New York State Military Museum (Saratoga Springs, NY) – May 2015

PART SIX (7 May 2015):  NEW YORK MILITARY MUSEUM

When I lived in the area (back in the 1990’s), this building was the armory for the National Guard, thus not a location which was generally open to the public.  It was around 2003 this property was converted into the museum it is now.  The upper floors contain offices, but the majority of the ground level contains the exhibits.

There are displays covering just about every engagement the NY National Guard took part in.  To the immediate left of the entry area were the sections covering the American Revolution, and War of 1812.

Considering we’d just been at the Saratoga Battlefield, it was nice to see the section which spoke about the military and personal history of Benedict Arnold.  While his name is synonymous with “traitor” today, he was a great military commander during his career.

After a small display of the Guard’s involvement in smaller engagements (like the Spanish-American War, and various border disputes), the museum then comes up to the 20^th Century with a section on “The War To End All Wars.”

Some of the items here were a US Calvary uniform, and some of the early machine guns.

The section dealing with World War II was far more detailed.  In addition to some artifacts, it contained maps of the European and Pacific Theatres.

Being able to see to comparisons of the War Bond posters for WWII compared with similar typed items for the “Great War,” shows how WWII was truly a “global conflict.”  World War One (which wasn’t named that until the 1940’s) was in actuality another European war (as there had been many during the 19^th Century).

The area for the Civil War was the largest portion, and equaled the size of the sections for the American Revolution, War of 1812, Spanish-American War, and some other smaller conflicts combined.

This was due to the Civil War’s exhibit being broken down to more of a year-by-year engagement.  While providing a fuller picture of that particular conflict, which was one aspect which was lacking from the other displays.  In reality, in order to do that for all the major engagements, the museum would have to be about three-or-four times its present size.

The Vietnam portion was mostly letters and personal accounts, but surprisingly there was nothing for Korea.  The explanation was the museum was still in the process of getting everything arranged so they could fit it in.  In my opinion, the Civil War area could be dropped by a third to make the available room.

Still, that didn’t hinder my enjoyment of this in the least.  It was a great way to spend an afternoon and learning the local angle on these international events.

For the footprint of the building, and keeping in mind this had been only opened for just over a decade, they did a pretty good job with what was available to them.  As more people come and frequent this, and provide the appropriate donations, then in time we’ll be able to see the other items currently in storage on display.

For more information on the places visited or mentioned:

Saratoga Springs (NY):  http://saratoga-springs.com/

New York Military Museum:  https://dmna.ny.gov/historic/histpocs.html

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Saratoga Battlefield (Saratoga National Historic Park; Stillwater, NY) – May 2015

PART FIVE (7 May 2015):  SARATOGA NATIONAL HISTORIC PARK

Despite the name given to this place because it’s a US National Park, I’ve always known it as “Saratoga Battlefield.”  I think the last time I was here was in high school when we biked the tour trail with the Boy Scouts.  Once again, this was something which was close to me (after all the times I drove from Glens Falls to Saratoga), and I never thought to come over and check it out.  When there is something of interest in your area, especially of historical significance, you should always make it a point to check it out.

This is located off of Route 4 south of Schuylerville (which is also known part of Route 32 here).  During the time when the battle took place, this area was known as “Saratoga,” thus the name was accurate for when the event happened.

After driving in a short distance past lightly-wooded field, you reach the visitor’s center.  I’m sure I’d been inside that building before, but didn’t recall it, so all the more reason to make the return trip.

The visitor’s center has a short film detailing the events of the battle (which took place in September and October 1777), as well as a diorama and artifacts of the period.  One of the things present were some costumes of the period.  I decided to put on the British uniform, because that would make me a “red shirt” and guarantee my death before the end of the episode.  (Apologize for the geeky Star Trek reference.)

I recommend you take the time to examine these items first, as it gives a lot of background of the people involved, like British generals John Burgoyne and Henry Clinton, and American leaders Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold.  The display also gives an overview of how the American Revolution unfolded after the conclusion of the battle, including France and Spain joining the battle against the British, and the eventual American victory.  It is easily arguable that had the American’s lost the battle here, the revolution would’ve soon been crushed.

The major attraction is the park road tour, which can be walked, biked, or driven (depending on your choice).  Even though it was a warm sunny day, we used the car to traverse to each of the stops in order to be most expedient.  As this was a self-guided tour, what was really nice was being able to dial up the audio portion of the tour on my smart phone and listen to it as we wandered around the various stops.

