Day 38 July 25, 2016 Seneca Falls NY to Wellsboro PA

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Under a heavy overcast sky, we drove south along a delightful road parallel to a lake, including passing many vineyards.  This area of New York is very well known for growing grapes and making good wine.

We saw a sign to Taughannock Falls, and decided to detour to see it.  The falls was reputed to be 50 feet taller than Niagara Falls, but not today. With little rain, it was barely a trickle.  It was still a beautiful setting, and we could imagine it with plenty of water it would be great to see.  There was an interpretive sign showing a fancy resort, right whether the park visitor center now sits, with lots of tourists coming to see the falls. 

We were on our way to Elmira, New York, as we pursued one of our ongoing themes:  Mark Twain.  Twain’s wife was from Elmira, and the couple spent many summers on their land outside the town.   They built a writing studio, which was where he wrote many of this famous works including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.    

The house where he lived in the summer is not open to the public, currently owned by Elmira College but the study was moved to the Elmira College campus and we had the chance to visit it there.  It, s well as some additional small museum exhibits in a neighboring building were staffed by less than enthusiast college students, but we enjoyed seeing them.   It was cool to be in the room where a genius writer had worked.

While we were in the study, it began to rain, and it rained hard as we dashed far across the campus to where we parked our car.  In the pouring rain, we looked for and found the Twain grave site.  We have on an earlier trip seen his birthplace in Missouri, his boyhood home in Hannibal Missouri, his adult home in Connecticut, and now his grave site.    

Shortly after we left the cemetery, headed towards Corning NY, the rain stopped and we had a pleasant drive to go see the Corning Glass Museum.  This museum both had a stunning collection of blown glass from thousands of  years ago to current modern pieces.   A special exhibit was accurate reproductions of invertebrate animal by Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka.  This octopus is one example.

The museum had examples of some of the earliest glass formed by people, dating back to about 1500 BCE.  The blowing of glass began about the first century BCE.  The museum had examples of this early glass as well as the work that was refined in Venice and then spread throughout the world.  One amazing example of what can now be done with glass was Karen LaMonte's full-sized "Evening Dress with Shawl."

The museum is also a place that has working glass blowing artists including several “hotshops” with auditorium seating so it was possible to watch narrated shows of a master glass blower making a small piece of glass, such as a vase. One of the stunning things they have been able to do is to put a camera right behind special glass so you could see inside the furnace as the glass was being heated.

Dick was especially intrigued by his close up view of an artist doing torchwork, making components of a multi-piece sculpture.    This was a fascinating process.  This was a combination of blowing the class and working with it using a heated glass rod and other tools.

We were pleased after several hours of our exploring the museum, to be joined by our friends Gere and Betty and their daughter Rowan who are members of the museum.   They have enjoyed supporting the museum as well as having taken the chance to make their own blown glass ornaments.  We were not able to do that this time, due to needing to come pick them up the next day.  Sometime we will do our own glass blowing experience.  The five of us did further exploring of the exhibits. What a fine museum!

We then walked around appreciating the successful efforts to make the downtown area vibrant. Patti couldn’t resist the chance to get her picture taken with the world’s largest  Pyrex measuring cup in the Corning Outlet store.

The five of us then went to dinner at a local pub and enjoyed the good food and good company.  We then drove to Wellsboro PA, where the family lives and where we would stay for the next two nights.