Corning Glass Museum--September 20, 2012 (afternoon)

---

Thursday, September 20th, afternoon



Hit the road south again following 414 to the town of Corning. After we crossed under the Interstate, there was a big parking lot for the CorningGlassMuseum, which we pulled into. From here you can take a shuttle bus to the museum, the Museum of Western Art, and downtown Corning. We waited a little bit for the next shuttle and then boarded the bus. We were really surprised when the GlassMuseum was about 2 blocks away!

We first ate lunch in their cafeteria and then spent the rest of the afternoon touring the Corning Museum of Glass. Absolutely a fabulous facility with glass demonstrations and exhibits, a glass collection equal to none that chronicles the history of glass from the beginning of glass making to modern times, and a huge sales department. Apparently, the museum is a stop or destination for many bus tours out of New York as there were many different nationalities represented in the cafeteria.

The exhibits presented the history of making glass, such as the development of sheet glass, bottle-making, development of safety glass products, fiber optics, and various other glass innovations. We watched several various short demonstrations, not just glass blowing, but also glass breaking, which was really a demonstration of glass stress points for different types of glass products.

From one of the photos, you can see how high the flood waters reach reached last year from hurrican Irene. Can you imagine having to clean up after that storm?

After looking and shopping and looking some more, we walked back to Rosie and drove about 10 miles west on Interstate 86 and then exited onto CR 333 and then highway 415 to Camp Bell RV Park near the community of Campbell. The rates were reasonable (cheaper than the state parks with full hookups) and they had free wifi. Settled in on a grassy spot under some trees. Starting raining in the night and continued the next day so we decided to stay put and rest for another day .

---