Update # 8: Watkins Glen, NY

Leaving Buffalo, NY required the motor homes to maneuver through a maze of streets. We found no easy connecting road between where we were and where we wanted to be. Jay and Lynn said they enjoyed the ethnic side trip. :) One area housed old and empty warehouses.  Another area overflowed with pizza shops and tattoo parlors. Once we found the Highway 20 east we trekked through several small towns. Some had many of the large, old beautiful well-maintained homes.  In some towns businesses moved into the lovely old homes along the road.  We also saw some 3 story residential homes displaying the grandeur of yesteryear.

Away from the cities the cornfields returned to flow over the low hills of land. Corn, hay, soybeans and other crops I couldn't identify were bordered by trees.  Woodland forests and fields not planted filled the acres between the crops.  Some large farmhouses showed signs of great care and maintenance, while others sat deteriorating from the ravages of age and weather.  Further on a few cattle were grazing in a pasture and we saw signs for dairy farms also. Some horses were also in their pastures.

Gazebos and town squares stood proudly in villages parks. Some were advertising concerts in the park. The village of West Bloomfield was settled in 1759, and a restaurant in East Bloomingfield was established in 1806.  You can tell we are in the east! In Geneva, NY a long row of  grand homes, mansion styles, sat on the banks of the Seneca Lake. Turning south on highway 14 between Geneva and Watkins Glenn, winery signs invited visitors in about every half mile.  There are 277 wineries in New York, and the Finger Lakes are home to 102 of those wineries.  If you like wine, this can be a destination for you!

The KOA at Watkins Glen is one of the prettiest places we've parked. This is a new loop developed for big rigs. Very nice!

Each site had these double rockers with some sort of patio. Each light post supported a hanging basket of flowers.

 The front of our rigs, face a grassy meadow surrounded with the woodland forest typical of this area. In the daytime, bunnies come to munch the green grass.  At night we see fireflies, or lightening bugs as some people call them. This is a first for me. We look out into the dark forest and small flashes of lights would erupt. We watch some more, and a twinkling of white lights like the mini lights on a Christmas tree burst forth and quickly disappear. Awesome!  

Behind the coaches in the center of the loop are a few pull throughs and a gazebo.  The newly built cedar gazebo sits on a little rise with cedar boardwalks and viewing decks extending from it. A water fall sends water to a small stream that collects in a pool at the bottom of the run. Colorful flowers accent the whole scene perfectly.

Twenty-two miles south of the park lay the city of Corning, NY. The Corning Museum of Glass became our first destination.. This renown museum contains the most comprehensive and celebrated collection of glass in the world. 

One of the galleries contains an exhibition of contemporary art. The displays and information here tell of the growth of glass as an art media. It appears that the field expanded rapidly during and after the 1960's.  The leading artists in the field are highlighted. 

Another gallery focuses on 35 centuries of glass art and history.  It boggles my mind to see bottles and glass artifacts that date back to about 2450 BC and the range of cultures who made it. Some of the notable cultures in early time were from Egypt, the Middle East with particular growth in the Islamic World of the seventh century, Syria and Europe. China has some artifacts, but they were not as interested in glass as in stones like jade. The changing exhibit featured Medieval Glass for Popes, Princes and Peasants.

Several glassmaking techniques date back to these early times.  Gilding and enameling: after the glass cools the items are painted with gold and enamel. The items are reheated to fuse the decoration to the glass. Mosaic glass: rods of different color glass are fused to form a design. The canes are then cut into slices and arranged in the desired shape, and reheated to fuse. Mold blowing: glass blowers place a blob of glass into a metal mold and gently blow. The design in the mold such as rounded indentations, or spike like designs are created on the glass.  With this technique decorated objects could be made almost as quickly as plain ones. Gold Sandwich glass: gold foil is placed between two layers of colorless glass. The design is created by scratching the gold foil with a needle.  Cutting and Engraving: an item is made with two coats of different colored glass.  Again the design is scratched in.  Staining: the glass is coated with a paste of copper or silver and fired under special conditions. At least that is how I understand the techniques.

