Day32 Ashtabula, Ohio to Syracuse, NY

Today we travelled through a little of Ohio, a small slice of Erie County, Pennsylvania along Lake Erie, and then turned inland on route 86 in New York State that runs just above the Pennsylvania border.  This country really looks like home.  No red buttes, no sagebrush, some corn, but the hills are more numerous and shorter.  Also, there are trees everywhere! Grass grows up to the side of the road and sometimes in the cracks!  New York and New England look tropical next to most of the states we visited with the possible exception of parts of Wisconsin.  Yes Elizabeth, the horses can smell the hay in the barn.

Around mid state we left RT 86 for highway 19 which heads north toward Rochester, and more importantly to the little town of Le Roy and our primary off the beaten path destination of the day, the Jell-0 museum!  Given our experience with little towns we shouldn’t have been surprised to find that the Le Roy historical society had not one, but three museums on the same block. 

The Jell-O museum provides the history of the gelatin dessert that was created in Le Roy.  Exhibits trace the commercial history of the product through several unsuccessful early attempts to market the product through its present home as a member of the Kraft foods family.  The museum was cute, well displayed, and an introduction provided by a staff person was helpful, but no samples of the prepared dessert were available. 

The displays showed changes in the packaging and marketing, video and still pictures of the many celebrities who have been spokespersons including Bill Cosby who worked for the brand for 30 years. The display was hampered  a bit by the fact that Jell-O is a trade name owned  by Kraft who does not sponsor the museum.  Therefore the museum has no (or none I could find) information about manufacture and production of Jell-O or Products. 

Much to our surprise we found an excellent exhibit of horse drawn carriages, early bicycles, and sleighs in a transportation museum just below the Jell-O museum. The vehicles were well preserved and easily approached. 

The third museum was the Le Roy house, a Federalist mansion built for the original overseer of a large track of tenant farms in the early 19^th century.  The historical society requests that visitors not take pictures inside, but I can tell you that it is filled with period pieces and very helpful volunteers.  Le Roy is definitely worth the visit. 

The day ended on a note that can only be interpreted as confirmation that it is time to be home.  We had difficulty finding our hotel in Syracuse, finally discovering that we had the wrong street number entered in the GPS.  Upon arriving in the lobby expecting the hotel in which we had stayed on the trip west, we were surprised to see that it had been renovated.  Actually, it wasn’t the same hotel! Talk about disorientation. However, it was the place I had reserved by phone, and one of three Hampton Inns in the area. Anyway, the place is very nice, and only about 280 miles from Colchester, CT.

We have a few more adventures planned before we make it back to Colchester so be sure to check in tomorrow.

Please note that we intend to keep the blog going a bit longer.  We have a few more items related to this trip to share and then we plan a series on off the beaten path attractions within a day trip of SE Connecticut. AJ is on vacation next week and we may take some trips with him.  So keep checking in.  Feel free to nominate a destination and we will check it out and include it on the blog.  See you along the way.