. We still haven't done anything in Syracuse. Maybe next week. I don't know if I've mentioned before, but we have been attending a UMC church which is a contemporary service somewhat like ours at First Friends, except very informal. The messages are very good, the music is modern though not the songs we know. But we've been thankful for it. Knowing we will be moving on does not build relationships though. Oh well, one can't have everything.

Meeting Salem friends miles from Home

We were surprised Saturday with a phone call from RVing friends from Salem who were in the area on one of their many stops on their way to Maine and Canada. We made plans to meet Bob and Donna on Monday to see more sights in the Finger Lake area. We started with Treman State Park near Ithica NY by stopping at The Old Mill and looking at the falls behind it. We went on to what Bob called Lucifer Falls which had several tiers in falls. I was fascinated by what appeared to be square cuts in the stone and could not believe that it was all natural until Gary took a photo of a crack which was very long and STRAIGHT and went very deep. Gary was also fascinated by the

outcroppings over head. There was a lot of piles of rock which fell off naturally in many shapes and sizes. I'm sure a lot of this happened over the winter with the freezing and thaws.

We then stopped at Toughannock Falls again so that Bob and Donna could see those falls before setting off for the Wineries. There are many vineyards in this lake region. Of the Wineries we stopped at, The Thirsty Owl was by far the most entertaining. We were entertained with poetry as we sampled their wares. It was a lot of fun.

We stopped for a lunch served outside along the way and shared, or I should say, we learned a lot from our veteran RVing friends. Lunch was delicious and we look forward to meeting up with them again along the road in our travels. Thanks again Bob and Donna for a fun time. Travel safely.

Trip home

Surprise! Surprise! Yes, we did surprise our daughter-in-law by being there at her graduation. We should have had the camera ready for the expression. However, we have been with her through thick and thin working for this education from the time she got her GED ten years ago. Anything that we could do with our grandson to lighten her load, we did when possible. So we just had to be in on the celebration. Thanks to her parents who hosted dinner at Red Lobster after the ceremony. It was a great visit!

Thanks to our oldest son who put us up for the few days there. He even got some plumbing assistance out of his dad. He said that he would have to think of something to keep him busy the next time we come also. - - - - - Maybe we'll have to find someone else with floor space for sleeping. lol

We did have good trips both ways, just a few rain drops now and then. And Gary did have me drive some. Our MH stayed safely behind at the Campground. So mission was accomplished.

Will get out and about in Syracuse starting next week. So we may have more photos for you then.

While in Central New York

What do they know in Central NY that they don't in Northeast OH? When driving through the countryside we observed seven of these monster windmills on the hill top. Then after going over the crest of that hill, on the opposite side of the road I saw at least 24 more! Someone was generating power for the community? A few days back Gary wanted to go to an antique car museum, but I declined and spent a day at home with my hobbies. After all, when you see one, you see them all, right? At least that is what I tell him every time he wants to go to one. But for all of you car buffs, I had to include some photos. A couple days later we decided to take in three museums in one day as it was at least an hour drive to get to them. We first stopped at Elmira College in Elmira, NY to see Mark Twain's study that his sister-in-law and brother-in-law had built for him on their farm in the area. They did so for his use when he came to visit. He found this study and the surrounding countryside very conducive to his writing, for he did all of it here. We then went on to Corning, NY where we went to the three floor Corning Glass Museum. I thought it would be all of Corning's glass. Wrong! It was all types of glass from the 1200 A.D. era to present day, everything from blown, broken mosaic, to pressed and cut. This dress is an example of molded. And the gentleman model here is working at a grinding wheel hand cutting a glass piece. I am fascinated with the cut glass and would like to know more about it and how to identify it. Maybe some day. We were beat after this museum and thought we couldn't do another. But with gas the price that it is, we needed to take in the Rockwell (Robert) Western Art Museum while here in Corning. It was two floors of original art including, many oil western scenes, sculptures, carvings, and Anson Adams western photographs. They were all great work and Gary was familiar with some of the artist names. We survived and were glad that we did it, but was disappointed that you can not take flash photos in the museum because of the damage that it could cause to this art over a period of time. After a couple days recuperation, we then went to Utica, NY for an Erie Canal boat ride. It was very enjoyable and educational. I'm sure that our grandson would have loved seeing the workings of the locks in the canal. Before going into the canal we went under this guillotine type gate that was used to hold back the water in the river in the event of flood. You can see the pulley system?? that would drop the gate. As we approach the first gate house you can follow our ride as we progress into the first lock where you see that the water level kept dropping. When the gate opened we proceeded

on down the canal to see the tow path for mules when they were used to move ships and barges. We then turned around and came back through the lock waiting for it to fill with water to move us back up the canal.

We had the nicest Captain who is retired and now does these tours. He sure didn't look old enough to be retired, but bragged of having eight grandchildren and nine grand nieces and nephews that he enjoys so much.

As we drive through the country side and the cities, we see many of these restored Victorian homes. We will show you photos of them as we take them. We are impressed with the amount of these and with all of the focus on antiquities. I know many of our friends would enjoy traveling through and would be stopping all of the time.

We have taken a break in our sight seeing for a few days to go back home to our daughter-in-laws graduation. It is our intention to surprise her as she was disappointed that we would not be there for it.

Hope you are surviving the heat as you go into the summer. After the long winter, I'll not complain. We will take you on some more of our journeys when we get back to NY. Hopefully, it won't be so long between my blogs and not so long winded each time. Have a fun summer.