This gallery is enormous.  Most of my photos come from this area.  The section on cut glass art showed us how all of those beautiful facets are carved.  An artist holds the item to a large cutting stone and turns it as needed to create the points and designs.   More mind boggling stuff!  Tiffany treasures followed this section of the exhibit.

In the Carder Gallery we saw the colorful glass creations of Stuben. I didn't know that he was famous for the colored glass.  Derrille and I expected to see the crystal Stuben designs.  We found those later just outside the gift shops.This sculpture has a Native American, probably NW tribe, etched into the glass. I think the price tag was about $1500.

We attended narrated demonstrations on fiber optics, glass breaking, and flame working in the innovation center. Adam our presenter for fiber optics and glass breaking delivered the information in an easy to understand and humorous manner. He demonstrated how a light wave is reflected upon itself  inside the core of a fiber optic glass thread and that enables the information to travel the way it does. According to the visual representation, it would take a 6 foot diameter pipe full of copper wires to transmit the same amount of information that a single fiber optic strand (thinner than a strand of hair) can carry. I can't remember all the scientific info for it, but I did enjoy the presentation.  Glass breaking demonstrated the difference between plane, tempered and safety glass.  That area showed how sheet and plate glass development has occurred over the years. The flame worker was creating little critters with small rods of glass and a blow torch..  I apologize to the engineers and scientists for my oversimplification of the process.

An exhibit on temperatures showed that the temperature to create plain Pyrex dishes is much lower than what is needed to make the Corning's French White collection. Pyrex was developed when a Corning worker's wife suggested using the beaker to bake a cake.  When the industry waned a little, another lady said the shapes needed improving. She was hired on at Corning and developed many of the Corning bakeware designs we use today.

We also attended a Hot Glass Show. Here a glassblower created a large glass dish.  Lynn and I felt a pain when they destroyed it at the end of the show by placing it in a tub of water. When the glass cools, it can reused, and reused.

Our one disappointment was the gift shop. Although loaded with lovely glass items, many were too pricey and to our surprise most were made in China.  Of course decorative glass and RV life aren't a good match, so we saved money and didn't buy anything.

Following our museum visit, we drove through the town of Corning to check it out. Market Street, the quaint main street, marks the historical district of town. Many shops, offices and restaurants are housed in the original old building. The affect of the Corning plant on the town is shown everywhere with either their name or built by signs.

 That evening we met our friends Alan and Jeanne Ann who live in Elmira. Alan went to college with Derrille and was a more or less regular at our dinner table during those UW years. Alan went to work for Corning right out of the University of Washington.  He and Derrille graduated in Ceramics.  I recognized many of the tools and machinery in Corning from Derrille's days at the UW.  

They chose the Castle Griest as our dinner destination. The Castle is not a castle, but an estate winery. It sits on a hill overlooking the vineyards and Seneca Lake. The menu features German cuisine.  We found the buffet an excellent way to taste a bit of all the German dishes. The strudel was fabulous! The dessert table offered strudel with cherry, apple, cheese or chocolate walnut. The raspberry sauce put over the cheese strudel won lots of praise. Brownie like squares and some of lemon were there too.  We thoroughly enjoyed renewing our friendship and spending time with

old friends.

Arlene was our waitress and despite this photo she had a great sense of humor.  She took the great photo of the six of us.

Our next great adventure took us to Watkins Glen Gorge. Nineteen major waterfalls cascade down through the gorge. The mile and a half walk through the narrow gorge features 832 stairs and an elevation gain of 600 feet.  102 of those steps, named Jacob's Ladder,  go straight up a narrow climb with three switchbacks at the end of the gorge.

We entered the canyon trail through a concrete tunnel that was hand dug in 1900. Sentry Bridge puts the hiker on the trail and gives a stunning view of Glen Creekcascading down the hill.

The stairs and walkways of the canyon are shale carved from the gorge itself. They resemble a flagstone entry, making this a walk on uneven surfaces. In some areas the shale appears pock marked as swirling circles depress the surface.

The walls of the canyon rise in thin layers of shale stacked tightly on each other.  Large fracture lines run top to bottom accenting the geometric look of the layers upon layers of compressed shale. Sections of the wall break in small pieces or in large chunks creating areas of uneven walls to almost cave like indentations in the walls. 

