wow wow wow!

ok, on the flckr thing, i've played with the privacy issue and i hope i've gotten it right. if not, hang in, it will get corrected soon. i'm getting lessons via email from a special friend in canada.
yesterday we went to the corning museum of glass, in corning, ny. mom and i went there in the 80's and it's been rebuilt and it's truly awesome. right now there is a large gallery of contemporary glass artists. it's hard to fathom what can be done with glass. they have several 'hands on' classes for a really low price. i did the lampwork bead class! the bead will beat us home by a couple of weeks tho. last time i saw it it was just showing some color. when you are done with it and it's cooled off a thousand degrees or something you put the mandrel with the bead on it in a bucket of vermiculite to cool off. since we couldn't go back today they will mail it to us. carole doesn't even know what it looks like, it will be a surprise. we will share it of course. we want to go back, maybe fly and visit jean for another week or so and the 3 of us drive to corning. the whole area is worth a return trip.
today, we took a back road carole found on the map, hwy. 417, just out of corning and ended up on I-90 heading to ohio. what a joy this road was, farm after farm, amish carriages and wagons sharing the road too. sorry, we didn't take pictures, sometimes you just have to store them in your minds. the route was just a glorious by-way getting us from one place to another.
we are at the most wonderful best-western in the whole world. we are overnighting in mentor, ohio. we wish we could clone this for the rest of the nights on the trip!
tomorrow we have an approximate 5 hour or less drive to columbia city, in. we meet my new cousin and his family. i think, if i'm correct we share a grandmother on my dad's side. i have a hard time keeping this family thing straight.
we miss you all and we are having a wonderful time. this is truly the trip of a lifetime for us.
love to all!