The park is designed to look as it did not long after the conclusion of the engagement, although of the original buildings only the Neilson farmhouse still stands.  During other times of the year, when there were re-enactors present, visitors could go inside the structure.

Near the farmhouse was a tomb to some unknown American soldiers were discovered in the area.  I’m sure when they were buried their identities were known, but that’s faded with time.

At both the American and British forts (called redoubts), there’s a number of white posts spaced out along the hill.  These represent where the fortified walls used to be.  These walls were around seven feet tall during the battle, and made of logs.

While it would’ve been nice to see the battlefield looked during the time of the engagements, it was nice to be able to gaze upon the natural beauty of the area (which doesn’t look much different now than it did a couple hundred years earlier).

As you travel along the park road tour, there’s many small obelisks showing the skirmish sites, and cannons are place where some of the other fortifications stood.

Additionally there’s also monuments to each of the major players involved, like the “boot monument” to Benedict Arnold (as he received a leg wound).

Not all of the monuments and obelisks are at any of the ten sections on the tour.  If you’re biking or walking the park road, then it’s easy to stop and read them all, but it’s a little more difficult to do when driving (unless you want to just let your car idle for a few minutes as you do so).

At the conclusion of the park road tour, near the site of the British hospital, you’re able to see both the Hudson River and current Route 4, which was the “Road to Albany” during the time of the battle.  This gives you some idea of what the combatants were seeing during those days.

There were few others we encountered along the way, so we were able to get the feeling of this place and the perspective of what transpired here.  This was a battlefield where people died at.  Mum commented she gets weird chills when visiting all battlefield, with Gettysburg being the most profound.  I’m sure that has something to do with the “hundreds” killed at Saratoga versus the “thousands” at Gettysburg.  Just my observation there.

Due to this being a pivotal piece of American history, anyone who lives within a reasonable driving distance should make this a destination.

For more information on the places visited or mentioned:

Saratoga National Historic Park (Stillwater, NY):  http://www.nps.gov/sara/index.htm

Schuylerville (NY):  http://www.villageofschuylerville.org/

Battle of Saratoga:  http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/battle-of-saratoga

British General John Burgoyne:  http://www.revolutionary-war.net/john-burgoyne.html

British General Henry Clinton:  http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/americanrevolutio1/p/hclinton.htm

American General Horatio Gates:  http://www.britannica.com/biography/Horatio-Gates

American Commander Benedict Arnold:  http://www.biography.com/people/benedict-arnold-9189320#early-life

Battle of Gettysburg:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gettysburg

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ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain (Burlington, VT) – May 2015

PART FOUR (5 May 2015):  ECHO LEAHY CENTER FOR LAKE CHAMPLAIN

We spotted the brochure for this at a kiosk, and figured it would be worth the trip to check it out.  This is located right in Burlington close to the water front, right at the end of College Street.  While there’s public pay lots by the boardwalk and nearby bike trail, there’s a lot by the museum who will validate the parking fees for you.  Named for work done for the lake by Senator Patrick Leahy, this is a hand-on science museum dedicated to the ecology of Lake Champlain.  (“ECHO” in the name stands for “Ecology, Culture, History, and Opportunities for stewardship.”)  It first opened in 2003.

The first thing I noticed was this huge piece of stone sitting in the foyer, with many strata layers.  This is a piece of an ancient coral system known as the Chazy Reef, and was unearthed on Isle La Motte (the northernmost island in Lake Champlain).  It’s quite impressive to know it’s around 500 million years old (dating from a time when the area was a shallow ocean).

Inside the museum are many stations available for interactive learning (like comparing the mercury levels of fish), and small tanks for marine life (like turtles, mudpuppies, crabs, fish, and the like).

There’s also a short movie on the ecology of Lake Champlain.  An interesting little sidebar is Lake Champlain was promoted (although briefly) by President Clinton in March 1998 as part of the National Sea Grant Program.  The Great Lake status didn’t even last an entire month before it was rescinded.  There was a display which showed the comparative sizes and depths of the Great Lakes, it’s clear that Lake Champlain is nowhere close to either parameter.  In all honesty, if something was to get promoted to be a Great Lake, in my opinion that’d be Georgian Bay (a rather significant extension of Lake Huron).

