24-Hour Road Trip 3 of 3- To Rather Quite Finite, and Not Much Beyond!

[captainsblog]

The shortest drive home from my sister's is west, then north, then a rather disfavored detour due northwest to Batavia, and finally a familiar half-hour home on the 90.  The route has a string of long established tourist attractions- from a racecourse-turned-casino in Tioga County, to Mark Twain mania in Elmira, to the Corning Glass experience, to Watkins Glen racing just north, and finally past the southern tips of the winery trails of the three westmost Finger Lakes. Keuka, closest of those to home, bottoms out at Hammondsport, about 10 miles north of the highway. There are also aviation attractions throughout this area, and one of them, the Curtiss Museum, began a push this summer to expand its base by promoting, HEY, KIDS!,



Mmmkay. Hadn't heard of those last two, but I'm always down with the memorabilia.  So I claimed my dollar AAA discount (still too young for the senior admission:P), and found my way to this fabulous new installation.

There wasn't anything Doctor Who in there other than me in a TARDIS t-shirt, but the theme of this exhibit was very weeping-angels like: Don't Blink, or you'll miss it.

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Don't get me wrong. The stuff they had was good. All ten display cases of it, in a section of the exhibit floor not much bigger than our living room.  They led with the best they had: a full-size replica of the Lost in Space robot, completing my Billy Mumy trifecta:



"Please do not touch" was part of the overarching theme. Everything was either under glass or behind barriers. Nothing interactive or interpretive about any of it.  Even the robot was not a genuine prop but a replica which appears to have come from a builders club member in Kenmore.  I amused myself remembering all of Dr. Smith's insulting names for the dear boy, then moved along.

Next was Trek, with the deepest bench of the entire exhibition. Probably five whole displays, ranging from a redshirt getup from the original Khannnnnnnn!-



- to this, wow! actual interpretation!, depiction of how Federation technology has become ours even before the birth of Zefram Cochrane-



You want Galaxy Quest? That was next. Here it is- all of it:





(Now I'm going to be speaking in a high-pitched vocal-fry voice for the next hour;)

Throw in the not two but THREE shows I'd never heard of-



- and it was pretty much time to move on to the permanent collection. (Okay, Andromeda, I finally remembered, was a Roddenberry one-off descended from the Genesis II project he worked on after TOS's demise- best remembered for Kevin "Hercules" Sorbo leading them into space.)

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Much more here if you like planes. Old ones, big ones, even a HEY KIDS! seat or two to "fly" from. Perhaps most famous among the creations of the museum's eponymous Glenn Curtiss? His Jenny:



(I'm surprised they didn't hang it upside down. They're way more valuable that way;)

I spent more time waiting in the Bath-area Mickey D's drive-thru than I spent at this sci-fi exhibit. I won't complain about 10 miles or 10 bucks, but I wouldn't bring a boatload of kids down here from points far away until they significantly expand or improve.

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On the final leg home, though, I saw something artistic that was as uplifting as anything under this roof. If you've traveled on 390 between Corning and Rochester, heading northbound, you've probably noticed the Rock- big and on the roadside on the right, and gets painted regularly by competing high schools, fraternities, and such. I always look for it, because it's something of a landmark that tells me I'm getting close to home. On that last leg before the bypass to Batavia, I saw it beautifully repainted with LOCK HIM UP and hashtagged #45. And this is in the heart of REPEAL THE SAFE ACT country.

Finally home after stops for pet meds (Zoey came down with ear mites) and groceries. We're caught up on Who and Class (although somehow zapping through the final scene of the latter which seriously changed the tenor of what we saw happen to Miss Quill), and will be hotdogging and maybe doing some minor yardwork for the rest of this day of Memorializing.

Comments

[platypus]

I remember enjoying Defying Gravity... for its very short run, where they never aired the denouement. IIRC the last few episodes were available online but we didn't care quite that much. It was very, um, Canadian. Which I often enjoy. Not exactly marquee material for a museum exhibit, though!

[captainsblog]

I have my own memories of "very, um, Canadian." Mainly of something called The Starlost, which ran in first-run syndication in the early 70s. Basically a series-long extension of the "World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" premise, it was conceived by Harlan Ellison and starred 2001's Keir Dullea. What could go wrong?

Pretty much everything. The special effects bombed, the budget was cut to the bone, and Ellison was so pissed that he Alan Smithee'd the whole thing (not till this decade did I learn that "Cordwainer Bird" was him). But I still have the voice of the onboard behind-the-scenes computer voice in my head on choice occasions:

[captainsblog]

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