Saying Goodbye

Today I had to say goodbye to everyone.  I had a great time in Rochester and maybe Myles will bring me back here the next time he comes.
This is me getting a goodbye kiss from Grandma as she is getting me ready for my travels.

This is the post office where she is taking me. We stopped here a few days ago so I could see where I would be going.

And now I'm on my way.

See  you in Mrs. Martineau's class.

Genesee River

The Genesee River runs from South to North, just like the Nile River in Africa.  It starts in Northern Pennsylvania and ends in Rochester, at Lake Ontario.  It is 158 miles long.  Halfway to Rochester it goes into a 25 mile gorge.  A gorge is a narrow passage through land.  Here is a picture of the gorge that runs through Letchworth State Park.

 As the river runs through Rochester there is the High Falls in the middle of the city.

 And this is where the River is close to emptying into Lake Ontario.  The bridge in the picture is no longer in use but it used to turn so that a train could cross over the river.

Lake Ontario

This is my last week here so I thought I should tell you about what is right in our backyard. It is Lake Ontario. Lake Ontario is one of the 5 Great Lakes that are between Canada and the United States.

Behind me is Irondequoit Bay and then Lake Ontario. It is the smallest of all the Great Lakes but it is the 14th largest lake in the world.  Although it's the smallest you can't even see to the other side because it goes all the way to Canada. 

You can see in this map all of the Great Lakes and the states that they touch.  Ontario and Quebec are provinces in Cananda.  They are like our states.  There's an easy way to remember the Great Lakes which I just learned so I want to share it with you.  Just remember the word HOMES.  Each letter is the beginning of the name of one of the lakes.
H - Huron
O - Ontario
M - Michigan
E - Erie
S - Superior
Lake Superior is the biggest of all of them so that's why it has the name of "Superior."

The Great Lakes have 20% of all the fresh water on the surface of the world. 

If I was staying longer I could go for a boat ride on the lake.  In 2004 there was a big fast ferry that went from Rochester to Toronto which is in Ontario, Canada on the other side of the lake.
This is a picture from back then of the ferry.  You can see how big it is in comparison to the other boats.  It was coming back to Rochester to dock at its home in the Genesee River (more about that next time).

Birds Birds Birds

Friday night we went to Margie and Darren's house to see their new kitchen.  It was really nice but what was even nicer was all the birds they had and I could get my picture taken with them.  They had a lot of different kinds of parrots, a lovebird and a cockatoo.

When they don't have company, the birds come out of their cages and sit on perches in the living room.  I didn't get to see this.   But I did hear them talk and one of them was really noisy.

MacKenzie Childs

On Sunday we drove down the road a few miles and went to MacKenzie-Childs.
Ceramic things are hand made here on a big farm in Aurora, NY on Cayuga Lake. http://www.mackenzie-childs.com/Content/HandmadeInAurora/
They have beautiful gardens

 Look how close these geese got to me

 I got to ride on this horse in the store.

 They paint things with lots of colors and designs and also black and white checks.

I'm lucky I didn't break anything because they are very expensive.

Here I am in front of the store which stands on a hill and overlooks the lake.

More Cayuga Lake

Here are some more of the things I did when we were at Cayuga Lake

I went rafting on the water

I went on a kayak

Sometimes I just relaxed on the lounge chair

We took a walk along the road to the house and saw a tree with sharp thorns. It's called a Honey Locust. The story for the thorns is that they were used to protect the tree from prehistoric animals and birds millions of years ago.

This is me and a panoramic view of the lake. This picture was made by taking 5 different pictures and putting them all together into one.

Here is what the 5 photos looked like before they were put together.  After we took the pictures we did it on the computer with software.  It's called stitching.

Cayuga Lake and the Finger Lakes

Memorial Day weekend we went to Amy's Lake House on Cayuga Lake.
Cayuga is one of a group of lakes known as the Finger Lakes. This is a picture of what they look like.

Can you guess why they're called the Finger Lakes?
The names of them are (from East to West or Right to Left): Otisco Lake, Skaneateles Lake, Owasco Lake, Cayuga Lake, Seneca Lake, Keuka Lake, Canandaigua Lake, Honeoye Lake, Canadice Lake, Hemlock Lake, and Conesus Lake.
Here, on a roadmap, you can see where they are and where Webster and Rochester are.

It took us less than an hour and a half to get from Webster to Cayuga Lake.
Cayuga Lake is the longest of the Finger Lakes, it is just under 40 miles long.  We were close to the northern end (top) of the lake but at the southern end is Cornell University and Ithaca College.
To learn more about the Finger Lakes you can go to this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_Lakes

Anyway, I had another fun weekend even though there weren't any kids there.  Bailey, the yellow lab that I met at the plant exchange was there and we had a lot of fun because she likes to play all the time.  She likes to swim after her toy in the water and bring it back.  I couldn't go in swimming though, Grandma wouldn't let me.  Larry was really glad I was there because we were the only boys.

I met Ashmi, who just moved here from India.

She had never heard of Flat Stanley before so I told her all about me and she talked about life in India.  She had servants to do everything for her in India, now she's going to have to learn to do a lot of things by herself, like hang pictures in her new apartment and wash her own dishes.

We went for a hike to the falls along Big Gully Creek. 

Along the way we saw a bunch of tadpoles

 and minnows

We had to walk in the Creek a lot and climb over trees that fell down.   When we finally got to the Falls, there wasn't that much water because it hasn't rained in a long time, but I got my picture taken anyway.

 Here I am with Grandma and Bailey with the Falls in the background

We saw some pretty butterflies

I'll Be Back

Hi Everyone,
In case you're checking, I haven't had time to write in the last few days but I'll post something on Wednesday so you can see it on Thursday.

