Here it is Monday again. Last Monday Dorothy and I were having breakfast and bored to high heaven. Talking about Buffalo Chicken Wings we disagreed on how to prepare them. So I said throw some stuff in your bag we will find out. By 10:30 we were on the road, as the old song goes, shuffling off to Buffalo.

It was a nice day but Ohio has you trapped if your heading east from anyplace in the north, they force you into the Ohio Turnpike from the western border to Cleveland. A toll road with an interstate designation, it is the biggest scam going. The road sucks, is full of uneven pavement, work areas where your limited to 45 mph and they charge you $4.50 to drive 90 miles on this piece of garbage limited to one lane behind some idiot on a cell phone gawking at scenery. It once was a fine road however that was before the interstate system was put in place and you had something else to compare it with. After Cleveland we picked up the interstate and had a nice ride through to Erie Pennsylvania and then up to Buffalo.

Because the greatest invention ever put in a car is the new satellite navigation devices which will lead you around strange streets in strange places we arrived in time for a 5pm supper at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo. There we had Buffalo Chicken Wings in the way they were invented. The Anchor Bar’s buffalo chicken wings are far superior to anything in any chain restaurants, or other imitation places. They are coated in a seasoned flour and deep fried before being coated with the barbecue sauce. The wings themselves are tastier, however, the idea of serving them with a blue cheese dip sends them over the top. When the palette is cleaned with mouthfuls of beer from the pitcher of Blue along with an occasional munch on an ice cold celery stalk in between bites, you know you are eating something divine in the way that chickens were invented to have their wings eaten. All in all, well worth the 250 mile trip to dine on supreme.

So now it’s early evening and you’re in Buffalo, so what’s to do, why go look at Niagara Falls of course. I have seen the falls in the winter when they are covered with ice, I have seen them in bright sunlight, but I have never seen them on a warm summer evening after dark. Niagara Falls in that state is a magical place where the mist from the falls is lighted by the colored spot lights from across the river. The brightly lighted tourist attractions across the river make for interesting photos after dark.

The time to cross the border since Bush made the Canadians a people to be feared,  is to long so we didn’t do it. Shame too as once we crossed back and forth when the only questions were where are you going in Canada and coming back, the only questions were are you bringing anything back from Canada. A five minute crossing, not an hours back up. So here are a few pictures of the falls after dark.

Found a nice place to spend the night on Grand Island, and in the morning I told Dorothy about this place in Stowe Vermont where I used to ski that served real English foods. While the English food has earned a deserved reputation as not the greatest in culinary experience, it does have some interesting dishes that everyone should taste and have eaten as a part of living life, and I like Vermont anyway. So we decided to drive over to Stowe. I wanted to go through the upper end of Lake Champlain and down through the route 11 island string so headed in the northerly direction through New York State to spend the night in Plattsburgh New York.

New York’s toll roads share the distinction of garbage roads along with Ohio. Loaded with large tractor trailers driven by every kid who just discovered a steering wheel. As a travel experience, they suck. We got off the tolls and programmed the navigation system to avoid toll roads. This was after all a ride and not just transportation from one place to another.

Not in any hurry to get anyplace soon, we drove secondary and back country state roads through the Adirondacks into Plattsburgh.  Driving through the mountains was the most fun I’ve had in a long time. It made me appreciate the talent of the German engineers who designed my car. The low but wide tires clung to the pavement like claws on a cat, the suspension on turns with it’s quick and precise steering made me feel like some kind of rally race car driver, which my car is actually set up to be with a few minor modifications in the lighting arena.  Dorothy was terrified for the entire trip I fear.   Hanging on to the door handle she couldn’t take a picture.  Plattsburgh had nothing to recommend it other than a Friendly’s restaurant and outrageously priced motels filled with Canadians from Quebec escaping the confines of that sordid province’s language restrictions and spending some of their new found U.S. wealth after the Bush excesses brought on our dollar devaluation.

In the morning we crossed over the Vermont border and wound our way down route 11 through the island chain, stopping at the roadside rest areas to join the Asian folks in picture taking.  Dorothy got a chance to use her new Olympus dSLR on me this trip.

An uneventful trip, except for enjoying the views of some lovely places almost like a seaside on the ocean. Seems everyone there has a boat of some sort or another. Vermont folks are also some of the nicest people anyplace on the planet. Out on the freeway, we went back on the navigation system, this time telling it to not use toll roads or freeways. Doing back roads and ended up going through Smugglers Notch, a new thing for me as the road had always been closed during the ski seasons times when I used to ski at Stowe. Big rocks and trees, kinda neat.

The town had grown, but maybe it was always like this, crowded and very touristy. My disappointment, Cap’n Pickwicks Pub was no more.  Now there was a Olde English Pub with Pickwick meals. Outrageously priced of course, when it sets you back eighty bucks for a couple sandwiches and a bottle of beer.

Not a place I would recommend today, though I did like the Smugglers Notch area for a bit of rock climbing on stuff. We left and headed for New Hampshire over the back country sight seeing roads the navigation system took us over.

Both Vermont and New Hampshire are big on bicycling, a game I love to play. But those people are nuts. They have the attitude that they should ride their bikes in the middle of the road, when both states have set aside a lane for bikes as large as the one for cars. My major annoyance comes from the fact that all the parking places in the parks are filled with cars that carried bikes to the place. Parked at the best spots, not off where travelers could easily walk to the rest areas and viewing spots, but parked for a full day right in front of those places, empty while the owners are off riding their bikes and acting as though you shouldn’t be driving your car where they want to ride their bikes, which just happens to be the highway. All I can say is they are extremely lucky they are still alive, especially one idiot on a recumbent bike riding down a hill out in the middle of the traffic lane and going at 20 mph. Fast for a bike, yes. But a pain when you wear your cars brakes out to keep from running over his stupid ass for a mile and a half down a steep grade..

