Let's Go Fly a Kite

While in the Astoria area we stopped by the World Kite Museum in Long Beach, WA. This is one-of-a-kind museum and the home of the annual International Kite Festival that will be in its 43rd year in August of 2023.

The museum traces the history of kite flying and has many interesting kites on display, as well as kites for sale.

A display at the  museum reads:

"Developed more than 2000 years ago the kite was mankind's first invention that could actually fly. For centuries people all over the world used kites to pursue the dream of flying themselves.

During Medieval times, the first human pilots rose into the air using giant kites for wings. Beautiful kites used in rituals and ceremonies kept the idea of flying alive in people's minds. Eventually, pioneering scientists discovered the secrets of aerodynamics, often by performing experiments using kites.

Since earliest days, kites have provided both the technology and the inspiration that has made flying possible." 

According to the Museum, the Japanese had the first word for kite, which meant "Paper Hawk".

This Chinese dragon kite is 50' in length. The orange and white "body" sections are suspended from the ceiling and wind throughout the museum. 

In China birds were considered to be a symbol of happiness...

This quite was huge...and beautiful

Insect kites signify good fortune

The Yunnan province in China makes kites in this unusual shape.

They have a sturdy frame and fly well in strong winds.

Alexander Graham Bell discovered that he could use tetrahedral shapes in different combinations to make a variety of kites. These kites had maximum lift and minimum weight. 

This kite is almost like a quilt!

A leaf quilt sewn with grasses or vines

This is a WWII kite that was used for different purposes during the war.

The kite could collect and send weather data on aircraft carriers to help determine when it was safe to fly or land. This kite also could lift equipment so enemy planes could be detected by radar when they were further away.

Kites were used for target practice. They were far less expensive than shooting at planes!

Many experimented with using kites to fly,

some successfully, others not!

One of the museum visitors commented that this kite should have been modeled after Pegasus, and have wings. It's hard to believe this particular kite could actually fly. 

The museum had a display telling more about kites. 

One display explained the basic types of kites.

One was about kite fighting. When I read "Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini I was intrigued by the kite fighting described in the novel. The museum had several fighting kites, including some for sale.

In 1846 Engineers held a contest to see if anyone could fly a kite across Niagara Falls. A boy managed to get his kite snagged on a tree on the Canadian side of the falls. That string was then used to help pull heavier strings and cables across the water, enabling Engineers to finally get a cable across the water in order to begin constructing a bridge.

There was a display of the posters created for advertising the annual kite festival. I really enjoyed seeing many of the posters. The artists captured the fun of flying kites. Here are a few of my favorites:

La Cité du Vin

As our ship returned to Bordeaux we saw this strange looking building on the southern end of the city. This is a museum dedicated to wine. The City of Wine.... Bordeaux! We hopped on the tram and went down to experience the museum.

And "experience" is the operative word. The museum designers created numerous ways to engage the visitors in hands-on experiences. 

This area was all about detecting odors. Each dome housed something that had a unique odor. Each had a brass bell to sniff the air as you pumped a perfume-like ball. In this manner you could hone your nose for detecting specific odors in a wine, such as floral or citrus. An important aspect of enjoying wine is detecting the "notes" from smelling the wine. 

Another display challenged visitors to select the color of a wine based on a description of the wine. The cylinders of different wine colors reacted to one's touch as questions asked you to select the appropriate wine color. Red wines get lighter in color as they age and white wines become more golden.

I was fascinated by this area of the museum. The tables had projected images on them which showed information about different topics. The projection was also touch sensitive. You could select to learn more about a vineyard, a wine, or history of wine making simply by passing your hand through the light beam. Each station had several different options you could select and videos of wine experts would appear. They tell you about an aspect of wine making. Visitors have head phones and they are cued into your language. So... I'd hear the description in English, but the fellow next to me might hear it in Spanish. 

This "grape vine" was another interactive area that had iPad-like devices with information about grapes, vines, vineyards, etc. Most of the leaves also had information to share. Visitors point the box of their listening device at the leaf and would then hear a story, a question, or some sort of information. 

Each "wine bottle" had additional interactive displays that addressed different sorts of wine in the region.

There were also several cute videos throughout the museum that addressed the history of wine in general, information about the Bordeaux wines and other background information.

And, like all great venues, the exit was through a gift shop. However, this gift shop was like none you've ever seen before. It was wine... all wine! A large circular room with wines from all over the world.

Oh.... and did I neglect to mention your admission includes a taste of wine?! The top floor of the building is a wine tasting room with glass windows and a balcony offering a beautiful view of the Garonne River, the city of Bordeaux and the surrounding countryside. 

