Onondaga Lake, Salt Museum & Other Offbeat Attractions

Today, Mike cooked for us. This was the main course.

Next we headed over to the must-see museum of Liverpool, New York-The Salt Museum!

The salt drilling rig drops a heavy bit into the ground about 20 times a minute, creating a hole six inches in diameter. The drilling rigs drill to about 400 feet searching for brine.

These kettles were used by salt boilers to boil brine. This was a dangerous job as injury or death could result from a scalding splash of brine or a fall into a kettle of boiling brine.

Lisa is grateful she doesn't work as a salt boiler. She would not want to die falling into a kettle.

The Salt Museum is located within Onondaga Lake State Park.

In the park, you can take a free, relaxing tram tour.

You can also pay to rent one of these and take your own tour.

Which do you think we did? Watch the video below.
The other mode of transport DOES look fun, though.

Next we headed to Syracuse to find some of the offbeat roadside attractions we had found in our internet research.

This house is built on the roof of the now-abandoned Penfield Manufacturing Company.

Do you see anything wrong with this stop light?

At least yellow is still in the middle.

New York's version of Mickey Mouse is Tully Turtle. As the owner of Tully's, Tully promises great food and good times...not good food and great times.

For more pictures, go to http://public.fotki.com/Marlonfleenor/1/2008/june/our-final-day-with-/ .

To be continued...

Fort Ontario State Historic Site

Today we visited the Fort Ontario State Historic Site with Mike.

Built between 1842 and 1844, this was one of two houses which served as Officers' Quarters at Fort Ontario.

The furnishings of the buildings recreate the lives of the officers, enlisted men and civilians who lived here around 1868.

Apparently, mosquito netting was a must at bedtime.

The vertical openings in the wall of the powder magazine provide ventilation to the storage chamber and an air space under the wooden floor.

Mike demonstrates his fort defense methods.

If not covered properly, the openings in these underground casements built during the Civil War era provide easy access to small critters.

While down in one of the casements, Doug ran into Mickey Mouse's friends, Goofy and Goofier.

Fort Ontario is named such because it borders Lake Ontario.

While walking around the fort, we ran into this scary dude.

Marlon threw his back out trying to do a little manual labor.

Is that a beaver? And did he really build that dam?

Nuclear power plants are always a beautiful sight.

While Lisa slaved away at work, Mike introduced us to one of his favorite Italian restaurants, Avicolli's.

On the way home tonight, we came across this dazzling display.

For more pictures, go to http://public.fotki.com/Marlonfleenor/1/2008/june/spending-the-day-wi/ .

To be continued...

Michael & Lisa Come to Visit

Today Marlon's brother, Mike, came to visit with his wife, Lisa.

He showed us his new souped-up Caddie.

Mike was stationed aboard the USS Alexandria. He received this certificate upon completing the transit of the Suez Canal.

Did you know SSN are the initials given to nuclear-powered attack submarines?

Here is just a fraction of his naval memorabilia.

Mike currently works at a power plant in nearby Syracuse.

One of Mike's most-prized possessions is his Jaegermeister Tap Machine.

For more pictures, go to http://public.fotki.com/Marlonfleenor/1/2008/june/visiting-micheal-an/ .

To be continued...