After returning to the United States we decided instead of driving on any multi lane highways we would take U.S. Route 2 west from Bangor. It was along Route 2 in Bethel, Maine that we stopped at the Maine Mineral And Gem Museum where I was given the opportunity to hold a large moon rock. It is an interesting story and you can find that post here.
When at the museum, and since Bethel is relatively small, I asked the kind lady where the best food could be found locally. Rather than a send us to a restaurant, she sent us to a little country convenience store which had a kitchen in the back for making fresh food. It is called The Good Food Store. When we arrived, we found several cars in the parking lot and several individuals inside waiting for their food to be made. It is takeout only. We both ordered chicken salad sandwiches on some sort of artisan bread and, I agree, the food was not only good, it was delicious! I can recommend The Good Food Store on Route 2 just a mile east of Bethel, Maine.
We then continued west on Route 2 and the weather started to become heavily overcast and finally it started to rain. It rained the rest of the day. We only made a couple of short stops, one to buy some fresh maple syrup from a family owned producer. At the end of the day, we decided to stop near Burlington, VT to spend the night. The following day, we continued on Route 2, which now took us up through the middle of Lake Champlain across the many small and still very rural islands. When we reached (literally) the Canadian border, we turned left, left Route 2 and continued our journey on the back roads of upstate New York paralleling the St. Lawrence River.
We were hoping for some nice scenery but most of the view of the river was obscured. We discovered a small restaurant, The Dirty Gringo, in Ogdensburg, New York and had a terrific lunch! Again, a gem that most people will never know about. On a regretful note, I didn't realize Ogdensburg is the home of the Frederic Remington Art Museum! If you are not familiar with Remington's work, he was one of the absolute best painters and sculptors of "Old West" themed art. I've seen his work in museums in Wyoming but I totally missed knowing the museum was only a couple of blocks from where we ate. That's what happens when you don't do your research or take a few extra minutes and check your maps before leaving an area.
We decided to spend the night in Watertown, New York only because that was where we were at the end of our day. Back to the city. Not happily.
When we left Watertown, I knew it was going to be Interstate highway driving for the next couple of days. After several days of driving the back roads and countryside of New England, it was back to the highways. Too many cars and trucks, drivers driving as though they are racing and definitely a lack of driving etiquette! Dread.
Our next stop was Rochester, New York. I've always wanted to visit the George Eastman House and Museum. Again, for those of you who may not be familiar with the name, George Eastman started a little company and named it "Kodak," (not a word but a unique sound he thought his camera made when the shutter button was pressed and a name no one could forget) more properly named Eastman Kodak. Just a small company. LOL. You know the rest of the story. His former mansion is also part of the oldest museum dedicated to photography. Here is a short descriptive paragraph from Wikipedia:
"The museum's holdings comprise more than 400,000 photographs and negatives dating from the invention of photography to the present day; 28,000 motion picture films; three million other cinematic objects, including letters, scripts, musical scores, lobby cards, posters, film stills, and celebrity portraits; more than 16,000 objects of photographic and cinematographic technology; an internationally renowned research collection of books, periodicals, and other materials on photography and moving images."
Needless to say my expectations and anticipation of my impending visit was high. Unfortunately, I was less than pleased after my visit as the museum had very few items on display. The main exhibit was a collection of Warner Brothers original cartoon drawings and panels—original drawings of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc. There were a few cases of old and modern photographic gear, but I was really disappointed that there was not more historically important photographs and items on display. Oh well. It is what it is, I guess.
  I made many more images inside the mansion and a few more inside the museum. I did see, on exhibit, the second camera I ever owned (right), given to me as a birthday gift in 1964 (Kodak Instamatic 100) and the first Nikon camera I ever purchased (left) in 1974,the Nikkormat EL. Mine was silver as I couldn't afford the black paint edition of the EL as black cameras then cost extra. I was very happy with the silver edition. Heck, I was just happy that I could almost afford a "Nikon" on my salary of $6200 a year in 1974! The Nikkormat was the best I could do. Back then, Nikons were "the" camera to own. Canon had not yet made it big in the U.S. Pentax was also very popular and we used Spotmatics at work but I wanted a Nikon. Also, at the same time, I did buy the 50mm f/2 Nikkor lens. I've owned a Nikon camera of some sort ever since. After the disappointment of he Eastman Museum, we drove west with the goal of reaching my hometown in western Pennsylvania the next day. We spent the night in Erie, Pennsylvania, a moderately sized city on the shores of Lake Erie. There were three things about Erie that I liked from my past visits there—Presque Isle State Park, which is a peninsula that juts out into Lake Erie, the Italian food found in Erie and Erie is the home of General Electric's Locomotive manufacturing plant. My plan was to have some good Italian food that evening and visit Presque Isle State Park the next day. More on Erie in my next post. Now for some gear related comments. Going into the museum, I wanted to carry only a camera and small prime lens on a wrist strap. Nothing more. Also, I wanted to use the Panasonic G9 for our museum visit, just because I had it and wanted to use it. I attached the Olympus 17mm f/1.8 lens to the camera and proceeded into the museum. After making some images, I found that I was still largely unfamiliar with the camera's operation and that I was getting frustrated in not being able to find menu items and change settings easily. Finally, I just set the G9 on "P" (Professional? LOL) and Auto ISO and shot away. All of the images came out properly exposed and with adequate depth of field. I was thrilled! This is a low frustration way of photographing, but with little fine control. In this case it worked out just fine. When we left the museum, we got back on Interstate 90. Crowded, multi-lanes of cars going way above the speed limit with little regard to using turn signals, weaving in and out of lanes and lots of construction zones. I wish there would have been a better way to our next stop. That trip through New York reinforced my notion of getting off the highways and having a relaxing an enjoyable drive on the back roads and through small towns. *if you look at the upper left quadrant of this image into the structure of the clouds, you might be able to see what looks like a face; two eyes, nose, mouth and chin. Then if you look directly into the cloud texture in the middle of the frame, it appears as though there are two hands clasped and you can make out the five fingers and the back of the right hand. Really spooky! Join me over at Instagram @dennisamook or my website, www.dennismook.com. Thanks for looking. Enjoy! Dennis A. Mook All content on this blog is © 2013-2019 Dennis A. Mook. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to point to this blog from your website with full attribution. Permission may be granted for commercial use. Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images. |
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