Trees and other vegetation grew out of the rock wherever they could get a foothold.  In some areas bright green fern gardens formed on the canyon wall. 

 The beauty of the gorge  took your breath away as much as climbing the stairs. 

Come see our pictures when we return home.

The trail zigzags over the creek with arched bridges and stairways.  In two areas we walked behind the waterfall. Additional trails ran along the two rims of the canyon and spurred off of our trail. 

After ascending Jacob's Ladder we boarded the free shuttle bus for a ride back to the parking lot. Some people take the bus up and hike down, however for those of  us with weak knees, going up was best.We were wringing wet when we boarded the bus. A man and his son immediately gave up their seats.  I didn't feel as bad as I thought I looked.                                   Aging and high humidity are the pits!

To Lynn and I the gorge hike counted as a personal best. We celebrated our accomplishment with ice cream cones.  Besides it was Lynn's birthday!

Next we drove south to the village of Montour Falls.  The gray haired man with a pipe between his teeth collected our $2.00  entrance fee to the Havana Glen Park.  He assured Lynn and I, with our already tired feet, that the next hike was less than 10 minutes to view Eagle Falls.  He was right on, and it was worth our $2.00.  This tiny dot on the map also has an incredible falls at the end of Main Street. The Chequaga Falls (it is spelled differently at the falls) were stunning. They are also right out the back door of a few homes. Wow, how would you like to have a major waterfall just outside your back door?

To complete our birthday celebration, we ate dinner overlooking the Watkins Glen marina. A dinner cruise, one of the tour boats and a large sailboat were preparing to cast off. We walked the docks a bit....Derrille and Jay being able to also walk on the breakwater...Lynn and I said we had walked enough for one day.

We had photo developed at Watkins Glen just before leaving. When I opened them to use in the blog, one CD had no photos on it.  We went to the Wal-Mart in Watertown (next blog) and had to have the prints scanned and made into a new CD.  Unfortunately the Montour Falls photos and the ones taken at the marina on Lynn's birthday weren't in the pack. Regrets...
On our second touring day we set out to view a couple more of the area's distinctive waterfalls. Much to our surprise we ended up in Ithaca, NY.  The navigator (that would be me) missed a turn off.  So then we went north to view Taughannock Falls State Park.

We drove to a viewing platform to photograph the falls. Trails led along both rims and down to the canyon floor. If our feet were not complaining from the Watkins Glen Gorge the day before we may have attempted one of the trails. 

Next we drove south of Ithaca to the Robert Treman State Park. Lots of people were walking to and from the parking lot. Swimwear clad people carry lawn chairs, coolers, towels and totes. We followed the crowd to the falls. A wide waterfall cascades down the a rock faced slope.

The water falls into a pool that is deep enough to support swimmers. Three life guards watch over the multitude of people cooling off in the pool. Some people are trying to move across the base of the falls with its algae covered rocks. Others line up for their turn to jump off the diving board. We've never seen anything quite like this.

Next we drove up the hill and upstream to the other park entrance. Here we went in search of Lucifer Falls, one of the tallest falls in the area.   This upward titling slab of rock was created by the rock above it collapsing on to the rear of this slab and forcing it upward.

Right away Lynn and I noticed the similarity to the gorge with all the stairs. My body reminded me with each flight of stairs.                

The flat slabs of rocks here looked like the same slabs in Watkins Glen, and the gorge looked like a twin to the one we hiked a few days ago.

The guys went ahead of us.  As we reached the top of the falls and looked down at several steep flights of stairs descending and ascending again, the guys signaled us to stop. We were on the wrong trail to view the falls.  So Lynn and I went back to the parking lot, and the guys took a torturous trail down to the floor of this canyon and up the other side to the viewing spot.

 Even there it was difficult to photograph the entire length of the falls. From here we headed back to town.

After doing laundry we ate a late dinner at Jerlando's. We went in just for salad and bread, but were overcome by the aroma of Italian spices and succumbed to try their pizza. Another long day.

Next stop: Cooperstown.