A fun exhibit in the museum deal with metrology, which was produced by Plattsburgh TV station WPTZ.  This allowed someone to stand in front of a green screen and read a weather report from a telepropter.  The complete image was displayed nearby, so others could watch you give the weather report with the appropriate background behind you.

Mum did one where she talked about shoveling show.  Of course, as I do with most things, I found a way to pervert it.  I chose the report dealing with thunderstorms (because of the background of lightning strikes it would provide), and ad-libbed this being a prelude to a meteor-strike which was going to kill humanity.  I even sang (badly) REM’s “End of the World” at one point in my joyful report of the apocalyptic events.

The exhibit also allowed you to have the copy of your report sent to your email, so you could save it and watch it again.  I wasn’t going to miss that opportunity to retain the goofy fun like that.  (I do have to note that when I later received the report, the lead-in from the anchors was generic and had absolutely nothing to do with the report I did.  The same was true for Mum’s video.)

No museum about Lake Champlain would be complete without a display of Champ, the lake’s alleged prehistoric denizen.  Considering the size and depth of the lake, it’s highly unlikely it’s a plesiosaur or some other aquatic dinosaur could exist there without being noticed.

Chances are the original sightings by the Native Americans were of large eels or similarly-shaped fish, and the story then grew in each telling to what it is now.  I would love to get confirmation of a new or previously-thought extinct species which matches Champ’s description.  That would be a celebration for all cryptozoologists everywhere.  But the scientific likelihood is low of that happening.  I feel the same way about Loch Ness, too.  Sorry, peeps.  Like Mulder, I want to believe, but I need the evidence to do so.

One of the more thought-provoking exhibits was on the zebra mussels, an invasive species currently being found within the lake.  Inadvertently introduced back in the late 1980’s, displays show how the zebra mussels cover underwater formations in the lake, including valuable historical shipwrecks, so can’t be studied.  The bike pictured here is a good example of how the mussels cover things.

Because there are no natural predators of the mussels in the lake, their infestation is upsetting the balance of the natural food chain, and could potentially change the ecological composition of the lake.  There’s a running joke the zebra mussels killed Champ.  Setting the humor aside for the moment, the display does talk about what was being done to combat the infestation in hopes of preserving the ecology of the lake.

At one point, I went out on the second-level patio to get some pictures of the lake, and noticed the sun dial that was sitting out there.  That falls into the category of things I find when I check to see if doors can be opened.  No other exhibits are out there, but it’s nice to be able to see the body of water the museum is dedicated to.

This is a great place to go for an afternoon of learning.  Keep in mind while many of the exhibits are targeted towards children, there’s enough informative stuff to interest adults.

As a quick aside, we wanted to go a few blocks over to the pedestrian street to get some ice cream at the local Ben & Jerry’s store.  It was too far for my parents to walk, so we drove over there.  The parking meter was set for increments of 15 minutes, and I pumped in enough money to give us an hour, so we could sit and enjoy.  The damn meter only registered 15 minutes, and ate the rest of my money.  Okay, we thought perhaps we could get cones for road, but the line at the store was so long there was no way we’d be able to get our stuff and back to the car within the allotted time.  That was a bummer too, as there were a lot of interesting shops on Church Street we would’ve loved to explore.

For more information on the places visited or mentioned:

ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain (Burlington, VT):  http://www.echovermont.org/

Burlington (VT):  http://www.burlingtonvt.gov/

Lake Champlain:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Champlain

Senator Patrick Leahy:  https://www.leahy.senate.gov/

Chazy Reef :  http://www.ilmpt.org/ilmpt/The_Chazy_Reef_on_Isle_La_Motte.html

National Sea Grant Program :  http://seagrant.noaa.gov/

Georgian Bay:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Bay

My Video Cast:  http://www.echovermont.org/wxvideos/view.html?uid=31e740592da06d6cfe2dcb5369d80cad

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Vermont Teddy Bear Company (Shelburne, VT) – May 2015

PART THREE (5 May 2015):  VERMONT TEDDY BEAR COMPANY

I first heard Vermont Teddy Bear being advertised on the radio back in 1986 when it was a prize given away on PYX-106 radio.  I even ordered one for a girl I liked in 1994 (I had to order the “business bear,” as they was the closest they had to one working on the computer, which was how we met).  After that, it pretty much slipped my mind, and it never occurred to me I could do a factory tour.  If it had, Lee and I would’ve probably stopped by when we did our trek to the Ben & Jerry’s Factory in 2006.  But when I was checking out things to do in the area for this trip, I saw this and decided it looked like a fun thing to do.

