A fun day in Rome, that's Rome, New York

Tuesday, 8/30/11 -Another beautiful day in upstate New York, sun is out and temp is in the 80's. It is so hard to believe a hurricane blew through here a day or so ago. In the AAA Tour Book they have listed a "gem" - Fort Stanwix, that means, don't miss it!

Fort Stanwix www.nps.gov/fost is located in Rome (near WalMart) about 12 miles from our RV park. After lunch we head out to see what the Fort looks like. First off we find out it's FREE which today they don't have anything free. The actual Fort was built by the British in 1758 and what we saw today is a reconstruction of the Fort and all the quarters as they looked back then. The Fort is staffed by park rangers and volunteers. The volunteers are dressed in character as soldiers, craftsmen, an Indian, etc. During the day they have talks, tours and demonstrations for the visitors. Ours was at 1:30 pm - Defending the Frontier. The "soldier" called for 6 volunteers to light the canyon....and I was a "forced" volunteer. We had to march on command, we were each given jobs that we had to do in order to light the canyon. My job was the last one......I lit the canyon. It took about 30 minutes and was pretty fun. Unfortunately, I had the camera on my waistband so Will never got any pictures. After the demonstration, we continued to tour the Fort and see all the "rooms" watch a movie learning about the Fort and it's history. A beautiful large historic Fort in a "berm" setting with the city and Ace Hardware just across the street.

The Fort is located, of course, in their historic district that had many old beautiful buildings. One being St Peter's Roman Catholic Church. It was a big, Gothic looking church build in the early 1800's and was as gorgeous as anything I saw in Europe. Fortunately, it was open and we went inside and the inside was breath taking. Beautiful stain glass windows everywhere, a gorgeous alter and the most unbelievable thing...... a magnificent organ that covered the entire balcony and the organist was actually playing. At first we thought it was just a recording but when I approached the alter to take a picture back towards the balcony, there he was, sitting with his back to the church and playing, it was truly amazing and our timing couldn't have been better. May I add, lots of pictures were taken here.

Next we crossed the street to the Rome Historical Museum www.romehistorical.com and by George this was FREE also....what a hospitable town this is. It was a small but a wonderful museum actually one of the better ones we have seen. It wasn't so overwhelming as so many of them are.... it had simple displays that you actually wanted to read and look at and when we were finished we had a real sense of what Rome, NY really was back then. Hours have passed and we are dead tired....I've said it before, it's hard work sightseeing everyday but fun. We found our car in the parking garage just across from the Historical district and headed home. Much love to all our family and friends.