FARMINGTON, NY.  This morning it was intermittent downpours in Niagara Falls, so we hurried to get hooked up in between gushes of rain.  We succeeded in getting the car hooked up and the hoses and cable disconnected in time.  I was about to start up the motorhome to leave when Betty said to me that one of the basement doors would not lock shut.  This had happened in the past, and all I did was take the housing off the locking system, lubricate everything, put it back together, and it worked again.  I did that this time, but it still would not work. I tried again, and the rain came pouring down.  As both Betty and I struggled with this mindless gadget, we both became thoroughly soaked.  I finally tied the basement door shut and decided to drive on like that when Betty noted in the RV park brochure that an auto repair shop down the road also worked on RVs.  Did not sound good to me; not even an RV dealer and they work on them?  I finally gave in and drove over there, but first we changed out of our dripping wet clothes and shoes.  This was the second time we had to do that (remember the windshield wiper caper in Oxford, IA?).

To make a long story short, a guy there took the housing off and got the lock to work, then he reassembled it, and it continued to work.  He said that I had tightened the screws too hard when I reassembled it.  He even used my drill to tighten it and somehow did it looser.  Go figure.  Charged me only $25.  And we were off and merrily on our way, though getting the motorhome with Jeep behind it out of that tight parking lot was interesting.

We are staying just south of Rochester, NY to enable a short trip into town to visit the George Eastman Kodak Museum.  We got there about 3:55 pm, which is late but turned out to be enough time.  It is located in an old section of town down a street with abandoned warehouses and other similar buildings.  It is housed in George Eastman's old residence, which was quite a palace in its day.  Now a section of galleries has been built on the front through which you walk to see the residence.  The residence top floor is roped off, but the first and second floors are still elaborately furnished.  A special affair was planned for that night to dedicate the reopening of the lily pond.  Must be a local thing.

The Celebrated Lily Pond

The Grand Hall

Grand Stairway to the Second Floor

Eastman and Edison Introduce Color Film at Garden Party

1,788 of Their Collection of 3,037 Color Dyes
These Were Used in Technicolor Filmed Movies

Closeup of a Few of the Color Dyes

Actually, they seem disinterested in having visitors from outside come in.  Our entry, for which we paid, was greeted icily by a highly detached lady.  The museum was likewise disappointing, with galleries of photos mostly far out of focus or of figurines dressed up like people.  The old cameras were few in number.  Not at all like we expected.

There was a nice store with a friendly lady to help you.  The best part of the museum were educational videos played on a large screen toward the entrance.  We watched these until they told us to leave at 5 pm.  No linger time allowed.

I think that I have seen all that I need to see of this place.  One thing that was interesting to me was the exhibit of the original digital single lens reflex (DSLR) cameras that Kodak introduced once they realized that they could not suppress digital any longer to keep their film business going.  Note below that these cameras were simply Nikon or Canon film SLRs with a Kodak digital base attached.  They were very low resolution, clumsy, and over priced.  It did not take long for Japanese camera companies to make far better DSLRs at a far lower price, thus dealing Kodak completely out of the professional digital camera business.

Some of the First Digital Single Lens Reflex Cameras