A Pearl of a Different Sort

We Dreamers visited Pearl Harbor while we were on Oahu. I didn't expect to be moved to the extent that I was. The entire day was haunting. The sound of airplanes and the rat-a-tat-tat strafing of gunfire surrounds visitors as they enter the visitor center, taking them on a swift trip back in time to that horrific day, December 7, 1941. I meandered through the center, catching snippets of videos, reading displays and trying to take in a bunch of information before viewing an excellent video setting the stage for our visit to the USS Arizona memorial. The Arizona took a hit to its magazine causing a massive explosion and rapidly sinking the battleship, killing over 1100 men. The ship was not salvageable so it remains as a memorial on the floor of the harbor. Visitors take a short boat ride out to the structure that was constructed over the sunken battleship. Parts of the ship can be seen from the memorial. A somber visit as one looks at the visible portions of the ship lurking just under the water, while standing in the shadow of a massive wall listing the names of those whose remains are interred in the ship. Oil from the ship rises to the surface of the water after all these years, making me think of tears. The droplets rise to the surface of the water and spread slowly in the ripples of the harbor, moving off to make way for another droplet. Drop after drop. Day after day. Year after year.

Oil slowly spreads across the water above the USS Arizona

I am glad that our tour included the USS Bowfin submarine and the related museum as well as the air museum where the airfield and buildings still bear witness to the attack.  A tour of the USS Missouri,  the site of the treaty signing that ended the war, ended our time travels.

A Glass Act

On our recent trip to New York we stopped at the Corning Glass Museum in Corning, NY. We had visited there in the first years of our marriage, and I'm so glad we went back as I had forgotten so much of what it was like.... or things had changed so much... or maybe a bit of both! In 1972 they experienced flooding. The flood line is marked at about 4 feet on the glass wall at the entry. That could be reason enough to change things a bit! Can you imagine having to clean all of that glass?!

The collections are extensive, and include many examples of glass through the ages. The goblet on the left is from ancient Egypt. It dates back to 1460-1360 B. C. Ancient glass makers used cores and formed the glass around the removable center. I was amazed at the colors and the complexity of designs.

The ornate bowls in this display were created around the 1st century.

Here are some whimsical pieces, probably from Germany in the 1700's. It's a bit tough to see, with all of the reflection, but the piece on the left is a "trick goblet", and the green piece is a "Schnapshund",  an animal bottle.

The museum also has some stained glass pieces. This one, by Tiffany, was installed in a mansion near New York City. The home was donated to a church, and most of the furnishings, including this window, were removed and sold. Later, this window was donated to the museum. All of the colors in this window are created by the use of glass.

Among the displays were several cabinets showing examples of crizzling. Crizzling is the decay of glass over time. If the mixture of silica, alkali and a stabilizer are not in correct proportion, glass will absorb moisture and deteriorate. Who knew?! Although I have seen old glass that has a frosty appearance, as is seen in the pieces in the image below, I never realized it was a decay process.

The museum had a visiting display of glass models created by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka in the mid to late 1800's. These models are on loan from Cornell University. They were originally purchased by Cornell in 1885 to use as teaching models. Many of the invertebrates can not be preserved well, so the glass teaching models were the perfect tool to show would-be biologists what different marine species look like. Most of the models are only 2" - 3" in size. 

Long-armed squid

Sea slug

The spines on the tentacles of this brittle sea star were only 1mm in diameter.

The models were marketed in the US by H. A. Ward.

The catalog lists all of the models and their prices, modest by today's standards! 

The Blaschka's also made glass eyes.

This was a display case found in their shop.

Eerie!

There were a number of contemporary exhibits, and the art was as varied as could be. It is amazing to see what people imagine and create. This display was called "Continuous Mile". The artist worked with Zulu women to string beads in coiled rope, and then arrange the mile of beaded rope into this cylinder. The artist wanted a project that would take a long time so she could get to know the women.

Here is a close view of the beaded rope. 

It took over a year to create and required more than 4.5 million beads.

Some of the displays were suspended from the ceiling.

And this display shows what it could look like with a fallen chandelier. 

The sculpture is called "Carrion" and is intended as a metaphor for the decline of the centuries-old glass industry of Murano, Italy. I always get tickled by the description of the meaning behind an artist's work. Sometimes I wonder who writes those things!!

And in this sculpture, you may not be able to see the forest for the trees!

Each "tree" is comprised of glass shelves full of many kinds of glassware 

Some of the glasses have flowers and birds, things you might find in the forest!

Sometimes, glass doesn't even look like glass!

The museum represents 35 centuries of glass art.

Wow! That's a long time!

There are almost 50,000 objects in the permanent collection.

That's a lot of glass!

Corningware is no longer made by Corning, Inc. It has been made by

World Kitchen since 1998.

I still have a bit of Corningware in my cabinets!

I bet you do, too.

The Museum has miles of glass cases housing their collection.

(a bit of an overstatement, perhaps)

They use ZEP-40 Non Streaking Glass Cleaner to clean the cases. 

I wondered about the number of fingerprints they must get each day! 

They use conservation-grade cleaners with non-ionized water to clean museum pieces. 

No Windex (it has ammonia)

No soaps with dyes or perfume.