As luck
would have it, the arrival of our fitbit devices at work came just a
couple days before I was to travel East for a visit back to Niagara
Falls and Buffalo, NY. The main purpose of the trip was to visit family
and friends who I hadn't seen in a few years, so I was worried about
fitting in the time for daily exercise walks. I needn't have worried...
The
trip started excitingly enough at Seatac airport. Since I have a policy
of demanding to opt out instead of walking through airport RAPISCANCER
machines, the TSA (Transportation Stazi Administration) conducted their
usual "4th amendment free zone" patdown and then freaked when it turned
out there was gunpowder residue on my backpack (from having used it as a
range bag previously). In the end, the TSA cretin and his supervisor
reached the brilliant conclusion that I was not the bleeding edge of a
hitherto unknown terrorist organization of 50-something computer
programmers. If this is happening thousands of times across America
daily, it's obvious that sequester budget cuts have NOT gone deep
enough!
Enough
ranting...during the flight back to New York state I had a 3 hour
stopover in Chicago's O'Hare Airport and managed to do some of my daily
walking by walking laps around this moving walkway.
Apatosaurus? Bah! You'll always be brontosaurus to me.
Most
of my visit home was spent visiting family in Niagara Falls. An
especially cool bit was that my mom is also a walker and so we did walks
around Goat Island together every day that I was home. Goat Island is
about 1.4 miles around, so a couple laps of it got me through a good
sized chunk of the days step goal.
It's funny the way
that we forget how amazing things in our past were. When I was growing
up in Niagara Falls, I didn't think anything about what spectacular luck
it was that I could just walk here anytime I wanted. Certainly some of
the best memories of my youth are of times spent here by these
stunningly powerful waters rushing to plummet over the cataract...time
spent bicycling or walking or in the company of a lovely woman. But
being back for a visit brought it all back...
One
of the other nice things about being back in Niagara Falls is that the
Canadian border is also right there. My mom and I also took the
opportunity to drive across and see Niagara-on-the-Lake, an especially
British-flavored town just across the Niagara Gorge from New York where
runs into Lake Ontario.
Battles
in the War of 1812 between the US and Canada were fought in this area,
two centuries earlier. Niagara-on-the-Lake was burned to the ground (and
Buffalo was razed also, in retaliation)...
On
the way back from Niagara-on-the-Lake, we stopped to look at Brock's
Monument, in Queenston Heights. This second monument to Major-General
Sir Isaac Brock (whose leadership repulsed an invading US militia...an
early lesson in why Americans visiting Canada should BE POLITE) was
damaged by lightning strikes in 1929.
During
my visit to NY, I also spent some time in Buffalo, visiting with a good
friend and exploring. These two photos were taken in the arty Allentown
district.
Like the Niagara Falls Reservation, Delaware Park is the result of a brilliant parks system design by
Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert
Vaux, When I lived in Buffalo, this was another area that I was drawn
to and which provided priceless opportunities for recreation in the
heart of a busy city. Nestled in one corner of Delaware Park is the Buffalo History Museum, which inhabits
the one remaining building from the 1901 Pan American Exposition.The
exhibits include illustrations of items invented or manufactured in
Buffalo, along with historical artifacts from the city's long and
vibrant history.
On
the other hand, maybe Buffalo would have a more robust economy now if
they had thought through their "local products" a little more
thoroughly!
One photo that I took walking through
The Book Corner, a fantastic local bookstore dating back to 1927.
