Corning Glass Museum

Since today is an unexpected stay-at-home day, I think I will focus on reporting places worth visiting. Last week we found ourselves camped in Pennsylvania near Corning, New York. Our campground, Ives Run, was built after the devastating hurricane of 1972 that completely flooded Corning with waters well above many of the buildings. Once the flooding had subsided, in came the Corp of Engineers to build flood dams and berms to protect the valley inhabitants. One by-product of this development was land suitable for recreational purposes: hiking, camping, boating, etc.

So on a rainy Tuesday, off to Corning we went. The glass museum far exceeded our expectations. I thought we would see a museum dedicated to the history and production of Corning Cook Ware, not the case. This is a quality museum dedicated to educating the visitor about the history of glass, its production methods over the centuries and how Corning Glass came to be.

Once in the parking lot we made our first surprise discovery, free bus shuttle. Not just to the museum, but the bus took you to two museums as well as the restored downtown area lined with boutiques, coffee shops and retail stores. Now why can't all cities do that for the tourist? Sure makes one want to return for a second look when you know how easy it is to get around. Oh, by the way, parking was free. Now that's my kind of frugal travelling.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words so I'll just insert a few pictures taken that day and let you decide if the trip is one you would make. Enjoy the journey and will talk tomorrow. (no idea how I activated this underline function and I can't seem to find how to turn it off, still on a learning curve. 

My favourite part of the museum was the glass blowing demonstration. Here we watched these two professionals build a beautiful glass bowl from raw molton glass. Remarkable!