NY Trip Thanksgiving 2003

For Thanksgiving week I went to NY and did a couple of things worthy of photographs.

Nov 23

Today I visited the Schenectady Museum and Planetarium. Much of the museum contains items from Shenectady history and the companies that were part of it such as General Electric.

The museum.

A fuel cell made for the Gemini spacecraft by GE.

A early 1960s prototype of a fuel cell donated by one of the patent holders.

GE designed and built the GE-100, an electric car, in 1978. Its powered by 18 6 volt lead acid batteries - 1225 pounds.

A mass spectrometer. Gotta love 40s tech.

What made someone think that kids dressed like this would sell the product?

Yes, even this is a museum exhibit now.

Nov 24

Today I did some touring plus saw some of the Revolutionary War history in the area.

First stop was Saratoga Lake. Lots of birds.

Lots of boat launches too.

Apparently the Quakers still are around here.

Its wet too, even though it didn't rain recently.

The main stop was the Saratoga National Historic Park where the British suffered a major defeat in 1777, encouraging the French to side with the colonies and declare war on Britain.

A cannon from the British surrender.

10 stops along a 9 mile road show the Colonial and British positions. Some reconstruction has been done to illustrate what happened where.

Yes, it is late November, but its still in the 50s.

A few miles north of the park is the village of Victory where Burgoyne (of the British) officially signed the Articles of Capitulation, Oct 17, 1777. The villagers were patriots then and are still now.

Victory has the the Schuyler House - built in 29 days for the Schuyler family in November 1777 after the British burned the original one during the battles. It was already closed for the season though.

Just north of Victory is the village of Schuylerville. In it is the Saratoga Battle Monument, commemorating the British surrender.

It has statues of Colonial generals Morgan, Gates and Schuyler who commanded the Colonial forces during the battles.

A fourth alcove is intentionally left empty to represent Benedict Arnold who fought well for the Colonials in these battles in 1777 but defected to Britain in 1780.

Outside the monument is a cemetery - here's the grave of a Revolutionary War veteran buried there.

The Champlain Canal passes through Schuylerville. Here's lock 5.

Remains of the original canal are also nearby - here's the old gate and canal walls.

Outside of Schuylerville is Stark's Knob, an outcropping of pillow lava from the Ordovician Period (unique in the area). This was the location of Gen Stark's troops which prevented the retreat of Burgoyne from the battles.

Nov 25

Although it was in the 50s yesterday, it was cold enough overnight to snow a bit. It melted quickly in the morning, but there was enough to make a few interesting pics.

Some berries.