Part the Second, Or, Settle In Because This Post's a Doozy

Before you begin skimming through these as fast as possible, here's my apology for taking so many snapshots:

I'm sorry.

But I couldn't help it.  We were with John!  We love him!  He took us to museums!  The sun was shining!  Everything was interesting! My children are loveable!  My camera battery waited to die until we were nearly done!

Okay.
I'm sorry.

If you live within driving distance of Corning and have a passel of children, I can't recommend this daytrip enough.  Those ages nineteen and under are admitted free, so you only have to pay for the fogeys of the group in order to soak up two museums in one go.  Plus, Corning was fun to walk around on foot (but maybe it was the good company I was in that had something to do with that).
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Let's begin with an important announcement.

Three things during this daytrip solidified my children's position as hillbilly homeschoolers.
One: They were over the moon about the motion-activated soap dispensers in the bathrooms.  (To be fair, I was also impressed by these.)
Two: Riding the escalators at the next museum was one of the highest points of the entire day.  (To be fair, as a hillbilly myself, I completely understood.)
 Three: The fact that they rode a bus for THE FIRST TIME EVER was something they later bragged about.  A bus!  A BUS, people!  (Why are you all so jaded?)


Enter stage left:  The Bus.

We soaked up every last second of this experience.

All too soon, we arrived at museum number two: The Corning Museum of Glass.   I was last at this museum for a school field trip when I was about 8 years old, and I liked it even better this time around.  Oh, my goodness, I loved it.  (Told you I was a hillbilly.)

I've been stifled and closed in by clutter lately.

Too
much
stuff.

I think that's why I took a picture of the museum foyer.  It struck me as beautiful, with all those straight edges, clean lines, and that bright, open emptiness.

From here on out, I'll give minimal commentary and rapid-fire snapshots because I'm tired of being on the computer.  I beg pardon for the sentence fragments that will litter this post until its end.

Piper:  "Hey, is that Bach?"  (J.S. Bach is her only reference point for just about any man wearing an obvious, curly wig.)

To explain my children's trepidation here, this was a fun mirror trick that flipped you upside down and made it appear that you were walking through a floating version of yourself.

Why, hello, Belly Baby!

A periscope rose through the roof to give a bird's eye view of different downtown locations.

What I didn't discover until I walked past a giggling Susannah is that there were spy cameras fixed on the periscope, too.  We laughed at a periscoping Annika for a bit before moving on.

Millie is an information hound.  She reads encyclopedias for fun and soaks up information that she pulls out of her pocket all the time.  I learn a lot from the girl.  (If only I could remember it...)  She kept coming up to me and sharing tidbits she learned from placards around the museum. 

We watched a glass-blowing demonstration that was pretty cool.

It's too bad I was so engrossed in watching him form the vessel that I forgot to take a picture of the finished piece.

This was a small exhibit showing how bottles are made.

Why, hello, Belly Baby!

Q:  How many casserole dishes are in this tower?!

A: Nearly 700.  Just think of all the church potlucks that equals!

 Here's a second.  Sorry; I just like them both and post pictures indiscriminately.

I'll share more on this picture another day, but we caught the last thirty seconds of a glass pulling demonstration, and Millie hit the jackpot.

Glass flowers.  Almost spring.

Our last hour was spent in the museum art gallery, which is huge and overwhelming.  It contains glass pieces that span over 3500 years, from ancient times through the present.  Fascinating, beautiful, and overwhelming.


This sculpture stretched from floor to ceiling.

Pieces from ancient Greece and Phoenicia, I think.

Ancient Egypt, Greece, etc.

This was a tiny sculpture of Amenhotep II.  A marvel.  We learned about him!  He lived thousands of years ago, and imagining an artisan shaping this so long ago boggled my mind. Tangible links between the past and present, hunks of material that human hands touched time out of mind, have an irresistible hold on me.  I called all the girls over, but no one seemed as excited as I was.

A mosaic fragment from the early church.

Ancient crocodile, mouse, and dormouse vessels.  (I'm partial to practical pieces that are sculptural in form.  I loved their whimsy.)

A beaded basket.

Such intricate work here.

A glass theater.

Annie and Susie were cracking themselves up when they slipped behind a display case before I got there.  "Look, Mama!  We're on display!"  I'll say you are, loves.

This glass table was ludicrous enough to photograph.  Just imagine!  Someone had this in their home once upon a time.  (Those nutty Victorians.)

Ooh, I loved these.  One case was filled with small, glass sculptures of sea creatures.  I was just skimming at this point, my brain too full to take in much more, but these struck me.

Paperweights, anyone?

Or chess?

There were numerous stained glass windows in the gallery, too.

Gasp!  What sorcery is this?   Magical, moving stairs?  Let's ride them up and down for hours!

And then we walked back across the footbridge to the van, forgoing the shuttle bus in favor of sunshine and window shopping along the way.

See that man in the middle of all those children?  Yeah, the one with the overcoat and stroller.
Well, he's simply the greatest of them all.