I Wanna Travel First Class!: September 24, A 9-11 Museum

We left the cute little Pine Hollow Campground in the morning, and headed for Albany. One of our goals was to find some apples at an orchard again, and maybe get some hiking in. Of course, neither of those goals were realized that day. But before we left, we found out some really interesting things about our wonderful little campsite!

We had a very nice drive into Albany. It is almost sad to leave Vermont again. I really like the mountains there, and in New Hampshire! Along the way, we decided we were getting a bit hungry, so started watching for somewhere to stop. We found the perfect little place!

Big Moose and Country Store was really interesting!

This guy reminds me of Jeff! I think it is the blue
eyes....

So funny.... ;)

We had to take our own pics, as there was
no one else around at the time!

Almost bought some...

One of the other things that we had on our plate was to contact Uncle Earle and get some kind of tour of the local fire departments or something. He was a firefighter there, and then became a fire prevention officer who was somehow involved in the 9-11 cleanup. I am a little fuzzy on all the details of what he did and when, but we got in touch with him and he offered to pick us up and take us down to the Albany fire memorial. We ended up driving to his home, and he loaded us up and off we went. Driving through that town was a nightmare in the coach, so I was really glad to sit back and relax while someone else drove!

The egg building. The only one left. Very space age!

But we weren't done! Uncle Earle then took us into the museum. Albany has a wonderful museum there, with a huge area for the 9-11 terror attacks. It was very humbling. And all very sad, even after 13 years.

Only 1 of these men survived.

It saddens me that so many have really forgotten that day, and what it meant. And there are so many school children that don't really have a good grasp of what happened. Sort of like our generation not understanding the horrible things that happened during the Civil War, and then the World Wars. And it is sad that they live in such an artificial world with movies, the internet and computer games, that can tend to make all this reality look more like fantasy. I hope they don't have to find out what reality like this is.

Albany also had a very nice fire apparatus museum there. We took some pics of some very old apparatus! Amazing that they are so well preserved, too. I didn't capture the information about each one, so sorry.

There were a couple of other interesting exhibits in the museum that we cruised by to check out. This is a wonderful museum! You should check it out if you are ever in the Albany area.

And, Uncle Earle was not done with us yet! I had no idea what we were getting into when he decided to take us through the security check point into the capitol. At first, I thought he might be just messing with the guards there. But, sure enough we went on in, and then got the grand tour! I was a little worried at this point...

But, sure enough, he knew exactly where he was going! Right into the capitol, which is old and quite beautiful! If you are ever in Albany, I highly recommend checking this building out if you like architecture and old buildings.

From the outside.

Notice the stained glass windows in the courtyard.

There were hundreds of faces in stone.

The grand staircase was maybe 4 stories? I didn't think
to count.

Frankly, the faces were a bit creepy.

There were awesome brass fixtures, too.

We finally got back to the car, only to find out that he had a couple of other stops on our way back to his house. Uncle Earle really knows a lot about his town! It was great to be shown around so well.

This place was really pretty.

Jeff and Uncle Earle!

The Falls.... the sound was amazing!

An old plant in that town that has been converted
to apartments. It was HUGE!

On our way back, Uncle Earle indicated he had one more stop to make. Apparently there is a local icon there that we just had to see about for ourselves. So, many of you know me, and know that I just don't eat stuff like that.... so to be polite, I went ahead and decided to eat just one, as they were small. And they were excellent! We went back to Uncle Earle's house, and ate in his backyard. He has a wonderful mix of fruit trees and a nice little garden. The grapes on the arbor were perfectly ripe, too.

We thanked Uncle Earle for his offer to park in his driveway, but wanted to head on out a bit towards Lake Placid. However, as it turned out, we just ended up in a Walmart parking lot in a town not too far from him. We needed to pick up a couple things in Walmart and once we got out it was getting late..... yes, we got distracted in Walmart! Check this out! The perfect Halloween costumes! Too bad we will be in Cancun for Halloween. The first thing we noticed were the little night dresses, which had super hero capes! Then, we looked over and noticed the ONESIES! What fun! We didn't buy any..... yet....

I know this is a long blog. I intended on making it short, and then working on the Lake Placid one. It will probably encompass both of the days we were there. But once I got working on this one, I found we had so many wonderful pics and experiences, that it just had to be longer. I even skipped a couple things.... So, here is just one more sunset, over Albany from the Starbuck's parking lot near Walmart.