 |
- New answer to what province Niagara Falls are in. |
 ... Since Canada Came Along After not getting out of the hotel until past noon, the push to Niagara was on. Since we did get out so late, and I didn't want to go get home when my family was already in bed (about 6:30, 7:00 or so :)), these 110 miles had to be done fast. So of course we got lost. The highways around Buffalo and Niagara are all under construction, something we really didn't encounter as much as we'd feared on the trip. Every sign, and I mean EVERY sign, had "Niagara Falls" on it. It's so romantic, I guess, every last drop of pavement wants to make out there like all the other fat couples within a 25-mile radius. So many ugly people there. So many. Anyway, the road confusion caused us to get a little lost short of the falls, but eventually we found our way again. To get to the Falls, you cross the Niagara river twice; a third time if you decide to go through customs and cross into Canada. The day we were there, the sky was overcast and the water looked extremely choppy. The lake effect winds were strong; there was no rain, but the weather was clearly unsettled. Once you get on the right path, it's not a hard place to find. The city of Niagara Falls, N.Y., aside from being the home of a crappy Hard Rock Cafe and the Falls, has a gigantic Triscuit factory. Have you ever made those Triscuit pizzas that they always talk about on the commercials? You know, with the sauce and cheese, and all the girls are running around all giddy and stuff? Me neither. I bet they're pretty good though. We parked on the street and, after a failed trip for Meg to buy film and who knows what other crap, we made our way across to Goat Island, undoubtably named for the many goats who died there defending the frontier in the American Revolution. All along the river, you could sense the dread of the waves, who knew soon they would go over the falls and undoubtable be killed. Walking along the paved path to the American Falls, it was nature at its finest. Artists were sitting along the edge, sketching the scenery. Children stood pitching rocks into the water, while their parents cuddled. Next to the actual falls, a wedding was taking place. Standing on the grass between the railing and the chasm, a woodchuck sat just taking it all in. The woodchuck was then frightened away by some Arab guys. I'm not just saying that because they were Arabs, I'm saying it because if you point and try to poke at a woodchuck three feet from a drop off a cliff, you deserve mention for being an asshole. I never realized Niagara Falls was actually two sets of waterfalls: the less-impressive American Falls and the better-known and more-famous Horseshoe/Canadian Falls. That I don't get, because the headwaters for both sets of falls are in America, so why one is the American falls and the other isn't is beyond me. But anyway, the state park in New York had these cool things called "Butt Caddies" or "Butt Buddies" or something. They were three-foot tall cones with a little hole in the top: trash bins just for cigarettes. An amazing invention with a cool name - something I would have taken my picture with and stolen if there weren't other people around. Then came an idea that probably would have been better left undone. When I saw there was a Hard Rock Cafe in Niagara Falls, Canada, I immediately had to venture over there to investigate - given I hadn't seen the N.Y. one yet, I thought it was the only one. So, off across the Rainbow Bridge we went, laughing at all the suckers waiting in like to pass through with their cars as we walked. One of the funniest things I saw the whole trip was at the border crossing. On a sidewalk, next to customs, was a revolving door, completely unguarded, completely undefended. Sure, the sign above it reading "To Canada" was surrounded with barbed wire, but the door was just there to waltz right through. I have to think somebody must have tried to climb over the fence, necessitating the barbed wire. Wonder if they missed the door... idiots. Course little did I know the bitches blocking Canadian entry would be in human form on the other side of the bridge: Us: I'm from Massachusetts and she's from California. BG: Citizens? Us: Mmm hmm. BG: That a country? Us: Huh? BG: Is that a country? Mmm hmm? Us: We're from the United States. BG: Different place than mmm hmm, isn't it? And so we danced. After we were asked how long we would be staying, why we were there, and of all things, "Do you know what province you're going into?," Dudley Fucking Doright let us enter his home and native land. Instead of saying 'Ontario,' I almost asked him, "If I answer wrong, do I have to go back to America?" He did have a gun though. Suppose that's what I get for trying to inject some actual currency into their toilet-paper money economy. That'll teach me. I still bought my Hard Rock T-shirts, while Meg bought some Canadian Hershey candy - really the same as American Hershey stuff, but with French on the packaging. We walked a bit, contemplated going in the Casino, but made sure to get back out of the country before the Mounties were sent after us. Course we didn't get to leave until we paid 50 cents to re-enter the USA. That was screwed up. If it wasn't for me having a dollar, Meg might still be in that crossing station. Thoroughly tired from the international incident, upon re-entering the country we headed for the car. Having called the family and told them we were on the way, it was time to start the Final Drive. New York, for as exciting as NYC is, is mostly a barren state. The northern half has little to no cities, and little to no tall buildings. It makes a nearly 400 mile trip across the state a tough thing to endure, especially considering the day we traversed it was gray and rainy. Having to keep ourselves entertained, Meg and I did what we do best: fought. As usual, I got out of control. She said something, and I had one of the excellent stuffed Canadian Twizzlers in my hand. So I hit her with it. And it formed a welt that didn't go away. So if you get to meet Meg and she ever shows you the mark on her thigh or starts talking about how I abuse her, know that this is the true story and that it was a very, very good Twizzler. Mmm, tropical fruit... The whole trip, I never stopped being amazed that those distant cities on the highway signs, "Needles - 209," "Topeka - 341," "Albany - 406," we blew past those cities multiple times over. I remember, sometime when we were still out west, we passed a joke Southwest Airlines billboard advertising that Nashville was something like 1,900 miles away. I just looked at Meg and said, "You know, essentially, we're making that trip." To think that it's possible to make a trip from the Atlantic to the Pacific, over land, just in seven days time will never cease to amaze me. It was pitch black by the time we hit the Hudson River, switching roads by Albany. It's another one of those views, like the crossing of the mesas near Page, like the eastern Colorado countryside, that I'm sure is breathtaking but we missed by traveling at night. But I got to see another breathtaking view just an hour later: a string of tollbooths, with a sign on the top: Finally, I knew all the landmarks again. Of course, now I could laugh knowingly at the 2,000+ "highest point on Route 90 til South Dakota" sign in the Berkshires, and not sit in wonderment at how far away South Dakota really is. We passed the Lee Factory Outlets, the 1,000 mile high bridge in Westfield, the Circle K rest stops on the Pike, notable because they're actually done and open, and because what the hell is Circle K doing in my God damned state, you sons of bitches? We got off Exit 3 in Westfield, and I can never remember being so happy to see that three-stall ghetto tollbooth and not having to pay because tolls in Western Mass. are nonexistant. We stopped for gas at the Shell station near the bottom of the hill, the very same Shell station that in January 1997, Whitey and I stopped at after my Mighty Tempo had skidded off the road, and off a tree, and off a fire hydrant. That's a whole other story. We drove past my mother's bank, past the new Stop and Shop, the Toy Works where Amanda used to work. All the things I had taken for granted in the 18 years I lived in WMass full time. I was so excited to see them again... I didn't even point and laugh when we passed Westfield Feed. Meg, on the other hand, was seeing all these things for the first time, and as usual, she was bitter: I was also full of that rare spice, reminisce: "This is the farm the cows escaped from when they all showed up in my yard." I think I better just stop with the stories there... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
     | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
AOL IM: JonCoochBU |  |