Shuffling off to Buffalo

So, we decided instead of Niagara Falls, maybe we’d just stay home and go to New Haven….

Okay, not really.  We left before dawn and 470 miles later, we are here in Buffalo, NY.  It’s actually not such a bad place, thus far.  From the drive thru, it has lots of alternative culture, lots of academia and the best darn buffalo wings I’ve had in years.

The ride was a bit long.  We did take a couple of detours.  First to Chennego, birthplace of Frank L. Baum.  I have a picture for a town secretary we all know.   We did not go into the All That’s Oz museum because it’s only open a few hours on Friday nights.  But it was a hoot nonetheless.

We also traveled along the Erie Canal.  As it happens, I’ve traveled along this before, but never actually registered canal, not river.  So that was kind of neat to figure this out (duh) and see the locks.

We then moved on to Syracuse, another town I’ve only been in the airport in.  It too was kind of a nice little city.  Very nice architecture.  There we stopped at the Erie Canal Museum.  Another tiny, but charming place.  They had a life size model river boat that I truly enjoyed and FINALLY learned why I associate the Erie Canal with donkeys!  The boats did not have motors or sails, but were pulled through the canal – by horses and donkeys!  Poor things.

We had lunch at the Miss Syracuse diner – another blast from the past, but not an intentional one.  It was very charming and right out of the 60’s.  Or maybe 50’s.

Still traveling west, we stopped at Seneca Falls – waved to the location that started Memorial Day, the park where they women “held their first convention” and went into downtown to the National Women’s Hall of Fame.  What a true disappointment.  While they had a couple of  interesting artifacts – Amelia Erhardt’s shoes, mostly it had 1 page bio’s with pic of women up on the wall.  Easily gotten from any encyclopedia or these days online.

Discouraged, we moved on to Buffalo, with some effort found a place to stay and headed thru town to the Anchor Bar, the self proclaimed originator of Buffalo Wings.  They were good.  They were too many of them. (By count, we got about 10 more than we ordered and we ordered a lot.) 

A full day, but good.