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.