I Love New York Travel

Photo taken at the Iroquois Indian Museum in Howes Cave, NY. It’s an interesting museum, a weird blend of modern art and ancient artifacts from the natives that lived and do live in New York State. Some of the stuff is beautiful, like the carvings of animals made from moose and deer antlers or lovely rustic log furniture. Others is a little strange, emphasizing the pagan roots of the Iroquois nation from long ago. I am all for preserving history but I am not fond of the emphasis on paganism. Errors and myths of the past are best left in the past. We can learn from history, to be sure. Do people really still believe that the earth sits on the back of a turtle?

Anyway, the museum is a good history lesson and the lady who is in charge of the place is amazingly friendly and outgoing. It was odd, seeing such a “cultural” establishment in the middle of the lonely forests and hills of New York’s lovely outback, Schoharie County.

I learned a lot while there. The arrowheads, for example. Now that I think about it, OH YEAH of course you can date the tribes by the shapes they cut arrowheads. But I guess I never thought about it until I visited the museum. The most ancient arrowhead (and therefore, tribe) appears to be the “Clovis” group as you can see in the photo. However, I watched a brief video at the museum about Indian archaeology and some suspect that there is an even older group that predates Clovis. Interesting!

Another photo from our trip to Howe Caverns. This was my second favorite part of the tour (after the boat ride through the underground lake). The Winding Way, it’s called. It’s supposed to be the best example of water erosion in the world. It is indeed an amazing venture! And you do “wind” through the narrow passages. Some of the passages are so narrow that extremely large people or gals in maternity clothes because of pregnancy would not make it through. Some of the passages are very narrow indeed.

At one point, the husband stopped to hum in a portion of hollow stalactites. The sounds resonated throughout the entire winding way! It was very neat and all the others in the tour group were delighted. If you ever come to Upstate New York, you must see the caverns!

Well, I don’t know if that’s the proper name for these formations. They are calcite, the offspring of a chemical reaction between limestone and water. I took the photo when we visited Howe Caverns this week. Most of the formation we saw were the typical elongated, swirly stalactites, but these appealed to me because they were so different. They look like puddles, frozen in time.

Some of the formations are absolutely exquisite. It’s truly amazing what water can do, both its beauty and destructive force. Taking photos in the cavern, however, was quite the arduous task. I did poorly. The light in the caves is very low, and I didn’t want to use my flash because it produced garish, ugly photos. I had to stand SO VERY still, not even breathing, when I took photos. Only about 1/3 of them came out! Nothing really suitable for desktops wallpaper, except a shot of the Roman Cathedral Pipe Organ and the kids standing outside by the huge Howe Caverns sign on the lawn. If you’d like to see the photos and read about our visit, keep an eye on my NewYorkTraveler.net blog, as I will be publishing my post there this week.