James A. Garfield NHS (March 11, 2001)

We moved to upstate NY in parts. We drove Kevin to start his job during my spring break and of 2001, then I flew back and we drove up in my car that summer after school was over. On both trips we hit a site on the way up, the first being the Garfield site. It was a little chilly, so I didn't want to go back and take my pic by the main sign…settled for this one instead.

Did I mention that along with being a big chicken about the statues in these places, I'm also a big chicken about giant heads that are on the wall where you least expect them? This one is right as you open the door and takes up the ENTIRE wall in front of you. Since the place isn't exactly crawling with visitors in mid-March (or mid any month…it's GARFIELD, for crying out loud!), this kind caught me off guard. Seriously, I had to turn around and wait for Kevin to finish parking the car and come in with me!

I love getting shots of Kevin with the statues and such, much as they creep me out. This death mask (below) was by FAR the creepiest. Once I die, I'm perfectly okay with just having my body stuck in the ground…no bronzing of my face, just the ol' dirt nap, thanks!

 Women's Rights NHS (March 15, 2001)

While we were getting Kevin resituated in Buffalo, we decided to take a little time to check out the parks we hadn't seen yet (after all, we were about to be separated for 3 months…the last thing we wanted was to spend time visiting other people!). I spent most of my childhood in St. Louis, so I'm a huge baseball fan. We took a trip to Cooperstown for the Hall of Fame and stayed in a bed and breakfast called Nelson Avenue Pines (which was so great, we've stayed every spring break for the past 2 years now), then stopped at all the sites between there and Buffalo on the way back.

Fort Stanwix was closed, but the Women's Rights Museum was open. Outside it was the original Wesleyan Chapel that the 1848 Convention for Women’s Rights in Seneca Falls was held in (below) and a long polished granite wall that had the Declaration of Sentiments that those folks came up with (below left).

I have two cancellations because the stamp didn't work too well on the first. This place was so weird as far as creepy lifesized statues go that I couldn't even let Kevin get near them (plus, the lady as the desk was watching and we only had like 20 minutes left before closing). Essentially, these statues look EXACTLY like real people dipped in bronze and are standing around on the floor with you in the museum's main room downstairs. You can actually walk around them and everything…very lifelike and very well done! There was actually quite a bit more to this place (a whole upstairs that had a statue of Harriet Tubman as well!), but se only had time to scan the place.

Update: We went back to visit this museum again on our way home from a letterboxing event in Ithaca back in 2004. We didn’t pay to go inside, but the lady let us come and take pictures for my class to enjoy (which means we made up for lost stupid time!)

Seriously, I don’t think we’ll be allowed back here anymore…

Abraham Lincoln Birthplace NHS (June 30, 14, 2000)

Well, I THOUGHT I had forgotten the Abe Lincoln cancellation, but I just misplaced it. I got a little anal about getting the right stamp with the right cancellation, so I was trying to hold out for the stamp in another book. So far, they haven't done that one yet, so I'm still waiting to put it in.

Didn't take a lot of pics on this trip, either, mostly because we were doing a straight drive from Dallas to Buffalo and I had spent the first 16 hours of that driving, popping Vivarin and drinking Pepsi. I'm amazed that I even REMEMBERED to take pics! Sara and Shawn were with us, so the pic for the front steps of the main building (where the cabin is kept) has both of them and Kevin in it.

Incidentally, the cabin (that I DON’T have a pic of) is NOT the real cabin. They don't really tell you that there, but in the book I was reading called Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong (sequel to Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Book Got Wrong) they debunk a lot of the myths about national historic sites…this cabin was once touted as Jefferson Davis' cabin, too!

And what Burke family outing would be complete without the traditional hole in the ground pic? The mixture of caffeine pills and caffeine drinks are really lethal on one's ability to judge what a good picture is from what the !@#$ is…

These 3 pics, plus one more of this spring/hole-in-the-ground are all I took of the Lincoln site…I feel ashamed to be here, folks! I promise I'll do better on the next trip!