SUNDAY- MONDAY-TUESDAY UPSTATE NEW YORK:
Wow! I have lost track of date and time and we have been
doing so much each day! I have to tell you it is MY fault the blog hit a
roadblock! On Sunday Aug. 4 we left the campsite by the lake and headed for
BASS LAKE RESORT just north of Syracuse and a bit west of the Adirondack mountains!
By now the term “Resort Camp” should bring up certain images and all of them
apply to Bass Lake with one addition: They have a full-service restaurant and
bar on site! If you wanted, you could leave the dishes and food prep behind
while you spent your time between the two swimming pools, miniature golf,
volleyball, fishing, or what some folks seem to do, run around all day on your golf
cart!
Our site is backed up to the woods and is a full service
site,( sewer, water and 50 Amp), and has a 30 ft concrete patio so after we set
up from our 250 mile drive from Allegany Mountain resort all we needed was a
wine cooler and some BBQ chicken to be set for the night! OH, ONE MORE THING!
TOLL ROADS! I HATE THAT PART OF NEW YORK! $25 TO DRIVE ABOUT 150 MILES!
Yuck YUCK YUCK N.Y.
MONDAY
Now that we have full hook ups the washing machine is in
high gear! All the laundry we didn’t wash because we didn’t want to have to
move the motor home to ”dump” now was under Mikes control! We debated amongst
ourselves “ would you rather have 50 Amp service without sewer or 30 Amp with
sewer? You fellow motor homers tell me your choice if you had one! After a bit
we took off to explore some back roads and of course find a Wal Mart! We ended
up on the shore of Lake Ontario at OSWEGO, very nice little beach town! And
they had a nice Wal Mart for those things you just can’t live without!
Driving the back roads, you become aware of the old nature
of this area! Lots of beautiful older and smaller churches, farm land, American
flags and cemeteries that show lots of age! There is a lot of history in this
area among that is the religious revitalization and experiments that were born
or practiced in this area during the 1830-1890 era!
It is also an area rich
with the abolitionist movement prior to the Civil War and later on the Woman’s Suffrage
movement. So, we grabbed our Wal Mart treasures, stopped at a Wendy’s and drove
some different back roads back to camp!
We also noted that our camping neighbor has a 1979 Ford Pinto
Cruising Wagon!
No kidding, while a different color than mine, that was the
vehicle that I DROVE to ALASKA when the road was unpaved. I took a couple of
photos, but I just can’t imagine driving that far, on that road, in that small
of a vehicle but I guess you do more challenging things when younger! Give me
the Motorhome for that trip now!
TUESDAY
Tuesday, we headed back West about 100 miles to visit two small
National Parks and maybe go as far as Palmyra N Y where in the 1830’s Joseph
Smith found and translated the gold plates that are today know as the “Book
of Mormon”. While typically called Mormons, the correct name for followers
of Joseph Smith are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Today that church is one of the fastest growing in the world and is headquartered
in Salt Lake City Utah. One of Josephs followers, Brigham Young, led the
pioneers out to the Salt Lake region where he was sure they could practice their
religion without interference.
We got to the WOMANS RIGHTS NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK,
just as the skies opened up and the
soaking rain hit Seneca Falls where it is located.
There are outlines of the
struggle for recognition and equality for women from the 1850 anti-slavery
movement thru the 2014 passage of legislate on guaranteeing the right to sue
for inequitable pay going back according to the law, as long as you can prove
the inequity. I was a bit surprised that the history of passing the 17th
amendment giving the woman the right to vote nationally, was not covered in
more depth but maybe I missed something or an area dealing with this monumental
change!
It is a small building in the center of Seneca Falls and it
is a little difficult to find, but it is worth the effort and certainly
something of value to show our history to our younger children to give them a bit of the historical struggle for the female population of the
USA.
Staying off Interstate 90 and that toll road makes east-west
travel difficult but we managed to make our way to Montezuma National Wildlife
Refuge.
Not the greatest day for seeing the wildlife as the rain made driving
and sight seeing a ‘stay in the car” type of event! Even the wildlife decided to stay in for the
day!
We decided not to drive to Palmyra at this point and headed back to camp
along back roads that continued to show lots of history and NO TOLL!
WEDNESDAY
If you never studied about the ONIEDA community, you missed
one very entertaining but significant part of the American Family! So you think,
“Ha, I’m a child of the 60-70s sexual revolution and we invented free love”
Then you needed to meet John Humphry Noyes, who founded a religion that was
based on perfectionism and living “heaven on Earth” in this part of the country about the same
time 150 miles away Joseph Smith was founding his religion!
Perfectionism held that Christ had already come a second
time, and that our challenge now was to be perfect, however there was one thing
holding us back and that was our possessiveness and jealousy! If men and women
could really be equal no man could “own” a woman nor could a couple be possessive
of another’s affection! Now add to this that you have about 180 adult followers
of Noyes who form a unit of marriage. Each man to each woman can willingly
accept the request of the other for an evening but never on an exclusive basis!
Men and women shared equally in running the tasks at the
Mansion House that they built, all meals were taken together, jobs were shared,
profits were shared….. and no exclusive relationships were permitted for the
first 20 years! There is so much more that goes with this story but Deb and I
walked around the Mansion House for over 3 hours trying to envision what life
with almost 300 people would be like and not even focusing on the group marriage
aspect, In 1868 the Perfectionist voted
that it was time to allow children to be born into the group! Now for 20 years
they had been in open marriage without having babies ( think of that!) now it
was going to be OK to start having children. Stripculture was the name given by
the community to the selection of females who were to be allowed to be
impregnated by a select group of leaders. The children born of Stripculture would
belong to all members and the not selected to be parents could and would
continue to entertain one and other without pregnancy for the next 11 years,
Of the children born of Stripculture there were a high percentage who lived to be
90-100 years old and no doubt eugenics was part of Noyes plans! However,
perfection is elusive and several members of the community wanted to have “special
Love” which of course was contrary to the ideals of the community. In 1880 the
group voted to end “complex marriage” and wind down the practices that made
them so different! There is so much more to this story but Deb tells me I’m not
teaching on the Blog but this is fascinating stuff in American History! And Yes,
I did teach about this “back in the day” and how this worked for 30
years amazes me to this day!
Jake was so happy when we left and then we found a woman who
still lives in an apartment in the Mansion House and she took us into some of
the areas that we were not allowed or able to get into! And she had more
history! Finally, we headed West back to our camp with a stop at an Arbys for
an Orange Shake and some talking!
Donna Justen
2019-08-11
You have been traveling in areas I have never been but I'm still enjoying your photos and stories. This story reminded me of the Shakers, who had a similar ideololgy/religeon. How did they ever think this would survive with no children to follow. Perhaps when you get to Vermont, I may be able to relate but have to admit with all the years spend in the Northeast, this was not a state we spent time in. Keep on enjoying you trip!
France
2019-08-12
Makes me sad about NY...between, tolls, lousy road, high taxes, electricity and the politicians!!