Hope everyone had a fun weekend, I did.

Your friend,
Flat Stanley

Kodak

I didn't do too much today.  We went to Wegmans again and Grandma went to play bridge with her friends at night.  She let me stay home and watch TV in her bed because she said I would be bored.

They've been playing bridge every week for 42 years.  Can you imagine that?  Probably a lot of our parents weren't even born yet when they started playing bridge.  They all met when they were working at Kodak right out of college.

Kodak used to be the biggest employer in Rochester.  This is where the company's headquarters are and it was started way back in 1880.  You can read more about the history of Kodak by clicking here, but there is a lot, since the company has been around for a long time.

             Kodak Logos old and current

Before digital, Kodak was the most popular camera when film that needed developing was used and just about everyone used Kodak film.  Kodak film is a leader in the making of movies but digital is now being used a lot more.  Avatar was an all digital movie that probably a lot of you saw.

Maybe you've also heard of kodakgallery.com where your parents can upload  pictures and make photo books or calendars or order prints.

"Kodak teamed with NASA on space science and remote sensing missions for more than 40 years. When John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth, Kodak film recorded his reactions to traveling through space at 17,400 miles per hour. When Glenn returned to space more than 35 years later, he operated a modified Kodak digital camera to document the historic space shuttle mission. (1)

If you ever come to Rochester, you should visit the George Eastman House.  This is a museum about photography and the actual house where the founder of Kodak lived. 
Watch this interesting video of his life and Kodak's early years.

Hope everyone has a good weekend. I'm going to Cayuga Lake which is one of the Finger Lakes so I'll probably have a lot of information to tell you next week.

(1)  http://www.kodak.com/global/en/corp/historyOfKodak/impacting.jhtml?pq-path=2217/2687/2691

Golf

In the afternoon we all went to play golf.  It was very hot out today.  There are lots of golf courses around here, both private and public.   In 2007 Golf Magazine named Rochester the 10th "best golf city" in America.
Here I am riding in the cart, we walked and I couldn't keep up since I only have little legs so I got to ride in the cart.

On the same hole that Grandma was doing this shot we saw a family of geese walk across the fairway and go for a swim to cool off.

Wegmans

Today I had a busy day.  First we went to get the camera and then we stopped at Wegmans.  If you've never been to a Wegmans you will want to someday.  It's the BEST grocery store around.  It has everything.  It was founded in Rochester in 1916 and is family owned.  Now it is in 5 states, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Northern Virginia, and Maryland and it wins lots of awards. One special award it wins every year says that it it a great place to work.  Wegmans is the 2nd largest employer in Rochester.  As of 2009, 13,381 people worked there.  I'm going to learn some more about the businesses here and will share that with you another day.

Here are my friends from last night at the plant exchange. I'm right in the front. Everyone started different kinds of plants from seeds and then traded them so they could have a lot of different kinds. While Grandma and I went to Wegmans, Larry planted them.  I hope they grow, some are pretty puny. Do you know what it means for them to be puny? It means they'll be lucky if they grow.

I liked the dogs and Scout and Bailey liked me too.

A Little History

Hi Everyone in Mrs. Martineau's class, it's me - Myles' Flat Stanley.

You'll never guess what happened tonight.  We went to a plant exchange and I met a whole lot of new people but Grandma left her camera there so I can't show you my new friends now.  When we get the camera back I'll have a show and tell for you.
In the meantime, I'll tell you a little about what I learned about Rochester today.  I'm really learning a lot and I'll make sure to tell you something new every day.

I told you how the nickname for Rochester was "Flour" City and then became "Flower" City.  This happened because although Rochester was the largest flour-producing city in the United states in the early 1800s, by the mid 1800s the center of the wheat processing industry moved west.  But then Rochester became home to the booming nursery business, that's nursery for growing flowers, not a nursery where babies are.  And did you know that because of the flour (baking kind) production Rochester became America's first "boomtown" because it doubled its population in only ten years?

After the Civil War, Rochester became the city where world-wide companies were started.  I'll tell you more about some of those tomorrow because I have to go to bed now.

Goodnight.

Emergency House Repair

I didn't get to tour Rochester today but I did learn about what happens when you get water damage in the house.  Remember how Nashville, Tennessee just got flooded so badly and peoples houses were under water?  Well, we had a small flood yesterday. A pipe burst in the wall and the water was on for an hour before anyone noticed.  The rugs in the family room and guest bedroom were full of water.

This is the pipe that burst.
If you click on the picture you can see it up close.

We had to stay home today and clean out the rooms so the carpets could be removed and everything is being dried.  Here I am standing on the dehumidifier and you can see two of the fans in the background.  It's really noisy.  You can see where it's wet and where it didn't get wet.  The fans have to stay on until everything is dry.  Each room has 4 fans and 1 dehumidifier.

Planting Day

Today I helped Patsy and Katie plant flowers for Grandma and Larry.

The nickname of Rochester is the "Flower City".  It was called this since 1850.  Every year there is a big Lilac Festival that is a 10-Day Free Festival located on 120 acres of Highland Park in Rochester and attracts people from all over the country.  Today was the last day for this year but we didn't get a chance to go.  Instead we planted out own flowers.

From 1823-1849, Rochester was known as the "Flour City" because once the Erie Canal reached Rochester in 1823 flour was produced here and shipped out on the canal.  The Erie Canal is what made Rochester a city.  The Erie Canal goes from Albany to Buffalo.  There's a song about the canal, written by Thomas Allen in 1905 and you can play it here:




Here are pictures from our planting.

These are the flowers they brought over to plant.

This is how great they looked after we were done.