Day 3 2001.11.28

We woke up in Sandusky, Ohio. Which is a good thing, since that's where we went to sleep.  Off we headed towards the center of town to see the Merry-Go-Round Museum, when not a block from our hotel was a sign for a NASA research base! Cool! so off we went in search of the base. Well, we found it and it looked so bleak & forbidding that I didn't even take a picture for fear of unwanted attention...

So we reach the shore of the inlet, whose name I've forgotten, in the city of Sandusky, on the edge of Lake Erie. [pant, pant] And we see:

Inviting. Also downtown we met up with the Cooke Building.
Then on to the whirling horses.

Out of 7,000 total carousels made there are only about 250 left. (We're talking real ones, not fiberglass electric rides.)

They change their display yearly. When we visited there was a special display on M.Illion going on. He was a famous carver who made many of the horses & miscellaneous carvings. Eg.:
M. Illion Screen; hides the works in the center of the carousel.

We also learned important facts, like that the horses were of different sizes with the outside ones being the largest and the inside ones smaller, because the inside circle was smaller. Here's an outside and an inside:
Notice the inside one (r) has Park Paint ie. paint that's been slathered on by bored amusement park workers rather than the beautiful restoration of the outside Jumper on the left.

They of course had a working merry-go-round inside, so my wife & daughter went for a ride. It was very fast.
Where's my wife, I hear you ask. Behind my daughter, of course.

They also have formed a very active group over the past few years, including people who restore old animals, and carve new ones as well.
This will be a sea-horse. And man's best friend:
It was about this time that my camara started squawking that its battery was running low. (I took many more pictures than any of you have patience for...) Of course, I said, this is because I have not yet taken a picture of the haunted horse whose picture was supposed to be untake-able.

Ha-HA! Just call me Mr. Ghostbuster.

Then on to Cincinatti, where we spent the night under an enormous sign.

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