Home from the blogging tour of the “Cradle” of the women’s rights movement in the US in upstate New York! What an eye opener! It’s one thing to talk about the “Cradle” of the movement in the US, and yet another thing to see it for myself. I’m exhausted. I’m happy. I have enough material to write about for the next six months.

And we left the Women’s Rights National Historic Park in Seneca Falls, NY right before the federal government shutdown. Or we would have been among the thousands of visitors from around the nation and world disappointed (on many levels) about the politicizing of public services. Roads were closed, visitor centers shuttered, and campers ordered to pack up and hit the road.

The loss in revenue is tremendous. An estimated 716,000 people spend  $76 million dollars a day visiting the national park system, according to one AP story in the daily paper delivered to my front door yesterday. The news piece focused on national park sites in Utah and Arizona and the bewildered tourists, many of whom had traveled considerable distances to reach the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and other national sites.

The number of visitors to the Women’s Rights National Historic Park in Seneca Falls, NY aren’t at the level of these destinations, although in my opinion, the national park in the “Cradle” of the women’s rights movement in upstate NY hasn’t yet reached its potential in terms of public awareness.

Olivia Twine and I started out with the unveiling of the Sojourner Truth statue in Port Ewen in the Hudson Valley as a launching pad. Then we visited Johnstown, Fayetteville, Seneca Falls, Auburn, Rochester, and Farmington. There are hundreds more places we could have visited, depending on how broad we defined our parameters. It was ambitious enough for six days on the road. Visiting sites, photographing, interviewing, and driving kept us going nonstop, and still, we couldn’t keep up with the daily blog posts. We’ll be blogging about the experience some more, and there’s plenty to think about.

This was an experience made easier by the cradle’s accessibility to the New York State Thruway. We covered a lot of territory quickly. And it appears as if we may have rocked the cradle until the limb of the national government broke in two.

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