On The Way Home!

 

It is time to start heading home. Checking my maps, I will be traveling along the southern edge of the Great Lakes. But look!! Just a few miles north of the freeway, is the hamlet of Detroit! I've only been to a few concerts in Detroit (Rolling Stones, Led Zepplin), back in the day, perhaps it is time to actually visit the area.

I Do Love Glass!!

 Back in 2016, I made a trip out east to the Finger Lake district of New York. I saw amazing sights – Watkins Glen, Lake Erie, the Birthplace of the American Suffrage Movement, all of which made my heart sing. Right up there, among all of these treasures, ranks the Corning Museum of Glass. This is one of my most favorite American museums. It is the end-all and be-all for glass lovers.

Western New York

 Mad Magazine used to do parodies of TV shows and movies. Everything I knew about birds came from their take on the Alfred Hitchcock movie “The Birds”. It scared me beyond belief. Anytime I see a large flock of birds, I must admit I start to worry. Lately, though, that seems to have changed a bit. I'm finding them to be rather interesting and eye-catching. Is this a sign that I am now an old person? 

The Lake Is Always Greener On The Other Side

And as we leave Maine, I wanted to do a shout out to a place where I spent almost every day while I was in Maine. Thank you C-Ray's for indulging me with many, many lobster rolls. 

Outdoor dining at it's finest

I also need to shout out to one of my camping neighbors who gifted me with a can of Rose wine. What will they think of next? Wine in a can! Of course I tried sipping it straight out of the can but that was just wrong. I had to pour it into a glass. Once I got past the horror of it all, it was pretty ok wine.

After leaving Maine, I started moving lickety split cross country. Places to go, people to see. I spent one night at Green Lakes State Park which is just south of Buffalo, New York. Green Lakes State Park's claim to fame is.....Green Lakes. There are two glacial lakes that are 'meromictic lakes which means that there is no fall or spring mixing of surface and bottom waters. Such lakes have a high potential for evidence of ancient plant and animal life.' (Green Lakes website). Because of my limited time, I only hiked around Round Lake and totally missed the lake called Green Lake. I love it when the water is so still that you can see the reflection of the trees in the water and it is hard to tell what is shoreline and what is water.

Of course we do have to end with a pet photo.  For some reason, Jogger loves to sit in the shower.  Doesn't matter if the shower is on or if it is off.  Many times I have had to remove him, dripping wet, out of the shower so I can get in there.  He loves it in there.

Farewell Hudson River Valley

Poor Martin Van Buren. He gets no respect. Historians and political scientists rank him as an average or below-average U.S. President. He was a member of the New York Senate, Attorney General of New York, US Senator, Governor of New York, US Secretary of State, US Minister to the United Kingdom, Vice President under Andrew Jackson and the eighth president of the United States from 1837 to 1841. I guess we could probably call him a career politician, although he said he was happiest being a farmer. According to Ranger Andrew, Van Buren was responsible for establishing both the Democratic AND Republican party.

Van Buren grew up in Kinderhook, a small village about an hour north of Hyde Park. After his term as president, he bought a house in Kinderhook which he called Lindenwood. 

Lindenwood

Van Buren was the first president born under the U.S flag (previous presidents were born British subjects). 

 He also was the first and only president where English was a second language.  He grew up speaking Dutch.

Looking up into the tower

The Hudson River Valley was a very productive Junior Ranger area for me.

Check out the badge on the right

Down in Poughkeepsie, New York is an old railroad bridge which has been re-purposed as a pedestrian bridge called Walkway Over The Hudson. At a length of 6,768 feet, it is the longest pedestrian footbridge in the World. Of course Miko and I had to walk across it. I was a little worried because it is 213 feet tall and I have this height issue but we persevered and made it across. Actually, it wasn't too bad when we were over the river. What bothered me the most was at the beginning of the bridge when we were many feet above houses and roads. 

The Hudson River is a mighty, mighty river

I stayed at Interlake RV Park.  It was the closest park to the sights and it was a pleasant park.  It had sort of a retro feel to it, sort of what I imagine old time camping was like with a lot of area between sites, lots of trees and very laid back. I actually stayed here for a week which is so unusual for me.  I think I'm beginning to get into this slowing down thing.

See what I mean about Retro?  An actual phone booth with a working phone.  

The Roosevelts of Hyde Park

Time to move on to the Roosevelts.

Any Greatest Presidential List will always include Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He is the only president to have been elected four times. His leadership got us out of the Great Depression. He gave us Social Security. He established a national minimum wage. He played a major role in establishing the United Nations. He took the first federal action to prohibit employment discrimination. In my travels I am personally enjoying all of the works that the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) created during the Great Depression to put young men to work. Yes, he was responsible for all that. I could go on, but as great as FDR was, my heart belongs to his wife Eleanor.  She was an amazing woman.  I highly suggest that you read up on Eleanor.  You will be fascinated.  Myself,  I try to live by one of her quotes - 'Do Something Every Day That Scares You'.  Get out of your comfort zone.  Just go for it.