The company was founded in 1983, and later moved to the colorful barn location here in Shelburne.  It wasn’t too far from the Shelburne Museum (which I’d been to during high school field trips).  While I recalled passing Shelburne Museum during my 2006 visit to the region, I don’t recall seeing the sign for Vermont Teddy Bear.  Perhaps we were simply talking and I missed the sign?

The tour takes under 30 minutes, and gives the information of how the fabric is cut and assembled on site.  There didn’t seem to be much production currently going on, but this was also the “slow” period of the year.  I figured since they have a bunch already in stock, so they’d just need to build ones to replenish stock as the bears were being ordered.

We were given a bear-shaped piece of fabric (roughly about the size of our hand) to wear as part of the tour swag.  There was a slit on the “head” of the bear, so it fit over the buttons we’d been given.  So if you seeing something that looks like a brown stain on my shirt in the pictures, you know now what it was.

We were told us how authenticity of the bears are maintained by the five points of articulation they have (hips, shoulders, and neck), and the “Born in Vermont” written on the eyes.  Part of the design of the bears includes the way the pieces are assembled so they can’t be pulled apart by young hands (so no chance of a baby plucking out a bear’s eye and swallowing it).  Our tour guide, Matt, didn’t miss any bear-related puns along the way, which added a level of fun to the experience.

From having ordered one previously, I already knew about how the “Bear-Gram” (when a bear is mail-ordered and shipped to someone) comes in a box with an “air hole” so the bear could breathe.  The box also had notations about which side was “up,” so the bear wouldn’t be transported on its head.  A map on the wall during the tour showed some of the places where they were shipped to.

I already knew from hearing past information the bears would be repaired at this location, but it was amusing to see some of the levels of wounds these bears had sustained.  I knew I’d see a victim of a dog attack, but I didn’t expect to see a bear which had been used as an oven-mitt (with grill marks burned into the back) or one that had tangled with a lawnmower.

As long as they were able to authenticate the bear came from Vermont Teddy Bear, they’d repair or replace the bear.  And all the bears in post-op got a honey IV drip.

My father asked a good question about the assembly.  As we’d been told on the tour everything was made in the US, he wanted to know where the stuff came from.  Our tour guide let us know the stuffing was made of recycled material, and was shipped from the Detroit-area.  That was nice to know that 100% of the bear was US-made.  There was a display showing the stuffing with a sky-diving bear in it, and of course I was going to play with it to turn it into the wind-tunnel.

All the bears were customizable.  Once you decided what color you wanted, then you get accessories for the theme you choice.  Examples of these were in the gift shop, like a snowboarder, firefighter, “Orange Is the New Bear,” and zombie.

For the younger crowd, there’s an area where guests could construct their own bear from the various components available.  There were bins of various arms, legs, and heads, which Dad and I played around with.

I did consider actually doing the build-a-bear workshop to make my own, so I could get a birth certificate for it.  The main reason I didn’t was because it wasn’t something I needed, nor did I have anyone to give it to after.  Also, I would’ve wanted my bear to have two heads.  So I filled out one of the birth certificates to honor my favorite musician King Diamond.  Figured that was twisted enough for me.

On a side room, which wasn’t part of the tour, was a section about their sister-company which does the PajamaGram.  Nothing kinky here, just you can order matching PJ’s for the entire family or a particular person.  The PJ’s were just hanging on a rack, and not as fun as the teddy bears in their display.

Outside there’s a couple places for photo opportunities, and some easy chairs to lounge in (to get a nice view of the Shelburne Airport).  This was a nice roadside stop, and I was glad we were able to do so.  It was fun.  I wished I’d seen this on my earlier trip when I could’ve shared it with someone special.  Perhaps that will be a reason to make a return trip, or place an order soon.

For more information on the places visited or mentioned:

Vermont Teddy Bear Company:  http://www.vermontteddybear.com/

Shelburne (VT):  http://www.shelburnevt.org/

Shelburne Museum:  https://shelburnemuseum.org/

PajamaGram: http://www.pajamagram.com/

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