I Has To Go Home?

Not that I would particularly like to live in, say, Oswego, right on the shores of Lake Ontario. The city appears to have seen better days.

But canals are so cool, don't you think? This is a shot of the Oswego Canal, running alongside (and, oh, 10-12 feet higher than) the Oswego River, just before it empties out into the lake.

Yesterday we went to visit the Safe Haven Museum in Oswego. This was a camp that housed European refugees during WWII, in not very much comfort, apparently. Our local (actually, he's from downstate - the accent is different) guide informed us that there was some lack of foresight involved in housing refugees from the south of Europe in uninsulated military barracks right on the shore of Lake Ontario. "Sure, when they got here in August, they thought it was great!" he remarked.

Sarcasm is an essential phonological element of downstate speech patterns.

My dad, stepmother and I drove out - maybe a 45-minute drive - only to discover that the museum days and hours of operation posted on the locked door did not match those posted on the website. But as it turns out, this is okay, because Fort Ontario (on the grounds of which the museum is housed) was open, and it's, omigod, you guys. SO cool!

It's a strategic point, where the river empties into Lake Ontario, and there's been a fort there since pre-Revolutionary times; but the buildings there now date from around the time of the Civil War. The Union feared British and Canadian interference on behalf of the Confederacy. The Canadian dollar was much weaker back then, so the US$4 admission to the fort was a lot more prohibitive than it is nowadays.

The buildings are amazing (there are pictures in my album), but the best part was climbing up onto the high earthen ramparts to discover a door and stone steps leading down into the darkness. (Well - they did put up some lights.) You can descend these into the casemates, where there would once have been cannons poised to fire through slits in the heavy stone walls on any intrepid Canadians daring to venture up from the shores of the lake, waving fistfuls of devalued currency. It looks like medieval catacombs down there, or at least that's what I thought; to be perfectly honest, I'm not really a medieval catacombs expert.

Inside the storehouse of the fort is a gift shop, where you can purchase, among other items, a complete Alamo action figure set. It was $26, or else I'd have bought it and brought it home as a souvenir.

It's been a great visit. Today we're going to have some local delicacies for lunch, so I'll be sure and get some pictures of that, for Jason; up till this point I have not yet photographed any food.

I'll be back tomorrow evening. Y'all sure you don't want to all move up here instead?

Here's the link to the album again, so you don't have to scroll down. Pictures are in chronological order.