I visited Val-Kill, a cottage ( a real cottage, not a Vanderbilt cottage) that FDR built for Eleanor in 1924. Eleanor wanted a place of her own to get away from it all. Can we say Sarah, FDR's mother who might have been a little overbearing. Eleanor moved into Val-Kill with two other women friends. They established Val-Kill Industries, a furniture making business which helped with the unemployment issues during the Depression. After FDR's death, she split her time between Val-Kill and NYC. Many famous people came to pay homage to Eleanor at Val-Kill including JFK. JFK came seeking Eleanor's endorsement when he was running for president. 

This was the room where she would receive her famous guests.

She wasn't much of a cook, so when the King and Queen of England visited, she fed them hot dogs.

As part of my Junior Ranger tasks, I had to identify a maple leaf.  

Thank God for the Canadian flag.  Because of that flag I was able to identify the maple leaf.

FDR came from old money. He lived in a Big house which they called Springwood. The household included his mother Sarah and the Roosevelt's six children. FDR fancied himself an amateur architect and designed and built two huge wings onto the existing house. 

The view off of the south lawn overlooking the Hudson River.

FDR was an avid tree planter.  All these trees eventually blocked his view of the Hudson.

Springwood

Eleanor and Franklin's grave.  Also buried here is one of their sons who died in infancy and their dog Fala.

There is also FDR's Presidential Library and Museum located on the grounds. FDR establishedthe precedent for public ownership of presidential papers. His library became the model for the nation's presidential library system.  It was a mighty fine museum.

Frederick Vanderbilt's Little Hovel

After leaving the great state of Pennsylvania, I ended up in the Hudson River Valley in New York. The land of Vanderbilts and Roosevelts -new money vs. old money. As far as I'm concerned, money is money. Who cares how long you have had it? Evidently it was a big deal back in the day. Sarah Roosevelt, FDR's mother seemed to look down quite a bit on her neighbors, the Vanderbilts, and their ostentatious wealth displays.

Frederick Vanderbilt, grandson of the Commodore who started building the Vanderbilt fortune , bought the land which was called Hyde Park and built the Vanderbilt Mansion in 1895. This house was meant to be a spring and fall cottage where the Vanderbilts would come to play.  I guess this particular Vanderbilt house is rather understated when you compare the house to the Vanderbilt summer cottages in Newport, Rhode Island. It only took 26 months to build which is rather impressive. As the tour Ranger pointed out, though, is that the construction workers worked twelve hour days with no coffee breaks or days off.  

When the Vanderbilts were in court, they had upward of 60 staff to help take care of them 

Can we say Downton Abbey?

The formal gardens predate Vanderbilt ownership. Frederick redesigned the gardens and planted hundreds of trees and shrubs.  On weekends Frederick and his wife Louise liked to walk through the gardens twice a day.  Today the gardens have been restored to its 1930s appearance.  The gardens encompass five acres.

Into The Past - How Far Can We Go?

It is time to leave Watkins Glen. Shoulda stayed longer, shoulda hiked the Gorge again. Shoulda, Coulda.

Down in southern New York, there is a little town called Corning which hosts a giant Museum called the Corning Museum of Glass. This is a must-see for anybody who likes glass. This museum is like the Disneyland of Glass, without the rides and the mouse ears. The gift shop alone was bigger than my house.

The first area you enter is the Contemporary Art + Design(1990-2015) area which showcases artists who are stretching the boundaries of what we think glass should be into what glass could be. Some of it was just plain ugly – whoops – perhaps I'm not cool enough to see the artistic vision that was sought after. Some of it was weird and entertaining and some of it was beautiful.

Hard to see but a lot of lacy glass

The other major gallery was called 35 Centuries of Glass which was fascinating. They had glass samples from well, 35 centuries ago up to fairly contemporary times. The displays were really well done and it flowed from country to country and glass making method to glass making method. I was especially enamored of the paperweight displays – I have a small collection at home and it was wonderful to see samples from the major paperweight houses.

I'm walking through the many centuries and what do I come across but an actual window from the Darwin Martin House that I toured in Buffalo.  That was rather special how everything seems to be tied together.

Interspersed between all the galleries were several different demo labs. I sat in on a basic how to make a blown pumpkin. What was interesting, besides the glass blowing, was the audience. There was a huge Chinese contingent so they had a translator. The English speaker guy would talk rather in a monotone and then the Chinese woman would speak. She was jumping up and down, laughing, doing her own little demo of what the glass blowers were doing. I couldn't understand a word, but she was probably the most entertaining part of the whole demo. There were several other demos throughout the day that sounded interesting (glass breaking demo – huh?) but none of them fit into my schedule.

Hassidic Jew and Roman Catholic Chess Set

Some people have sometimes called me obsessive - I think of myself as being very focused and rather a completist.   Case in point - I think I need to visit all 400-some National parks, monument, historical sites, battlefields etc. I mean, all these sites belong to me (and America) - I need to check them all out, make sure that they are doing all right.  I do get  a kick out of them.  Now I have that Junior Ranger thing going also.  But, after spending a few weeks chasing after these National Sites, I get to a point where I just don't care anymore.  I know the next trip I take, I will be right back at it, but I am pretty much done with the whole National scene at the moment.  I had about six more sites on my radar for this trip and I just decided I don't need to go see them.  Enough is enough.

