Today, well yesterday actually, was an adventure-filled day. It probably would seem rather bland by most standards, but given that I work inside my home and money is tight, we only have one car, etc, I don't go out much. Well, none of us do. Anyway, today just happened to be a day we went out. I happened to bring along my camera. Not sure what possessed me to do so, but I did anyway. Along the way I remembered that an upcoming contest (next week's actually) is titled Show Your Colors and is about taking pictures of flags (not necessarily national flags). One of the places we stopped during the day was near
Cole Transportation Museum (link goes to their website). After seeing that they had a few flags up I asked Alex to drive by so I could get some pictures. Instead, we went for a tour! It was a unique experience and I have to say I did learn some things, although time was cut short because of other things we had to do (like drop off another resume for Alex and also drop off some documents for another place and then also get groceries). I would have liked to spend more time there, but today that wasn't an option. Alex decided to get Atrus a train whistle while we were there, but alas he dropped it before we even got out the door and we didn't realize that until we were already out and about doing other things. It was only $5, but still. Perhaps next time we're down there we'll pick one up and make sure it makes it out of the museum and he gets some real play out of it.
To go on with the story. It turns out that Cole Transportation was founded by Galen Cole, and has a rather rich history in Northern Maine. It would seem that they were either the first or one of the first to start snowplowing roads. Their website doesn't go into a lot of detail, but we did get some free cards. On the back of one it says "
A.J. (Allie) Cole, a Maine trucking pioneer was the first, in 1928-1933, to snowplow the road from Old Town, Maine to Aroostook County, Maine. Two of his Coles Express trucks, one pushing the other, were caught at that time by a camera in Mars Hill, Maine as they opened up the roads north. Allie can be seen standing in the dump body directing the two drivers." So they were the first to do that bit, but I'm not entirely sure how much of the snowplowing they pioneered. Inside there were quite a few (read lots of) snow plows, and they were really big, too.
They asked that no flash be used inside the museum. Therefore, being that I don't have a great camera, using no flash means that unless I stabilize the camera somehow, there's a very high likelihood that the images will be fuzzy. Well, most of them ended up so. I didn't get nearly all the shots I wanted to. I do hope to go back some time and spend more time in there wandering around and of course have more time to take better pictures, etc.
As I mentioned earlier, the first things I noticed today were the flags, the ones that weren't our National Flag. As we pulled into the parking lot, I found out that what I was seeing was a monument. There was a rectangular pedestal and 4 flags. On top of the pedestal was a bronze jeep. According to the literature, "
it is an exact bronze casting of the Museum's WWII Willys Jeep. The Jee's driver is the sculpted likeness of Charlie Flanagan killed in WWII and Galen Cole's best boyhood friend." Galen Cole, as I mentioned earlier, being the founder of this museum.
On the pedestal, on each of the 4 sides, there were inscriptions. The one at the front of the Jeep reads as follows:
World War II Memorial / 1941-1945 / Dedicated to the more than 112,000 Mainers who served in that war / 2551 gave their lives for our freedom / The Jeep was a vehicle universal to all / branches of the U.S. Armed Services.
The passengers side reads:
Major General Lunsford Oliver Battlefield Commander - 5th Armored Divsion in World War II challenged his troops. The same spirit which drove you onward to your achievements in this war will cause you to take the lead, to make our country a better place in which to live, improve our international relations and prevent future wars so that our heroic dead shall not have died in vain.
The back of it was about the Purple Heart:
Purple Heart Commemoration / Awarded for wounds or death as a result of an act of an opposing armed force. First awarded by General George Washington in 1783.
The last side reads:
4914 Bangor citizens served our country in World War II, 110 lost their lives. / The Bangor Public Library displays each day the history of a Bangor veteran killed during that war. Thumbnails below (click to open in a new window):
I wasn't sure how well the text would come out so I decided to type it up. That last one is behind the monument and is about the Purple Heart. Seemed fitting to have it here in this section.
This little gem is their mission (pops to bigger):
Right inside the museum was a display, I'm guessing where you could see what miniatures they were selling in the gift shop:
Atrus, of course, wanted to play with them. We almost had to drag him to go see the other stuff. Almost. This display of stuff seemed different than the rest:
The second one zooms in on some information.
Like I said earlier, I'm not sure if the Cole Family invented snowplowing itself. I know they pioneered a lot of it based on the information there. Anyway, here are some snowplow pictures (REALLY COOL):
Big snow plow:
This bugger here is essentially a modified weed whacker to move snow. The text is blurry and the pictures kind of bad, but it should give a nice idea of what it is.
Bigger (and shiny) snow plow).
It's really neat to see how they've evolved.
On to trains! Little boys like trains! I wasn't clear on the significance of this train in particular, but Atrus liked looking at it, as you can see:
The picture below shows a piston (it's huge). The only part of the picture that came out horribly was the text box below it so I cropped that part out.
"Piston / There are 16 of these in this locomotive's engine arranged in a "V." Our thanks to Engineer/Staff Member Wayne Duplisea for this and numerous other artifacts."
They had a display going on inside the train with a few short movies and all that.
The second picture shows how railroad ties have changed with the top one being what we use now.
Part of the reason Alex wanted to go in the museum is he knew about the Enfield Station. Yes, our Enfield up here in the middle of nowhere. I knew there was the Enfield Station school (elementary) and I know about the train, but not being from here I haven't learned a lot of this place's history. Anyway, Enfield had its own little station on the tracks. The station serviced Howland, which at the time with the tannery and everything in place was expected to grow into a major metropolis. That didn't happen. Air flight took off and the train industry came down in importance. We do still have a train running through here though! The next two pictures explain what happened to it and how the entire building ended up in the museum:
On another day, we would have spent more time in there, but it was still cool nonetheless. While in there I noticed these two gems:
This one (^up) says:
My Job
I'm not allowed to run the train
The whistle I can't blow.
I'm not allowed to say how fast
The railroad train can go.
I'm not allowed to shoot off steam
Nor even clang the bell.
But let the damned train jump the track
And see who catches hell!
I thought it was cute!!
And for anyone who thinks my desk is cluttered, though I suppose this doesn't count, they've gathered all kinds of things that belonged at one point in the Enfield Station. This is one cluttered desk:
After we'd gond through much of this, we hit what I'm calling the military corner. Like I said, we might have spent an hour in there total. Atrus while liking most of what was there still is a 3-year-old and of course wants to touch a lot of things and being energetic as he is, wanted to run around as well. I'm definitely going back at some point to take more time
and get better pictures. Moving on, they had a display of the various military rations that have been available. I thought it was cool. It included even today's MREs.
It also had this flag in there as well. The image isn't as clear as I would want, but, it's clear enough to read it:
That was the extent of the inside we got. Outside, I noticed another monument that I decided to go look at.
Thiis one shows the statue itself:
This one what it's about:
And next to it was I guess sort of a miniature version of what is in Washington for the Vietnam Memorial, only it's for Bangor only. I played around a bit and managed to get a shot in which all the names can be read, if one would be so inclined.
The last thing I saw was really cool as well, and this is what I'm ending with. They had a helicopter! They also had a tank, but I wasn't happy with that picture.
And with that, I'm signing off this blog. Sorry it's so long, but I hope you liked it.
