Monday, June 19 - Staying One More Day

Monday, June 19 - Staying One More Day

We were unplugging the power cord when fellow Loopers Beverly and Bruce walked by and shared the news that all the marinas at Sylvan Beach, where we will wait for good weather to cross Oneida Lake, are full and don’t expect to have room until the first of next week!  We reconnected the power cord, and went back to McDonald’s for another Egg McMuffin!

An elderly gentleman had stopped by to chat with Danny yesterday and mentioned the museum about diamonds in the local library.  We love museums, so we put on our rain gear and headed there after breakfast.

This is the entire museum - one display case!

These are “Little Falls Diamonds.”  They are actually rock crystal, a member of the quartz family, and are made of silicon dioxide, or sand and water.  They were fashioned by nature in small pockets or vugs (yes, that is spelled correctly) in dolomitic rock in this area. And that’s what we learned!

This is the cute little park across from the library.

Danny decided it was time for haircuts.  Well of course every hair salon is closed on Monday.  We passed a barber shop and he decided to go in.  I was a little leery - barber shops usually cut short hair.  It was a tiny, one-chair place.  We chatted for a while with the very friendly folks, then realized that one gentleman was waiting, so we left.  

Many of the stores on Main Street were empty, but all of them had something attractive in the window - pictures on easels, posters, antiques.  It made the downtown look so much better than others we have visited.  One store even had a wooden wagon in front.

I loved this unusual fire station in the basement of a municipal building.

There was a hardware store on Main Street, and we could not pass it up.  It was the smallest one I have ever seen, by far - 2 aisles.  I sat at the front to wait, and the lady working on the books asked where we were from.  (Do we look that foreign?). She squealed when I said Knoxville.  She was born there, and her family still lives around Newport.  We had a nice chat about the wonders of East Tennessee.  Small world. 

Mayflies were everywhere!  It reminded me of Lake Blackshear in Cordele.  We had to wipe off the walkway so I could walk to the bow without smashing them.  The gentleman working at the office said last year there were so many they literally covered the porch floor.

The shadows on the water were beautiful, my camera doesn’t do them justice.