Corning Museum of Glass

 A week or so after we returned, we got a visit from my sister and her husband. They drove out from NJ for a brief visit and we took them up to Corning to visit the Museum of Glass.  We arrived just in time to hustle over to the new theater and watch a glass blowing demonstration.

Afterward, we walked around looking at the various exhibits including one of glass sea creatures by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka. They created these delicate pieces in the 1800s to show the world some of the amazing things found in the ocean. Specimens in glass jars just didn't do the trick, they thought, so they did some fantastitc, colorful work.

 Many of their pieces had been sitting in boxes in back rooms of various museums before being acquired by the Corning Museum of Glass. Many of them were in pretty rough shape with even the least damaged requiring extensive cleaning.

This was a temporary exhibit, so we were lucky to get to view it.

One of my favorite--and permanent--displays is the scale model of one of the early glass furnaces built in Corning. The detail is amazing.

We also listened to a talk about fiber optics that was fascinating.

Ruthann and Al were impressed by the Museum and the Pennsylvania Welcome Center on Route 15 as we came back home.

Thansgiving Visitors

The 2013 Pennsylvania bear season ended yesterday at sundown. I didn't go out although I had been asked by Don if I wanted to. There were a couple of considerations in my decision not to participate. Two of them are called "knees."

In PA you can not bait nor use dogs to chase bears as you can in other states. It's a rough hunt with groups of hunters--often 20 or so--doing drives to rouse the bears. Half the hunters take up posts along one straight line while the other half goes a mile or so further down the road and enters the woods to push any bear to the standing hunters. When the two groups meet they either celebrate a bear kill or find a new place to repeat the process with the teams (standers and drivers) changing sides. It's very imprecise and very rugged. Especially rugged in the hilly country of the Northern Tier.

With the knees just 18 weeks old and my footing on rough terrain still a work in progress, I figured I'd play it safe and leave the game to others. And there were plenty of others in the woods. Monday, when Terry and I were going to the dump via Mountain Ridge and Fallbrook Roads which cut through parts of Tioga State Forest we came across two groups of hunters clad in solid orange. (You want to be as visible as possible to 1) scare the bear and 2) alert the other hunters that you are NOT a bear as you crash through the brush.)

Still we heard very few shots during the four day hunt. The exception was one cluster of shots from one to two miles to the west on Tuesday evening. Two quick shots were followed by five very well spaced shots. I assume the first wounded the bear and the latter finished him off. At least I hope that's what happened.

So, as I said, the season ended yesterday at sundown.

Brian safely navigated from New Jersey to the Aerie and arrived around 4 PM. We had a nice venison roast for dinner and enjoyed a drink or two pre and post meal. Then we sat and talked for a bit.

At approximately 8 PM there was a sound on the deck and the cats ears went up. A second noise sent them running to the windows and we followed.

 Mama Bear

 with baby Cinnamon

and Blackie.

These three hadn't been seen since early summer/late spring when I stopped putting the bird feeders out. I've seen scat on the logging trail but actual sighting of any bear hasn't happened. To the point where I got careless/lazy and left the bird feeders out over night. Still, they've been out there for two weeks and this is the first time they've been robbed by anything other than a squirrel.

I was very pleased to see that Mom had succeeded in making it through the season with out getting separated from her cubs and possibly shot (sow bears with cubs are protected). Seeing how big the two cubs had grown...well, that was a shock! When we first saw them they weren't much bigger than Chester, our 22 pound cat. Now they look to tip the scales at 70-80 pounds! That's a lot of berries, grass and grubs. Not to mention Mother's milk. Both cubs looked healthy as could be.

They came up on the deck not five minutes after I had come in from being out there and stayed on the deck for the better part of half an hour. We banged on the window ans they left...for two minutes before returning to slurp up black oil sunflower seeds. The Cinnamon followed the lead of Mom but Blackie was a little more reticent. The Cinnamon also seemed to dominate Blackie in chasing it away from the stairs and into the woods briefly.

After their second round on the deck, I banged on the glass really hard and Mom took the hint (she had also finished all the sunflower seeds) and led the cubs off the deck and out on to the lawn. I took the opportunity to step out onto the deck clap my hands a few times to spook them and they dashed off into the woods while I retrieved the undamaged but now empty bird feeders.

So. Who  are you having over for Thanksgiving?

Christmas Family Time

So. Yesterday morning (Christmas Eve), bright and early, Terry and I fed the cats, packed the truck, clean the kitty litter boxes, checked their dry food and water dispensers, fed the cats (again) and hit the road.

First stop was McDonalds for breakfast and then up to the orthopedist in Corning to get my knees shot up with cortisone. PA Kimberly Ryan performed the voodoo that she do so damn well! A little freeze spray and...poke, poke, jab, jab...I had been injected! Ryan then informed me that cortisone could be given as often as every three months. (I had thought it was six and so limped and bitched since September about sore and achy knees!)

