Road Tripping: Back in the USA

To circle Lake Erie in four days, we had to cover a significant amount of ground. Which is to say, we drove a lot on the last two days of our road trip. We drove out of Toronto in the morning, headed for Niagara Falls. Since we were already in Canada, we made a brief stop on the Canadian side of the falls. Having been to both sides, and having done some of the tourist activities on both sides, I will argue that I like the American side better. The Canadian side has a paved walkway with better views of the American and Horseshoe Falls, I’ll admit, but it gets worse as soon as you get away from that one area. Behind that street are casinos, hotels, souvenir shops, minigolf, Tussaud’s waxworks, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, a Ferris wheel. You know, everything you really need to truly enjoy the natural wonder of the waterfall with the highest flow rate in North America.

Top: American (L) and Horseshoe (R) Falls from the Canadian side

Bottom: American (L) and Horseshoe (R) Falls from the American side

We stayed long enough to take some pictures, then made the border crossing, which took approximately five minutes. On the American side, we stopped again to get the opposite point of view. This side isn’t completely noncommercial – there’s still the Maid of the Mist and Cave of the Winds – but it’s within a state park, which at least tempers the commercialism. The state park is recognized as the oldest in America, but has been majorly refurbished in the past 20 years. Being a state park, there are trails away from the falls where it’s much less crowded and much more nature-y. Again, we mainly remained long enough to take pictures before getting back in the car for one of our longer stretches of driving. We cut south through New York on some alleged highways through a bunch of villages, hamlets, and towns with no grocery stores, gas stations, or traffic lights to be seen. Although we were stuck inching down the state at 45 miles per hour, it was a lovely drive. There were these things called hills. Everyone from the west is laughing right now, but the Midwest is actually, seriously, flat. You don’t always realize it, because it’s not like there are zero elevation changes across the entirely of the middle of America, but you’re rarely surrounded by hills. This brings my list of things I miss about New England to Wegmans, the northeast accent, actual snow, and hills.

View from Rimrock Overlook

Our destination for the day was Pittsburgh, but we made one more stop on the way. We stopped, again very briefly, in the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania. Confusing fun fact of the day: the Allegany State Park in New York (just across the border) spells Allegheny without the h and with an a. I probably could have spent days walking around in there, but we didn’t have days, we had an hour, so we drove up to the Rimrock Overlook, and I hiked down a bit before hiking back up. It was almost quiet on the trail, if it hadn’t been for motorboats on the lake in the distance. But it was still a lovely walk, with plenty of trees, dirt, rocks, steps, and it was even slightly muddy.

On the trail

And I also miss hiking trails that look like this

When I returned to the car, we drove the last few hours to Pittsburgh. We got upgraded to a suite at the hotel, which has never happened to me in my life before. I guess this is what happens when you book using a business account instead of discount hotels R us dot com. I had dinner at IHOP because it was nearby and also I get hungry for breakfast for dinner once in a while. Back at the hotel, I settled into my personal bedroom to watch American Ninja Warrior and poker. Because no matter where you go, the hotel TV is always showing American Ninja Warrior and poker.