Heritage Day

This is some of what when on at the bayfront on Saturday. It was Heritage Day in Erie, and all the museums had free admission. We went down to the Liberty Bayfront Park to watch the Niagra and U.S.S. Baltimore sail by. I got some pictures of the Baltimore too, but this one of the Niagra was my best shot. Niagra was in full sail, while the Baltimore only had about three sails unfurled, so our ship looked better anyway. There was also some cool canon firing going on, both from the shore and a few from the ships. Then, we made it over the firefighters museum on 5th and Chesnut. Really quite a neat place that has been there for 30 years, but I never knew it. Packed with all sorts of old firefighting memoriabelia, including trucks, hand pumps, axes, equipment, you name it, and it's all in an old firehouse. The guide told me a story about when they used to have horses pull the pumps and how the horses were so well trained that when the bell rang, they would circle to the front of the fire station and have their saddles dropped on them from some sort of pully system and they'd be ready in like 3 seconds. He said, it was even faster than you could get a truck out the door.

Cheers.

Ralph