On a nicer thought, heres a picture from part way up Mt Washington.   Dorothy taking pictures of me taking pictures.

Another place I enjoyed during ski trips back east was in Gorham, New Hampshire. The town where we started to climb Mount Washington on cross country skis one January in 1980. Back then we only made it to just past the half way house, before we ran out of snow and still had a good bit to go . Mountain climbing in cross country ski shoes is not a good set up, so we headed down hill and gave up. This time we made it, the whole way to the top of the mountain, only difference was we sat on our tails while riding in the car. Stopping at overlooks. I ask Dorothy to take a few pictures from her passenger side of the car as we drove over places where the edge of the road went straight down into the clouds hundreds of feet below. She didn’t. She said she got woozy or something looking down. We enjoyed the views from the top, and I marveled at the old lady, maybe even almost my age, who had climbed up the thing in two days with her son. Lot’s of people climb up it, I was surprised to see that they could get a ride back down on the railway… For $45 one way down the hill… It made the $36 they charged us to drive our car up it seem downright reasonable.

In Gorham we stayed in a motel called Moose Brook Motel. Nice place with nice people and a swimming pool where I could cool off. The story was that a moose had run across the road and jumped the fence into the pool. The description had me laughing so hard I forgot to ask, how did they ever get it out of the pool.

As our trip was unplanned and we just threw a few things in a bag and took off, we had no intention of being gone as long as we had at this point, so the Gorham Laundromat came in very handy. We had clean clothes again. With clean clothes and a credit card that wasn’t limited out yet, we decided that maybe we should go out for a lobster dinner. In the Bar Harbor area of Maine. Maybe I was just having to much fun driving the car over those twisted mountain roads and didn’t want to stop. So off we went on a nice morning and were in Maine before noon. Ever wish you had taken a picture of something and kicked yourself later for not doing it. This is one of those times. We stopped at a place where two old bushy faced guys had a hot dog stand set up. They were so full of bull you just wanted to stay there all day. Dorothy, the hot dog queen was enamored by the red hot dogs. The old guys called them poor mans lobsters, but they were so cool and I enjoyed their bull I forgot to get a picture.   The fun of doing back country roads is when you stop, your new so everyone wants to tell you all about their part of the world.  We will do it this way more often. The Maine people in the rest area were all so happy to have outsiders stopping by, they filled us with one story after another. When one person stopped talking, another one would start up. When you travel over back country roads you get to meet the nicest people. Eventually we had to take our leave, I wanted to be on the other side of the state by dark.

Our destination was the Acadia National Park. Maine has nice people but the most inconsiderate drivers in the world I thought. They thought nothing of pulling out in front of you, but then with very few traffic control devices the stream of cars never had a break in it, so that was the only way to get in. Eventually we did get close to the Acadia where Dorothy looking out the window asked if that was the kind of lobster pound I was talking about. I said yep and I’m hungry, so we had a nice lobster dinner. Waiting for it to be cooked, I said I’m tired, there’s a motel across the road, let’s spend the night there. Luckily the escapees from Quebec had only taken half of the rooms and there was one left. We got it. While I was arranging a spot for the night, it started to rain and Dorothy was moved into a sheltered area. We had fun with two lobsters, an ear of corn and some local brewery beers. After  finishing off a great bowl of clam chowder that is.  Then dinner was polished off with a piece of blueberry pie and a bit of ice cream, my belly was pretty happy to have had a bed right across the road.

In the morning we continued on our way to the park, where I forked over ten bucks for a golden age lifetime pass to all national parks in the U.S. park system. That gave us access to the park road around Acadia, so we did that road, and most interesting it was. And still is if your in the neighborhood.   Some places you might even see 75 year old wackos who will climb on a rock to see the best views.

Among the most interesting sights we saw, was a wedding party, having their wedding pictures made in the park. That is just the kind of place it is.

On top of Mt Desert island’s Cadillac Mountain you can be the first person in the US that the sun strikes on most days. Of course, being the first persons in the North America would belong to those folks in Newfoundland Canada, where the sun is so early they set their clocks a half hour ahead of everyone else in the Eastern time zone. Never the less, the most entertaining place to see the first sunrise would be on top of Cadillac mountain in Maine. There you could watch the crazies performing their entertaining superstitious religious rituals. Sadly we didn’t hang around another day for that.

After a day in the park, we decided we didn’t want anymore lobsters, we just felt like going home, so we did. We made it as far as Lancaster New Hampshire by 9:pm where we had the misfortune to be the last people in the world who needed a room for the night at the Lancaster Inn. They gave us their last unused room called the apartment. A full five room apartment with everything but a window, but plenty of heat and humidity. The bedroom had AC, so we turned that up full blast and closed the door. Unable to sleep I took the laptop out and tried their WiFi, to no avail. But a business next door had left theirs open so was able to update a few emails. The next morning we had a stretch to go to get back home. The navigation system was set to take us home, and it insisted we go home by way of Quebec . A decision which I found absolutely appalling so it was reset to take us to Erie Pennsylvania, and with toll roads and freeways as options. We pulled into home 14 hours later, midnight after an 850 mile trip down those awful but speedy and direct freeways. We even did the $4.50 toll to get from Cleveland to Toledo in Ohio.