Stranger in Town

I have been away from blogging for the last several days because Mother and Father of Ken were here visiting. They were supposed to arrive on Saturday evening, but due to a demonstration of stupidity at the Detroit airport that can only be rivaled by the US Postal Service, they did not arrive until Sunday.

Now that the weather is a little nicer, they helped me with some yard work to improve the curb appeal of the house since it is on the market. We planted the flower beds, cleared out the dead stuff, and made everything look much nicer. Father of Ken also took care of several other small projects including fixing the sump pump, repainting the house numbers, and replacing the light bulb in the hall going upstairs. Here are the results of our hard work:

Much better. We're having a big open house this weekend, so the timing was great.

On Monday, Father of Ken had to take care of some business on the west side of Seneca Lake, leaving Mother of Ken and I to shop. We were quite successful.

On Tuesday, we went to the Episcopal church in Moravia, NY (where there is also a nudist colony that we did NOT visit) to see their carved wood sanctuary and stained glass windows. Our next stop was Auburn, NY and the Willard Memorial Chapel, the only extant chapel in which everything was designed by the Tiffany Co. After lunch, we went to the Cayuga Museum, which is also a historic home and a huge disappointment because they do not label anything. Imagine going into a really cool old home full of random artifacts including clothing from various time periods and a huge exhibit of photos and news articles about Vietnam with absolutely no explanation about what anything is, why it is there, or anything else. That was a bust.

However, I have finally succeeded in seeing the Seneca Falls Historical Society Museum after three tries. M and I tried to go twice in October, but had no luck. Mother and Father of Ken and I went on a whim on a Tuesday in April and we were able to get a private tour of the historic home in which the Historical Society is housed. The house is 23 rooms and we saw all of them--read all about the house on their website if you're interested in more information. As we were leaving, the woman who gave our tour told us to stop at Bellwether Cidery to try their hard cider. Delicious--we really enjoyed our tasting and brought three bottles home with us. We only drank one, but I'm saving the other two for when I move and we need a refreshing beverage ;-)

Wednesday we spent in Ithaca since Mother and Father of Ken had to get to the airport in the afternoon. We went to Cornell to see Sage Chapel and the Abraham Lincoln exhibit at the library as well as the Johnson Museum of Art. After lunch, we went to the new soda fountain at Palmer Pharmacy downtown before Mother and Father of Ken had to head home.

In all, it was a productive, relaxing mini-vacation for everyone and McKenna especially liked having house guests. She has been moping around for the past few days and gazing forlornly into Mother and Father of Ken's room.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

I apologize, gentle readers, for not posting anything for a while. Now I am back to tell you all about last weekend, when my college friends Leah and Melissa came to visit. We met ten years ago at Hood College, which was a women's college at that time, and we decided that it would be appropriate for us to spend Saturday in historic Seneca Falls.

On the way, we drove past Wells College, which also used to be a women's college and has since gone co-ed. They were part of our athletic conference, so we were happy to drive by and wave.

On to Seneca Falls:

You may recall that my friend M and I tried to visit Seneca Falls about a month ago and didn't have much luck. The house that we tried to see then isn't open on Saturdays, but Leah and Melissa and I decided to go to the Women's Rights National Historical Park, which was open.

They offer tours of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's house and the Wesleyan Chapel, but since those weren't for another hour, we spent some time in the museum in the visitor's center. The exhibits are a diverse collection of items pertaining to women's history and women's rights, including this reproduction advertisement:

There was also a "uterine support" in the same case--I'll spare you the photograph.

They had a lot of audio-visual things and one of them was a TV monitor that showed conversations about women's issues and then gave you the opportunity to vote and express your opinion. This was one of the questions:

We, of course, voted "yes." These were the results:

Never allow women's college graduates to be unattended in such an exhibit. They will vote multiple times to "correct" the voting in answer to the aforementioned question.

Melissa and me looking at a globe:

When we had seen all of the exhibits, we went down to the theater to see the introductory film before we went on our tours. The film was pretty good until it totally died at the part when they were talking about Amelia Bloomer, so we ended up having to leave the theater to tell the park ranger that it broke. That is when we were told that the tour of the Wesleyan Chapel would begin shortly and that we should wait in the lobby for them to announce it. So, we waited. And we waited. And we waited. And about 25 minutes later, they were still standing around talking and not taking us on a tour, so we decided to tour the chapel ourselves. This is what is left of the chapel where the women gathered for the women's rights convention in 1948:

This is the fountain/monument between the chapel and the visitor's center:

They are in the process of restoring the chapel, so this is pretty much all there is to see right now:

After we saw the chapel, there still was no tour leader in evidence, so we decided to go and eat lunch and skip the Elizabeth Cady Stanton house assuming that they were not likely to offer that tour either. All in all, I am disappointed with Seneca Falls. You would think that for a place of such historic importance, they would be better organized and better equipped to handle visitors. Maybe things are better in the summer...

So, just as I did when M and I were disappointed by Seneca Falls, we ended up at the outlet mall in Waterloo, which is across the street from this fine establishment:

After a long day of sightseeing and shopping, we came back to my house for a fondue feast using the fondue pot that Aunt and Uncle of Ken gave me for Christmas last year. Here is the cheese on the stove:

Cutting up some bread:

In addition to fondue, we had delicious cookies from Leah:

And adult beverages:

Kenna set the table:

Apples for the fondue--these are Sweetango apples, my new favorite:

Leah also brought apple-cherry crumble bars, which were so good that I kept half of them and ate most of them on Sunday and Monday:

Here's our spread including cheese fondue, bread cubes, purple cauliflower, grape tomatoes, and Sweetango apples:

Mmmm....cheese....

I love this picture with the little cheese tail:

Blob of cheese:

The sink when we were done:

We had an awesome weekend (too short, though) and none of us wanted to face the week ahead. Life would be so much better if you could shop and eat fondue all day every day.