Westward Bound

Day 35

October 11, 2010

Westward Bound

We officially pointed the car west today.  We left Vermont and came into New York on a ferry that crossed Lake Champlain and docked in Essex.  This area played a big role in the Revolutionary War and is near Ft. Ticonderoga which played a strategic role in both the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War.  The colors and rolling hills of Vermont just continue in upstate New York and we continue on until we arrive in Lake Placid, NY.  Home of the Winter Olympics in 1932 and 1980, I was surprised that the city is so small.  An open door let us into the ice arena where a women’s hockey team was practicing.  The ski ramps tower above the city and can be easily seen.

Most of our time was spent at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont.  This recommendation came from the good folks at the church dinner.  From what they said we expected a small museum with an architecturally interesting round barn.  Well!  We were surprised to find that the campus is 45 acres with over 30 buildings housing exhibits with everything from vintage crazy quilts from the mid-1800s to modern art by Ansel Adams.  Plus, the ferry ship Ticonderoga was transported two miles in about 66 days over land from Lake Champlain to the museum grounds. It was the last side paddle wheel passenger steamer working.  Many obstacles were overcome to transport the ship.  One interesting site was watching the historical footage of the transport and seeing it stop at a railroad track while the train passed!  It ran at 23 knots and carried over 1000 passengers and two men shoveling coal into a double boiler at the rate of one ton per hour!  In contrast to this behemoth there was a delightful display of carousel menagerie in the round barn.  Menagerie carousels lost favor as the children always chose the friendly horses and avoided lions, cheetahs, giraffes and other less familiar animals.  Nevertheless these carvings were so exquisite that you could see veins in their neck and practically see their breath on the frosty October air.  A beautiful quilt exhibit, Alzheimer’s:  Forgetting the Pieces displayed 52 pieces of quilt art each accompanied by a story explaining the inspiration for the quilt.  Made my family members of sufferers of Alzheimers, caregivers, each quilt is accompanied by a background story.  The quilt makers were friends, family members, care givers, adults, children, amateurs and professions.  This was a moving personalized display as each story lit up the life of the person memorialized.  Ansel Adams and Edward Burtynsky had a display titled “Constructed Landscapes”.  Ansel Adams’ art was familiar black and white nature photographs that capture the pristine beauty of our wild landscape   Burtynsky’s art, in full color, was less familiar.  Interested in oil he sought to show the full impact of oil on the human experience.  His photos included California oil drilling, deconstruction of tanker ships on the shores of Bangladesh.  It was a diverse and interesting experience and we left much unseen.