“Earth and Sky, Woods and Fields, Lakes and Rivers, the Mountain and the Sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.” –John Lubbock
We had a great time in Canandaigua, but after a few days we decided to drive down to Corning to visit the Corning Museum of Glass. In the seven seasons we've been here we have visited Corning several times, but never seemed to have the time to get to the museum. I'm glad we finally made the time. It's a beautiful place.
Our dock neighbor worked for Corning most of his life and has filled us in on how involved they've been in scientific discoveries and things that have made our lives better. They don't just make dinnerware. The fiber optics we use, the glass on our phones and TVs, huge telescope lenses and items for space travel are just a few of the things they have developed. There was so much to see and learn, like most museums it was too much for just one day. We had some great leftover pizza, cheese and wine so we had another picnic today. I wish I had taken a picture, because instead of our usual beautiful setting it was in the parking lot of the museum...in our car! It was just too breezy and chilly outside today.
This photo shows the museum and the beautiful area around Corning, NY.
The Contemporary Arts and Design section of the museum.
The Netflix series Blown Away is filmed at the Corning Museum of Glass. I've watched some of it, but I may need to check it out again. This little guy was created by John Sharvin in episode 6: Under the Big Top. It's called Walter's Audition.
While you are at the museum you can see many hands-on demonstrations, take a class or even make something of your own. During this demo they made a pretty blue water pitcher. It took him 15 minutes to complete and it sells for $162 in the gift shop.
Some of the fun things we saw at the museum. The orange bowl depicts the skyline of San Francisco.
Dale Chihuly's style is unmistakable. We visited one of his museums in St. Petersburg, Florida years ago and I fell in love with his work. This piece is called Fern Green Tower. It stands over 15' high and has 712 handmade elements.
It's pumpkin season in New York and Corning.
The store at the museum was amazing...glass from here and everywhere else in the world.
Corning is a beautiful little town along the Cohocton River. Market Street is full of shops and nice restaurants.
We actually chose to come down to Corning at this time so we could enjoy their Harvest Festival. There were tons of vendors and musicians along Market Street.
We had dinner at an Italian Restaurant called Sorge's. We both had the Milano dish served with artichoke hearts, tomatoes and capers in a creamy garlic butter sauce. Stan of course had salmon and I had chicken.
While we were in Corning we heard about another event going on this weekend in Hammondsport, NY. We love visiting this little village on Keuka, so on Saturday morning we drove up to check out the Wings & Wheels: Seaplane and Car Show. It was a wonderful fall day and it was a highlight of our trip. The event was put on by Glenn H. Curtiss Museum and featured seaplane demonstrations and more than 60 vehicles in the car show.
Just a few of the neat cars on display throughout downtown.
Glenn H. Curtiss was an American aviation and motorcycling pioneer, and a founder of the U.S. aircraft industry. He designed and built the first successful pontoon aircraft in America and his aircrafts were the first to take off and land on the deck of a ship. Curtiss built the first U.S. Navy aircraft and trained the first two naval pilots.
We sat on the wall next to the boat ramp. We had a front roll seat to all the action.
Some of the boats had pontoons and wheels, some had just wheels and others had just pontoons. I've only seen seaplanes with pontoons before now.
This little plane only had wheels.
And took off quickly.
This little piper cub is just like the one that Stan's Daddy had, except it had pontoons instead of wheels. It brought back a lot of great memories for him.
These little guys came in like a boat...
and drove right up on shore.
The seaplanes showed how they take off and then did a bombing demo. Each plane was given grapefruits which they had to drop between the two yellow buoys. It was harder than it sounds...can you see the splash in the water? This plane was the closest to the target. The next thing they demonstrated was landing precession. They came around and had to touch down between the same buoys. That seemed to be difficult too. It was a lot of fun to watch.
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