So, I made a right turn somewhere in Pennsylvania and headed for southeastern Indiana.  It is sort of on the way home, isn't it?  The reason?  I was heading to the land of my ancestors - my people settled in Metamora Indiana in 1811.  I thought I should go find out what was up with them. 

The library in Brookville has quite an extensive genealogy department and I spent several days digging through their collection.  It was very satisfying.  My timing was really great also as when I was there, they had a genealogy conference going on which was much fun.  What is not to like talking about lost dead people and how to find them, plus there were a lot of munchies. 

I also mixed it up a bit and visited a few graveyards to pay my respects to these new found family members.  What was fun was that I visited one graveyard on a Sunday morning.  The church, which I think was a Pentecostal church was getting their religion on.  They had a band and there was a lot of whooping and hollering and some really good music.  Almost made me get down on my knees and raise my hand to the sky. 

GGG-Grandma and Grandpa

Half of Duck Creek Cemetery taken out the car window - I looked at every single one of these stones up close and personal

The Final Frontier

When I started the 2016 Fall Journey, there were two sights that really pulled me. One was the Women's Rights Monument in Seneca Falls and the other was Watkins Glen. I had heard so much about Watkins Glen over the years that there was no way I was going to miss it. Watkins Glen, the town, was a touristy little town, but Watkins Glen, the Gorge, was the main event. 

Miko was not allowed on the Gorge Trail, only on the Rim Trails so she had to stay home. I was on my own to hike up the gorge for a mile and a half. No easy mile and a half either – did I mention the 800 steps you also have to climb. A mile and a half out plus 800 steps up and a mile and a half back with 800 steps down. It sounded horrible, but it really wasn't too bad. There would be maybe a couple of flights of stairs up and then there would be a level path for a bit before the next flight of stairs. Mother Nature thoughtfully arranged to have some beautiful scenic sights at the top of each of these flights that you really had to pause to admire and reflect on (and perhaps catch your breath). It is all worth it for the 19 waterfalls you get to see.  There were even a few you could walk behind.

When I started hiking, there was a steady stream of people and we all marched along in line. About half way up the gorge, it started to rain and magically people started to disappear. In fact on my way back, I hardly met anybody coming up the gorge which made for some wonderful personal moments with Ol' Ma Nature.  Watkins Glen did not disappoint.   

Notice people climbing the stairs in the background

We Be Rockin' These State Parks

Stellar day today – walked gorges in three (count them), three state parks.

I started with Cuyuga State Park where I had been camping for three nights. Miko and I did our normal walk to the wave-catching lake, through a tunnel and then back home where I packed up the RV and headed out for a big hour drive to our next state park.

Taughannock state park. We were only here for a couple of hours to see the 215 foot vertical waterfall which is 33 feet taller than Niagara Falls. There is a 3/4 mile wooded trail down to the waterfall. We hadn't gotten too far when I noticed people walking on a big flat area next to the trail. Turns out this was the actual riverbed for Taughannock Creek. For the last nine months, this area of New York has been under a severe drought. The creek has done dried up. It is probably not the best year to go in search of New York waterfalls. That said, it was interesting to see what the riverbed looked like – all rock, not any sand like what I would expect. This is rock that has been chiseled out. When I got to the waterfall, it was nothing but a trickle.

The dry riverbed

What it is supposed to look like (picture from the web)

What it looks like now

We then moved on to Robert H. Treman State Park which is right outside of Ithaca New York. It was another twenty minutes down the road. This area of New York is ripe with state parks. I am spending the night here at this park. Scored the last electrical site. Yay Me!!! Interesting that to get to the campground I had to cross a creek – no bridge, just drive through the creek bed. 

Crossing the creek to get to the campground

This is hilly country and it was rather difficult to get level. The people on the ridge behind me had to back up right to the edge of the drop to hook up to electricity. They actually had a many tiered wooden structure on the hill to try to get themselves level. It really looked like an accident ready to happen. I leant them my 30 amp electrical cord so that they could get off of the ledge and I was really glad that I had because that night it poured rain, I'm talking serious rain, and I think if they had been balanced precariously like they were, they might have just slid downhill into my rig. No, I'm not a nice guy, it is all about self protection – didn't want them to slid down the hill into my rig. They were actually lovely people, but I'm glad that everything just worked out.

Robert H. Treman had a lovely gorge walk. I think it was the first time on this trip that I actually felt like I was hiking. There were actual hills here and many many steps, created by the CCC that I went up and down. Ran into a bunch of young men who were at an overlook, drinking beer and being crazy young guys. Miko, being her usual gregarious self, went over to introduce herself and one of the guys told her she was too young to drink beer. I, of course, had to correct him because in dog years she is 28 years old, definitely old enough to drink beer. She did not partake as she had more important things to do like head down the trail.

This was a lovely gorge to hike and even though there was a drought, there was enough water falling to make this a gorgeous hike. The main draw is Lucifer Falls which is a 115 foot multi-tiered drop.

Stairway to Heaven

Lucifer Falls

More Lucifer Falls

Miko actually looking like she might like her picture taken