I Went to the New York State Fair!

Can you believe it? I’ve lived in New York all my life, even a few miles away from the fairgrounds, and have never been. Finally, now that I am {unintelligible} years old, I went! It was a very pleasant experience. Here are some the highlights.

Hands down, our favorite part of the fair was the Harlem Wizards. When I was a kid, I absolutely loved the Harlem Globetrotters. I always wanted to see them perform live, but I never got the chance. The Harlem Wizards, the brainchild of Howie Davis in 1962, were brought together to give the Globetrotters a little competition. And indeed they do! The boys and I loved their show. Swoop (Dwayne Simpson), Broadway (Eric Jones), RoadRunner James Tyndal) and G-Wiz (Gordon Malone) got the audience involved in a few games and really put on a great — but all too brief! — show. These guys rock!

I also enjoyed the horse show. We got to “visit” with a few of the horses in the “waiting room” of the arena. They are such beautiful animals.

There was also an Iroquois longhouse display and an entire area devoted to local Iroquois tribes cultures and art, with loads of gift shops.

Some of the displays were very nice. This is a handmade birch bark canoe, crafted from all natural materials. Read more

The Erie Canal Village, Rome, NY, Part 3

You can read Part 1 and Part 2 and my video post of the packet boat ride is here. We spent all day at the Village, and there was so much to discover! Our Packet Boat ride was set to begin. It cost us $6 per person, so it was very pricey. But I suspect that a lot of the ticket money goes toward the feeding and care of the horses, who draw the boat up and down this portion of the canal twice a day.

Here comes the team for the boat.

The line for the boat ride was rather long in the hot afternoon sun. There were a lot of people. We choose seats on benches on the top of the boat. After everyone was settled and a warning given, the horses started off. A young man with a thick stick pushed the boat back away from the bank and got the boat going. Read more

Photo Hunters: Pointed

Yesterday we stepped back in time. We visited the Erie Canal Village in Rome, NY. It was an absolute blast! So I’m tying in today’s Photo Hunt with our visit. (This week, I’ll post all about our trip with loads of photos and a few videos).

There are a lot of pointed things we saw, from ink pens to axes. But there was a certain machine that caught our eye. It’s an old mowing machine!

We saw it in action here.

That mower easily sliced the tall grasses of the meadow. The farmer mowed in a circle, and after he had completed one full circle, he stopped to let the horses rest for a moment; he continued with this pattern for about an hour. The air was so sweet after the farmer mowed. Birds were darting across the mowed hay, gobbling up the bugs that jumped from the meadow. A mouse skittered out of the meadow, across our path, and leaped back into the grasses to hide. The horses were beautiful to watch.

I’ll explain more of our visit when I get all the photos uploaded! Until then…