Letchworth State Park

When we left off yesterday we were heading to 

find a forest to sleep in.  We ended up at 

Letchworth State Park.  One of Wonderful's

co-workers had suggested it but he didn't know 

where it was.  As I was reading off local camp

sites, when I said Letchworth, he said, yes, that's

the one we need to go to.

We got there late in the day and set up camp, had

some dinner and sat around the campfire.  We had

no idea about what was special about the park since

we had only seen the campground.  In the morning,

Wonderful was about to cook some eggs and bacon

when I said, "you know, I'm not really the let's eat

breakfast at the campsite kind of girl ~ I'd much 

rather eat out".  With that, Wonderful put every-

thing away and said let's go!  

In reading the park brochure, I saw there was an

inn and said let's go there for breakfast.  The

brochure described the park as the Grand Canyon

of the East.  It wasn't until we left the camping area

that we could really see the splendor of the park.

As we rounded a bend in the road we could see

a beautiful building through the trees.

We parked and started walking through the

garden to the front of the building.  If you look

closely, it looks like fog in the distance.

Coming round to the front of the house, this is

what we saw.  This had been Mr. Letchworth's

home when it was a private estate.

And the fog in the previous photo, well, no, it was

mist from this spectacular waterfall.  Now that's

quite a unique thing to have in your front yard.

The interior is filled with beautiful carvings.

I wonder what the bells are for?

We had a lovely breakfast and chatted with the

other diners as if we were all guests of the house.

The we set out for a hike to walk off the big

breakfast.  Then it was time to start our journey 

West.

We ended up that night at Malabar Farm.

Genesee Country Village

We were up early and broke camp at our Lake

Ontario site and headed southeast to Mumford,

NY.  Today we were visiting yet another living

history museum, the Genesee Country Village.

The Genesee Country Village shows 19th century

life in 3 different phases: 

Pioneers 1795-1830

Village Center 1830-1870

Turn of the Century 1880-1920

Pioneer life must have been tough in this 

harsh climate.

This was a time when the old saying of

"make it or make do" really applied.  In 

the early years of the pioneer settlers, they

had to provide their own food, make their 

shelters and make all of the things that they

would need to survive.  It wasn't just that 

you were making your own clothing, you 

were making the cloth to make your own

clothing.

As with most living history museums, there

was the old schoolhouse.

This museum has a camp for kids so they 

can come every day and experience life in

a different time.  Just thinking about how

different my childhood was compared to my 

children's childhood is quite startling.  Imagine

when you had to make your own bread and go

out to find the eggs to make a meal.  Actually,

I think my kids would have loved to have gone

to a camp like this ~ for a while at least.

Moving into the next time period of village life,

we see how far the community has come in a few

decades.  This house was an example of a Shaker

house.  The Shakers had roots in upstate NY.  The

Shakers were very industrious and we learned they

were the first to offer seeds by catalog.

In this kitchen they were making cheese.  They

were separating the curds and whey and straining

the cheese and molding and pressing it.

This house was the boyhood home of George

Eastmam (founder of Eastman Kodak).  This

is where the quilters hang out so of course I 

especially loved it.  Look at that beauty on the 

bed.

This made me want to get busy with 

my own designs.

This woman gave a lecture on hygiene in the

19th century.  It was quite different from the

easy, modern way of life we enjoy now.

Then it was on the the Turn of the Century

area of the village.  This is a beautiful octagonal

house.

I must confess the Victorian era furnishings

seemed so gloomy and overdone after the 

simplicity of the homes from earlier times.

We were lucky to have a beautiful day for 

our visit.  We stayed until closing so we could

see all the museum had to offer.  We skipped 

lunch so as not to waste time so after we exited

we found a shady tree and pulled out our camp

chairs and had a lovely lunch from our cooler

as we listened to the birds.  Then it was time to

pack up and find a forest to sleep in for the night.

I was thinking today of what got me started in

my love for these types of museums,  when I 

was three my family took a trip to Colonial

Willamsburg,  Even though I was very young, 

I still have some memories of that trip.  One of

them has nothing to do with history but with my

own history of embarrassing myself.  I probably

only came up to my Dad's knee, and I had a habit

of wrapping my arm around his calf and leaning on

him.  It seems I did this in one of the exhibits at

Williamsburg but with a bit of a problem ~ it wasn't

my Dad!  I'm still doing weird stuff like that as you 

can see here.  It wasn't just about museums though,

I loved going to other people's houses to see how they

lived and what they ate and how their family's life was

different from my family's life.  I guess I was an

ethnographer before I even knew what that meant.

And today, it still interests me.

Hale Farm and Village

...and the beginning of an adventure.

Last week we took a little vacation but since we

were staying in the woods there was no phone,

no internet, no service.  I thought I'd blog this

week about everything we did last week.

First of all, we had not been camping in over a

decade,  I completely gave it up after Cub Scouts.

It was just like my Mommy job at home, only harder.

We left at the crack of dawn since we had a long

drive ahead of us, we were camping on the most

northwestern part of New York State right on 

Lake Ontario.  It was about a 9 hour drive with

a stop along the way and then we had to set up

our campsite.

In order to break up the trip, stretch our legs and

because I'm a nut for living history museums, we

stopped in Bath, Ohio at the Hale Farm and Village.

We were not the only ones!  This little village

that is run by the local historical society was

hopping with people.  It was the annual Civil

War Reenactment.  There were reenactors, 

horses, encampments and an entire vendor 

area selling merchandise and equipment from

the time period of the Civil War.

It certainly is a family affair for these

history lovers.  Entire families were decked 

out in full costume and I felt for them.  It was

a hot day and if I had to wear a uniform or a 

hoop skirt, well, I would have been a bit cranky,

to say the least.  This group is enjoying lunch and

of course, all the foods are appropriate to the time.

The village has a glass making demo.  

Generally you do not see this is a village 

this size, it was very interesting.

The potter was hard at work,  I can

watch this for hours.  I think I need to

find a place so I can take pottery classes

again.

The village had many nice examples of

local buildings such as a church, a general 

store, log cabins and a variety of houses

showing different economic levels.  This 

house was spectacular, inside it had such 

gorgeous natural light and great cross

ventilation that made it comfortable to 

be inside even on a very hot day.

I always end up liking the kitchen the most.

The garden was spectacular.

I want this variety of cosmos in my

garden next year.

This was a sewing machine style I had

never seen before.

Isn't that a beauty of a quilt!

One of the houses even had an old crib 

which is something we rarely see.  I

wonder what the age is?

Then it was back in the car for another 4+

hours of driving until we hit Lake Ontario.

We set up our campsite, this was to be home

for the next three days.

We had appetizers as we watched the sun

go down over the lake.  We could see the

skyline of Toronto across the lake.

After sunset we had dinner and then into 

the tent to finally sleep.  It had been a long day...