Pain removed, Terry and I hoped on Rt. 17 east to I-81 south, I-380 south-east, I-80 east and were New Jersey bound. (The only snow we say was in the first 13 miles from the Aerie to McDonalds in Mansfield. ALL of the other roads ran through towns, forests and fields that were brown or greenish brown and held virtually no snow. Nada. Nil. Zip. This despite the temperature reading exactly 32 degrees until we crossed the Delaware River. General Washington and his men would have died for this kind of weather! Both on their raid into Trenton and as they made camp in Jockey Hollow.)

We got to my sister's house around 2 PM for our annual Christmas Eve gathering with Ruthann, All, their daughters and their husbands, Al's sister, Nancy, and her husband and daughters and husband and a couple of grandkids (one for Al and Ruthann and one for Al's sister Nancy). We learned that next year there will be a couple more grandkids--one on each side.

There was plenty of food, lots of congratulations, and some pretty heavy present unwrapping by the two grandgirls--one 6 months and the other almost 2 years. (Okay, Sammi, the six-month old needed some assistance from Mom and Dad, but she showed talent.)

They were still going strong when Terry and I departed to go to Linden and spent the rest of the evening and Christmas Day with our daughter Jessica at Grandma's house. (She was working until after 5 PM so opted not to make the drive to her Aunt's house. Grandma is in California with her other daughter, her niece and nephews and their spouses and our son, Rick, and his spouse who drove down from Portland, OR.)

As we stepped outside of Ruthann and Al's we found that it was snowing pretty darn hard. All the grass was covered and there was some accumulation on the colder car surfaces but the paved road was just wet. Even so, I drove carefully as we headed over the mountains to I-287 south and then Rt. 24 east, I-76 east and the Garden State Parkway south. The temperature remained right at the 30-32 degree range and it was snowing the whole drive.

When we got to Linden, we unpacked our bags and settled down to watch the last half of the first showing of A Christmas Story...and then the entire thing again between 10PM and midnight. (As Jess said last night. "Why is it I have seen this movie like a million times, yet I still find it funny?" "That's the power of Jean Shepherd's use of the English language. Too bad you never got to hear him on the radio." It was then time to hit the sack.

This morning the temperatures are in the low 40s, the snow had changed to rain and everything is wet. The precipitation here has stopped. and it's looking like it will be a pretty nice day. Terry has gone off to mass, Jess is still sleeping and my knees are feeling great!

Merry Christmas to all.

We did some socializing on Saturday.

We did some socializing yesterday.

The Rutgers' Alumni Club of Central Pennsylvania had a planned Summer Sendoff for kids in our area that were going to Rutgers this fall. It was held at the home of the gal who has become the default club president (Hey! It was her idea to form the group.) down near Lewisburg. Mindy said she had heard back from a little more than a dozen folks that they would try to attend and we thought it would be pretty cool to see who else in the area were RU grads.

Turned out that the four students (from as far flung places as Altoona and Bloomsburg) couldn't make it. One was on a family vacation, one was already at RU attending "captains' practices" with the football team (incoming QB prospect from Bloomsburg), and the other two...well, they didn't respond. And the Alumnae weren't much better. We ended up with just four couples. Terry and I and Mindy and her husband are all grads. Then one of her neighbors, Cheryll, is a grad of Cook and another gent--Roy, a retired law enforcement officer--was also a Cook graduate. (CAES and Cook were pretty well covered!) All of us were once resident's of New Jersey but moved to PA for pretty much the same reasons--taxes, cost of homes, and/or jobs.

We had a  good time visiting and talking about New Jersey and PA. Terry and I were by far the oldest couple there having graduated in 1971. The next oldest graduate, Cheryll, got her degree in 1991. Roy got his in 1997. (He obviously was working while a student.) Mindy and her husband are babies in comparison!

******

We left Mindy's house around 4 PM heading over to Jersey Shore to visit Joe and Pat. Joe had called early Saturday to ask for some help. He had a slew of cucumbers and wanted to know if we wanted any so we were going to swing by and pick a bucket of them up. We ended up with a whole lot more.

Heading north we saw some pretty impressive thunderheads in the distance and ran into a brief heavy downpour as we turned west on I-80. Turns out if we had been heading home through Williamsport we would have really hit some rain! They got over 4 inches in 2 hours around the time we would have been passing through. (Holy Buckets!) As it was, once we were out of the little rain we hit just as we left Route 15 to head west on I-80, we got nothing. There was no rain at Joe's at all.

We had a great time visiting with Pat and Joe, had a very nice--if unexpected--dinner, and came home with a two gallon bucket filled with cucumbers, a huge head of lettuce (Stonehead, I think Joe called it) and a couple of very nice eggplants.

Just a little of Joe's produce.

Joe has a heck of a green thumb when it comes to growing vegetables. The two of them also do pretty good with flowers.

