We spent a real quiet night in the state park in our really spacious state-park-type camp site – state park campsites are so spacious and quiet compared to commercial ones. With the state budgets the way they are nowadays they are no longer cheap but much better than commercial ones.

Our plan for today was to drive about 20 miles south of Watkins Glen to Corning, New York, the home of Corning Glass and the Corning Glass Museum. All of the photos today are of the glass art they have on exhibit there but they also had several demonstrations. The first we went to was about fiber optics where they explained how the whole thing works and what is going on with the technology. Very entertaining and informative. The second was about traditional glass work called “flame working” with lots of detail about glass and its behavior when heated and cooled. They had another session on “glassbreaking” where they showed the different types of glass we encounter: regular window, laminated safety glass, and tempered glass and how they break and why. The final demo was glass blowing and they made an awesome glass vase with multiple colors in a spiral pattern in about 10 minutes.

In addition to the demonstrations they had lots of info on the history of glass making. Like every other human endeavor most of the innovations in glassmaking have happened in the last 50 or 60 years. Until 1959, plate glass for windows and similar uses was rolled, ground and polished on both sides. In 1959 they invented “float” glass and revolutionized glass making. It wasn’t until the 1984 (if I remember correctly) Thunderbird that compound curves in glass could be done by machine – it was developed at Ford’s request. The GMC’s windshields and most other car windows are bent on a single radius. They didn’t mention it, but Corning is the company that developed the “strong” glass that the iPhone’s screen is made from – still, don’t drop it.