Corning Museum of Glass

Tuesday, June 27th, we headed off in the morning for Lawrenceville, PA. Roads are either getting better or I’m just getting used to these narrow, winding roads and don’t get as freaked out anymore. I think it’s a combination of the two. We see rolling hills, sheep and cattle grazing, and enjoy lovely temps and sunshine. We arrive at Tompkins Campground in Lawrenceville in the early afternoon. The campground is another Corp of Engineers park. The particular loop we’re on is a narrow one and the sites are tight. Our neighbor across the way comes out when he sees us pull up and offers to move his truck to give us a little more room to maneuver. Very thoughtful. He also stuck around and was an extra pair of eyes for us and offered some helpful tips. We got it in. We decided since this was a particularly tight site, we’d take some measurements so we can use this as a guide for our practice parking sessions when we’re at home. We had a few spot rain showers during the evening but enjoy a lovely afternoon sitting outside with temps in the high 60s. No cell service at the campground, which isn’t a bad thing since I’m getting really low on data anyway.

Wednesday, June 28th, we head to the Corning Museum of Glass which was the purpose of this particular stop. Remarkable place. They have a whole section devoted to Contemporary Glass since the 1970s when private studios became more the norm. Prior to that, it was glass blowers working for companies. Amazing display of large and smaller pieces. The whole facility is huge with several areas where you can watch the artisans work and see glass pieces being made with two facilitators explaining the process… in English and Chinese. We watched a vase being made in front of us with about 50 people watching in a tiered auditorium with large screen TVs and the artisans down front. At the end, they give away a piece to an audience member. Gary won a beautiful blown glass fish about 12 inches long. Lovely! I was VERY excited!!!

Also in the museum, they had some interesting displays of how telescopes work, the process of how ceramic glass was discovered, optical fibre, and the history of glass in general. There was a display of Tiffany Mosaic Glass from the 1920’s. A terrific museum and a very enjoyable way to spend several hours!

After that we headed off to run a few errands. Our errands usually entail the purchase of groceries of some sort and fuel. And, sometimes a Home Depot or Lowes run. This time the Lowes run was helpful because they had a wifi signal so I was able to upload a couple of blog posts and photos and check email on Gary’s laptop.

Once again a lovely weather day and we were able to sit outside once we returned back to camp. Our neighbors (same ones who offered to move their truck the day before) were also supposed to be going to the Corning Museum but they got sidetracked with a Flight Museum and a winery. So we compared notes on our respective museums and were able to give them our tickets to the Corning Museum since the tickets were good for two days. They live in NJ and were at the campground for an FMCA (Family Motor Coaching Association) rally.

Tomorrow we head to Schodack Island State Park just south of Albany, NY which will get us that much closer to home. Hard to believe we’ll be home in three days.