Terry and I finally got home around 8:30 PM to be greeted by three cats who were complaining of having been seriously shorted on their crunchy quota.

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Thursday's line of severe storms that produced  the damaging tornado in Elmira are now being credited with a tornado in Coudersport, two in Corning and two more in eastern PA (Montrose and somewhere else I can't recall).

Road Trip 2010: Day 3-5, June 11-13Chicago and Through Wisconsin

We arrived in Volo, IL late Friday afternoon and made arrangements to go visit with Cindy and John, our DIL's parents. They live about 12 miles south--and closer to the city of Chicago--in Long Grove.

The four of us went to the Chicago Botanical Gardens for a short walk among the roses. (Turns out it was a good thing we did it Friday. The rains moved in and made us reluctant to go anywhere on Saturday as there were pretty heavy T-storms all around.)

Terry, Cindy and John pose in front of one of the many beautiful roses
currently blooming at the Chicago Botanical Garden.

Rosa 'Jaccinqo' Candelabra (TM) Grandiflora Rose

Roses were the big draw at the Gardens but there were other flowers that hadn't yet faded into summer obscurity.

Irises near the waterfall gardens.

We only got to see a small portion of the grounds on Friday and our plans to see more on Saturday were more or less ppd by rain. But what we did see we liked. It's easy to see why John makes regular trips to the Gardens. There's a lot to see and it changes frequently as they are swift to remove the old flowers/plants and put in new ones as the season progresses.

Bronze at the Chicago Botanical Gardens.

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After our all too brief walk, we went back to John and Cindy's home to pick up Jackie and head out to dinner...at Morton's Steakhouse. Way too good. Way too filling. And way too expensive. I'm thankful that 1) there are none near us in PA and 2) John picked up the tab, refusing my offer to help.

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Saturday we ran into T-storms as we returned to John and Cindy's home and they, along with a forecast that said more were on the way, curtailed our activities for the day. Instead of returning to the Gardens or even taking the longer drive into the city to go to the Shedd Museum, we opted to just sit and visit for a couple of hours during which we mostly gossiped about the kids--who weren't there to defend themselves. Then we went out to a late lunch at a nearby barbecue place that had some great ribs. (This time, John did let me pick up the tab.)

As John, Cindy and Jackie were to be heading up to the shores of Lake Superior on Sunday morning and we were to be heading out as well, we opted to call it an early afternoon and return to our respective homes/trailers.

******

Sunday morning Terry and I quickly packed up and got on the road heading first north and then west from Volo, IL (on Route 12) and into Wisconsin where we picked up I-94 north and then west. We were just zooming along making great time all the way past the Dells, around Madison, and through the rest of Wisconsin. What road construction there was, wasn't happening on Sunday. There was still a considerable amount of traffic on the road but it was all moving at--or slightly above--the speed limit.

We cruised along just going with the flow all the way into Minnesota and then past St. Paul (taking I-694 along the northern edge of the Twin Cities). Terry then called ahead to "reserve" a camp site in St. Cloud-Clearwater. "We'll be there in about 45 minutes," she says over the phone. That's when I see the Cabela's sign.

Just outside St. Paul there's a Cabela's. Time to rest anyway. Terry decides she needs a lighter rain jacket. We decide to get another Thermocell mosquito repellent--we left two of them sitting back in the spare bedroom in the Aerie. (We also got some Bens wipes and spray, 100% DEET--just in case it's too windy for the Thermocell to work.) They also had a nice looking little spinning outfit on sale--and Terry pointed it out to me. I'm slow some times but I ain't no fool! So it was a 45 minute delay that was well worth the time. Besides (almost) all of it was covered by the Cabela's points I had accumulated. I think the total was just a tad over $30 out of my pocket. (Well, actually, on the Cabela's card where it can earn double points.)

We covered 420 miles today in just over 8 hours from the time we left the campground in Volo to the time we pulled in here at Clearwater, MN.

Oh, and when we told the gal at the desk at the camp ground why we were a little later than Terry had said, she just shook her head and grinned.

******

Tomorrow is to be an even longer driving day as we continue to the west and then to the northwest, passing through Fargo, ND to Minot, ND on our way toward the Canadian border. Some 475 miles in all. But, we were able to leave the trailer hitched to the truck, we have no need to make a stop at the dump station (did that chore this morning back in Volo), and we have all our Cabela's shopping behind us--unless Fargo has one there. We have discovered we need one electrical plug/adapter so we'll be able to handle all possible combinations at the campgrounds: an adapter that will take a 3-prong wire to 30-amp outlet. I've got the opposite: 30-amp wire to a 3-prong grounded outlet, but not the one we rang into tonight. So we will be looking for a Camping World--just like the one that was next to the Cabela's this afternoon. That stop won't take long, however. So we should make it to Minot by 5 PM, local (Central).