"It's a Small World"

We have been driving a lot in New York.  It's Durg's hope that he will drive every back road in the state before we leave for home at the end of October.  On our (expeditions) drives we have found some very interesting names of towns.  For instance, we can drive to EGYPT, ROME, and MEXICO all in the same day!  But that is not all, we can make a deposit in a bank in the town of DEPOSIT.   You can celebrate INDEPENDENCE in the towns of FREEDOM or LIBERTY.

This has intrigued me, so I decided to see what other city names are familiar.  We have found that there are cities named after cities and the countries they are in.  Every city in New York state that is named after a city and their country are in capital letters.  Any of these places we have been are marked with an asterisk.  LIMA (PERU), STOCKHOLM (SWEDEN), COPENHAGEN* (DENMARK*), ROME*, VENICE, NAPLES, FLORENCE (ITALY), CAIRO (EGYPT*), WARSAW (POLAND), HAMBURG, BERLIN (GERMANY) and a little stretch on this one, ANDES (CHILI-Chile).

The following are towns named after countries; CUBA, HOLLAND, RUSSIA, NORWAY, NEW SCOTLAND, NEW LEBANON, MEXICO* and COLOMBIA.

The next group are city names that we are familiar with.  They are in capitals and their countries, which are not city names are in parenthesis in lower case.  ANTWERP (Belgium), LISBON and CASTILE (Spain), PARIS (France), MADRID (Spain), ATHENS and CORINTH (Greece), GENEVA (Switzerland), NASSAU (Bahamas), BELFAST (Ireland), BRUNSWICK (Canada), DELHI (India), PERTH (Australia), HAGUE and AMSTERDAM (Netherlands).

From the Bible: JERUSALEM, PERSIA, BETHLEHEM, CANAAN and BABYLON.

When you think that many immigrants came to this country through Ellis Island in New York, it becomes apparent that many of them settled in places in New York and named their new home towns after the country or town where they came from.  That is pretty fascinating to me.  So it's a small world here in New York State.

We now leave the cities and countries and go to the cities named after states, such as OHIO, WASHINGTON, MARYLAND, FLORIDA, ALABAMA and DELAWARE.

As you can see, we have a lot more exploring to do to get to everyone of these interesting sites.

I really have too much time on my hands while we are driving.  So this is just more useless information.  My favorite of all towns in New York is MECHANICVILLE.  Wonder why?
Love all the mechanics (Durg, Josh, Jake) in our family!

We also drive by cemeteries, lots of them.  Seems there is one or two in every town and every town is less than 10 miles from the next town.  Whenever we see a cemetery, we think of Joel. While doing all this driving, Durg's back has a tendency to give him fits and we think of our Physical Therapist, Ryan.  And we think of Nikki every day, several times a day, because she is the only one who texts, emails, facebooks and calls us several times a day!  And when we think of our children, of course, our thoughts go right to our grandchildren.  We are really missing them!

We had a great excursion last Thursday.  We went to the Wizard of Clay Store.  Not only do you get to see all the beautiful pottery (and there are several rooms full), you can watch the Wizard actually make the pottery out of clay on his pottery wheel.  Durg could not take himself away from the clay cloche (a glorified dutch oven for baking) and of course, he had to have one.  He has posted pictures of it and the bread he has made in it on facebook.  I need Sheena to show me how to put pictures on this blog.  The loaves are much bigger and the bread recipe is the same he uses in the other dutch ovens except it has some sugar and yogurt or cottage cheese.  The texture of the bread is different, but really good.  It's also just as good toasted.  The good thing about him making all this bread is that we never get any (so we aren't gaining too much weight) because he gives it away, and the bad thing is we never have any bread!

We also went to the outskirts of Victor, New York to see the bark longhouse.  This is a replica of a place where the Seneca Indians would sleep and cook (circa 1655).  Many families could live in one loghouse.  Inside is a museum of authentic Seneca objects; animal hides for bedding on bunk beds, weapons, cooking tools and beaded necklaces and belts.  The Indians traded beaver pelts for beads.  This place honors the people who once lived in 150 longhouses on this site.  More than 4,000 Seneca Indians lived together in harmony there.  The place is called Ganondagan and means Town of Peace. In 1685, a raid was launched on Ganondagan  by the French for domination of the international fur trade.  This event changed the lives of the Seneca forever.  After this, the Iroquois Nation was formed of the tribes of the Seneca, Mohawk, Cayuga, Oneida and Onondagas to help protect each other.   Our guide was an actual Mohawk descendent and could speak the Mohawk language.  She works at the longhouse museum and historical site of Ganondagan, but lives with her Mohawk family in their community several hours away.  She said only Mohawk is spoken there.  Ganondagan, in later years, became the meeting place for the Iroquois Nation.  Every year, on the last weekend in July, the tribes of the Iroquois Nation meet for the Native American Dance and Music Festival. The following are a few of the ways the rich heritage of the Seneca people have influenced the way of our lifestyle and interests:

*The U.S. Constitution was modeled after the terms of the Iroquois Confederacy,
*Seneca social and political structure asserts that all should have the right to influence government regardless of gender, or material wealth.  The matrilineal aspect of Seneca traditions gave rise to precepts of women's rights and socioeconomic equity.
*Lacrosse was a gift from the Creator to the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois).  The name "lacrosse" comes from early French observers.

I hope all of this isn't useless information.  I can go on forever, as most of you know.  But I will let you go and will keep you up on our adventures.  Until next time, we leave you in beautiful, green, tree lined upstate New York..........................