Author: sandcastle

We all know the song, right? “In 1814 we took a little trip…” We all know the war of 1812 was about the Battle of New Orleans, right? Ever wonder why that battle of The War of 1812 took place in 1814?

Because the battle of 1812 took place in Plattsburg, New York. On September 11th. Today Plattsburg is commemorating that battle with a parade and other events. We celebrated it by going to The War of 1812 Museum.

Why there was a war:

Where the battle took place:

The women’s perspective:

Most of the displays in the museum did not photograph well. Suffice it to say there were displays about women soldiers, sailors, spies, and keeping the home fires burning. With the normal lack of recognition for most of that.

But, some women became famous:

Note that Fanny Doyle was compared to the “Maid of Orleans” not New Orleans. The Battle of New Orleans was still two years away. But it is the only one most of us think about when we think of the War of 1812.

Someone needs to write a new song.

TTYL,

Linda

There’s a friendly rivalry between owners of motorhomes that tow a car and owners of trucks that tow a trailer. The trailer owners claim they have to maintain only one engine while motorhome owners have to maintain two engines. I say they’re both wrong.

Neither of them is thinking about the engine in their generator. We recently put 50 hours on our generator and the display came up with a message that it’s time for service. It was due for its first oil change.

So we spent a couple hours today at Cummins Northeast In Syracuse, New York, an authorized Onan Generator service facility. I wish I thought to take pictures of the guy stretched out in the driveway under our RV emptying oil into a 10 gallon bucket. But, we’re good to go again.

It’s windy today so we didn’t go far. But, that’s good because Dave wants to change our route again so I have research to do before we leave here. We need to know which road we are taking from Watertown, New York. On up State Route 11 like our most recent plan says or east on SR 3 which someone just had to tell Dave is a very scenic drive through the mountains. 🙂 It’s more than a one day trip for us through those mountains so we (read I) need to know there’s someplace decent to camp along the way. I’m off to do that research now.

TTYL,

Linda

Once a major transportation system, now a major walking path. Although, if you look closely at the right bank of the left picture below you can see the top step of a series that still leads down to the water today in case you want to load your boat here.

The Erie Canal Museum had many items I found interesting.

The museum is in a former canal weighlock building. The canal was originally a toll road. Boats were weighed to see how much should be charged for their passage. The gravel is where the water used to be and behind the big glass windows is a canal boat in the weighing area.

As you can see from the model below, not all boats were required to go through the locks. Some were canal maintenance boats and some had been weighed at other scales. In the background you can see the video game that teaches you about various types of boats and how the charges were based on types of goods carried as well as their weight. I made assistant dockmaster by weighing enough boats in a timely manner to help pay for the building of the canal. 🙂

We went aboard a sample canal boat. As you can see, there not much of it above the water–those low bridges, you know.

Boats, like RVs, make the best use of space possible. Here we see storage under benches where people could sit. And the very short beds available. Picture Dave rotated horizontally; I think his legs would hang off his from knees down. There was plenty of head room, though, to allow for maximum amout of cargo I suspect.

Reading about women’s jobs on the canal felt like I’d never left the Women’s Rights Museum. Note the secondary “position” women were expected to fill.

The museum had exhibits upstairs as well. You could climb the stairs following the levels of rising water painted on the walls or you could enter the lock, otherwise known as an elevator.

The inside of the elevator was painted to look like you were inside the lock on a canal boat listening to a father and son talk about the process of going through the lock.

Upstairs there were exhibits about other places in Syracuse. The tavern was my favorite one because of the sign on its register.

That’s all for today, folks. Hope you enjoyed the ride.

TTYL,

Linda

Seneca Falls, New York. Those word immediately bring to my mind the fight for women’s rights. Yesterday we visited there and my mind has been spinning ever since.

As seen above, the park is actually spread over several sites. We stopped only at the visitor center. Before I even finished looking at all the displays there my mind was on overload. So much to absorb even though I knew most of it before.

One of the things I did not know was that the original presentation of the women’s thoughts were written based on the Declaration of Independence with which we are more familiar with some changes in the wording. The women’s declaration states, ” We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.”

One of the displays quoted  the Bible as the basis for this thought. In Genesis 1 it is written, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Note that this does not say God made woman subordinate to man.

This quote shows what happened after that.

At the time of most of these displays the main question of the day was slavery. Were slaves people? Did they have rights? As is still typical today, women addressed themselves to these social questions.

The combination of slave’s rights and women’s rights were well represented in the person of Sojourner Truth.

Many people supported the concepts of women’s rights.

These people each did what they could, drawing on their own skills. When Elizabeth Cady Stanton could not travel she could still write speeches for others to make.

There are many side roads of the issues of women’s rights and many are still being decided all these years later.

I watched a man going quickly from one display to another with only a glance at each relating to women’s domestic issues. He stopped a little longer at the one relating to sports. So, I began thinking about women’s sports. When I was in high school we were taught women’s basketball rules. It was thought then, in the early 1960s mind you, that it was injurious to women’s health for them to run about getting hot and sweaty. So we were allowed to stand still while dribbling the basket ball but once we started to move we could only go two steps before were were required to either shoot a basket or pass the ball to another player.

Then I saw this:

And I was reminded again of my high school years when my school had a girl’s dress code that allowed us to wear slacks to school only on Friday and only if there was a football game right after school and we wore those slacks, not jeans, under our regular school clothes. Those clothes required a skirt hem that reached below our knees. If a girl’s hemline was in question she was required to kneel on the floor. If her skirt did not then touch the floor she could be sent home.

Women today are still fighting for their rights to be treated as equal to men, primarily now in the work place and in political office. How far do you think we have come in more than a century?

On the way home we saw this sight which reminded me we all still have hope.

TTYL,

Linda

Deadlines are a familiar word to most working people. You have certain tasks that must be completed by a certain time. We thought that word would be completely dropped from our vocabulary once we retired. We were wrong. We don’t have as many deadlines as we used to have but they are still there.

For instance, in Minnesota every summer we have the deadlines of when we need to be there for medical appointments. If we make reservations for camping, we have deadlines for arriving. If we register for a rally, we have a deadline we try to meet.

We are on our way to Maine to see our daughter. She is leaving on vacation September 21st. Our planned route and stops along the way will take us somewhere between 12 and 18 days to get there. Which works.

But then we face the other major deadline we face every year. Winter. Our list of things we’d like to see in New England while we are there has nearly 50 items on it. That’s the list of things to see AFTER we visit our daughter. Then there’s nearly 50 more items we’d like to see before we get south far enough to escape winter. If we visit one site a day that’s three months!

We don’t plan to make another trip to New England so what do we do about all those sites we want to see? I guess we dawdle less along the way there. So, no we are not going to the Gypsy Gathering next week. We need to be moving on. We can catch another Gypsy Gathering somewhere down the road much easier that we can see those sites that are so far away. New England, here we come.

TTYL,

Linda