Rochester, LeRoy " Jello Museum" and Batavia

 Central NY

July 19th 2022

The baby girl was scheduled to run at Batavia Downs, so Mark and I took a road trip to the west. We had a few fun stops along the way to add a little adventure to the ride. 1st we took a drive through the town of Rochester, Marks college town. 

Although I have never been here, Nick Tahoes is the home of the garbage plate. Rochester is also home to some famous civil rights advocates; Susan B Anthony is one of the most famous. 

Just a few miles away from Rochester is the town of LeRoy NY...home of JELLO. Yes, that is correct. Here is the one and only Jello museum. I had been once before but it had been closed. Today it was open and we were going to get our fill of everything Jell-o.

The museum has an exhibit on transportation in the basement, so we started there. 

and then, we made our way to the main event. Jell-o. Jell-o actually became a dessert here in LeRoy in 1897 when Pearle Bixby Wait and his wife May added flavoring to sugar and granulated gelatin. Jell-o was born. Jell-o's popularity may not have been such a success if it was not for the new innovative advertisment and unforgettable slogans such as "there's always room for jello". Additionally, there was the Jell-o girl.
The inspiration was a four year old daughter of one of the advertisment artists. Jell-o was an easy dessert to make and you could even float fruit in it. The museum had walls of jello molds. (pic below) .The first four flavors were...can you guess. Orange, Lemon, strawberry and raspberry. 

In 1904 a launch to boost sales was placed in the ladies home journal to include Jell-o recipes making jell-o a household name, In 1934 they hit the radio and Jack Benny sang the non forgettable tune J*E*L*L*O. 

Jell-o has been found to have the same brain waves in a EEG machine and also comes in a no sugar version along with multiple flavors. 

Jell-o has become less and less popular over the years in part due to the idea that jell-o is a food people in the hospital eat and the criminal involvement of Bill Cosby. This museum did not have any reference to the jell-o pudding pops, and I can only spectulate as to why. It was all very interesting and I even completed the children's trivia activity to win myself a pencil. Yes I am that kind of a women. 

We said goodbye to LeRoy and made our way to Batavia Downs. 

Of course Mark and I played a little on the slots before we headed off to watch the race. 

We went to the back lot and found Crazy Beach just coming in from the road, 

She looks ready to run. 

We gave her some loven and a pep talk before we made our way to trackside.

She started off in the lead, but fell behind. No winner today. But totally a great day.