Seneca Falls, NY--September 18, 2012

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Tuesday, September 18th was a rainy, rainy day as we left the campground and drove up the highway to the town of Seneca Falls. On the main street of town, is the Women Rights National Historic Park. The visitor's center is housed next door to the Wesleyan Chapel, which was the site of the first convention. This place was well known to them as the church that was a local haven for antislavery activity, political rallies, and free speech events.

Dominating the first floor of the center, is Sculptor Lloyd Lily's "The First Wave," which features life size bronzes of each of the important participants; statues of the five women who organized the First Women's Rights Convention, and a few of the men who came in support of social, political, and religious equality for women. We saw a film of the activities of this group and then toured the museum of the Women's Rights Movement on the second floor. For more information, visit www.nps.gov/wori (Please note the other links are not ours.)

Ate some lunch in a cafe down the street and then ran across the street in the rain to get a few t-shirts commemorating women’s rights. We then drove out to Montezuma Wildlife Refuge, which was established to restore the marshes that had been destroyed by construction of the Erie Canal system.

After looking into the visitor's center, we drove around the whole area looking at ponds and wetlands in order to spot waterfowl. Among the 5 million, seven hundred and sixteen Canada Geese, we saw Northern Shovelers, Blue winged teals, Pied-billed grebes, some wood ducks, and others. It was interesting how this very large refuge bordered the Interstate and the birds didn’t seem to notice.

Since by this time it was quite late, we drove back through the town of Seneca Falls and Waterloo and then turned onto highway 96 to SamsonState Park on LakeSeneca. This Park was once a WWII training camp prior to being turned over to the state for a park. Some of the buildings from that era are used as a recreation center and a WWII museum. New York campgrounds frequently don’t have water at the site and their electrical hookups are shared, which often means you really need an extension cord to get plugged in. We worked quite a bit to get Rosie into a sort of flat spot for the night and still connected. Sharon held the cord while Valerie maneuvered until Sharon could plug it in; otherwise, we would find a flat spot, and couldn’t reach the post.

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