Impressive

I met friends and took a tour of the new Five Rivers Visitor Center - it's a thing of beauty. It also has many excellent interactive sensory displays - not so many that you need to stay all day, but just enough to make you want to get out and spot the real things in the wild.


I was impressed. And pleased that I got to say hi to several staff and board members who were around, who all seem happy with how things are going. I took a long looping walk around the woods and fields with two friends, followed by lunch.




The next big impression of the day was across the river at Hudson Valley Community College, where NY Senator Kirstin Gillibrand was holding a "town hall" - a meeting for anyone to attend and ask questions. C (future politics student?) came along too.

Questions ranged from healthcare to presidential powers to pension rights, relations with Israel, back to healthcare, the risk of nuclear war, healthcare again... There was also a query about bipartisan accomplishments, which the Senator answered with "I made dinner for Ted Cruz last night..." Senator Gillibrand can handle a crowd and talks sense. She is a hot tip for future President (if, the way things are going, the current incumbent doesn't turn out to be the last).

Finally, an impressive discovery in Cohoes: the most surprising thing I've ever come across in a public library. How did I live in the Capital District for seven years and never hear about this life-size model of a mastodon?