July 12, 2001 Publication Back to Tom & Huck Page
July 4th Journey Part 1: Soldiers and Sailors and Eagles Wings
Finally!
Summertime and we’re back on the road: our
first real vacation since the Christmas holidays. Way too long with no time off.
Time to open
those Gazeteers: NY Atlas Pages 59,46,45 and
PA Atlas 35 and 49.
It was time to
leave our “nest” on Sodus Shores for our annual trip to the Wings of Eagles
Airshow in Elmira and we decided to add a couple of days to our company holiday and spend
some time exploring north central Pennsylvania.
Our home base for the airshow was Seneca Lodge in Watkins Glen;
it’s only about a ½ hour to Elmira from there and it’s our favorite place to
stay in that area. We charted our route to
take us south on Route 96A/96 to Ithaca; there’s a great outdoors store there and we
both desperately needed new hiking sandals. About
15 miles south of Geneva we stopped at Sampson State Park to visit the WWII Navy Museum;
you HAVE to visit there. With the outbreak of
World War II, there was a critical need for a Navy training center, and in 1942 in just
274 days the government opened the Sampson Naval Training Station. It was an amazing
“city” where eventually 411,429 sailors were trained. At any given time there were 40,000 people on the
base. Photo displays, models, and artifacts
provide a window into the lives of these people. There were six 600 foot long drill halls
with indoor swimming pools, 6 mess halls, a hospital complex, school facilities,
laboratories, bowling alleys, bakeries, laundries, a brig:
all of the infrastructure necessary to sustain 7 times the number of people
that live in Sodus. Now almost all of the
buildings are gone; the museum is one of the only original structures left, housing the
brig. One of the exhibits had photos of some
of the great entertainers of the time: Bob Hope, Lionel Hampton, Francis Langford, Jerry
Colonna…that helped these young sailors momentarily forget what they were facing
after they “shipped out”.
A bronze statue
of a sailor greets you outside the museum, with the inscription:
“Sampson
Sailor”
This memorial
is dedicated to the 411,429 Naval recruits and untold thousands of ships co., service
school graduates, WAVES, and nurses who were assigned to the Sampson Naval Station. Sampson was opened October 20, 1942 until the end
of WWII. To our shipmates who made the
ultimate sacrifice for their country and those who survived, we the Sampson WWII Naval
veterans dedicate this memorial September 6, 1991.
To the Living: Smooth sailing, fair weather, and favoring winds
and tides.
Sampson WWII
Navy Vets
***************
At Trumansburg we spotted a sign for "X-Treme Lawnmower Racing" to be held on July 1. Totally cool. Gotta go backthere. It's a lovely little town where we stopped to shop at the Black Sheep Designs store (of course).
Route 79 took
us west to Watkins Glen, through Mecklenburg (home of Muddy Acres Raceway), Bennettsburg,
and Burdett. Seneca Lodge was a welcome
sight…it was HOT and their swimming pool is really
nice. Our dinner that evening was, as
usual, outstanding. Ethan’s choice was
the vegetarian special, featuring eggplant and artichoke hearts sauteed in olive oil over
linguine. I’m stuck on their seafood
entrees, and the broiled haddock almondine was wonderful.
Their breads are all locally baked at the Glen Mountain Market, and the soy
bread is the BEST.
Saturday
morning greeted us with bright sunshine and the guarantee of a **real hot** day at the
airshow. We arrived in Elmira about 8:00 and
set up our “day camp” right on the flight line.
Best seats ever. Our trusty red wagon transported our comfy canvas chairs,
umbrellas, binocs, cameras, and gallon jugs of water to the grounds. The show doesn’t
start till 10:00, and we had a chance to get some super photos of the planes without crowd
interference, and also chat with some of the pilots.
The theme of this year’s show was “Honoring America’s Vietnam
Veterans”. The “undeclared
war” in Vietnam has been a profound influence on my entire life…it began before
I entered this world in 1953, beginning as the French Indochina War in 1946. It was an ever-present part of my life throughout
my childhood, teens, and early adulthood. My
friends that served, and all of us that lived during that time were forever changed. If you have the privilege to meet a Vietnam Vet,
shake their hand and thank them. Not many
people did when they came back.
The helicopters
that were such an integral part of the war in Vietnam were a highlight of the show. Used for transporting troops, recon, and attack
these birds were stunning to see up close. Scary. The Bell UH-1 Iroquois, known as the
“Huey” has logged more combat hours than any other aircraft in the history of
warfare. There was a Bertol CH-46 Sea Knight,
a Bell AH-1 Cobra, and a Hughes OH-6A Cayuse. I
had seen one of the copters flying over our house the previous week; I presumed on the way
to Fort Drum. The pilot confirmed that it was
indeed the same one…he had just transported a senior ranking officer to the Fort,
then to the airshow. The enthusiasm of these
young pilots was fantastic; one pilot gave me a great description of how they fly down
creek beds through the trees. Not me…not
ever!!!
Sunday morning
we visited our foster sheep, Simba, at the Farm Sanctuary before heading south to PA. Simba and his friends have been moved into a
new, larger barn and were quite comfortable under the many large fans that were cooling
them. They enjoyed the apples that we
brought them, and came over to get their heads petted and munch.
We set our
sights on Wellsboro, PA as our next home base. There
were a number of state parks and small lakes that we had researched in our Quiet Water
Paddling, PA book that were close by, as well as the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania. We’ve always driven through PA on our way to
“somewhere”; it was time to stop and explore new territory. From the Farm, we stopped by the campground
at Sugar Hill State Forest, where nearly 20 families were camping with their horses at
this 9000 acre “equestrian park”. Evergreen
Hill Road (routes 16 & 26) took us south into Coopers Plains where we picked up Smith
Hill and Beeman Hollow Roads into Addison, just in time for lunch. The same storm system that hit here in Sodus on
Sunday was all around us; lightning was menacing, skies dark, but we didn’t get the
worst of it. We arrived in Tioga County, PA,
looking at our map and saying “where are we???”.
Couldn’t find any corresponding roads from our NY maps, and all of the
PA roads were labeled as T761, T857, etc., but had real road names on the street signs. We figured it out and ended up on Gee Hollow Road,
driving past the Double E ranch and rodeo livestock farm (owned by the Gee family…go
figure). Passing Cowanesque Lake, we headed
toward Wellsboro, and one of our best adventures yet!
Next time: Mountain Biking and Hiking in Northern PA!
Look
us up on the web: http://irwinhome.freeservers.com.