NE Vacation: Days 1-4

It’s 11:15pm on Day 4 of our vacation and this is literally the first chance I’ve had to fire up my laptop and jot down a few notes from the trip. If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter you have already seen several dozen photographs I’ve shared and have some idea of where we are and what we’ve been up to. For those of you who don’t, here’s where we’ve been the past four days:

Day One: Mason, Morgan and I loaded up the car and hit the road around 6 AM, headed for Chicago. In pre-kid days, sub-twelve hour trips to Chicago were possible. With “Bladder #1” and “Bladder #2” on board, it’s typically closer to fourteen hours these days. Surprisingly we made pretty good time and pulled up exactly 13 hours after we left. Upon arrival, my phone began blowing up with messages asking me if I was alright. What we didn’t know was, a tornado touched down in the El Reno/Yukon area. The tornado hit a few miles south of us, right along the line where my mom, dad, and sister’s family all live. Fortunately everybody made it through (again), but this year’s storm season has been deadlier than most. I am glad my family missed the tornado, but I wish we had been home to help with the cleanup. While everyone back home was hunkered down in their cellars and closets, Susan (who flew in from Washington D.C. to meet us), the kids and I were enjoying Chicago pizza on my Grandma O’s front porch.

Day Two: We left Chicago and headed east to Cleveland. Our first stop there was at the house where the perennial classic A Christmas Story was filmed. When I have more time I’ll write a dedicated post to that place. Both the house and the museum next door were super cool. Seems like we did something else that day, but it escapes me. We stayed in a hotel just outside of Cleveland.

Day Three: While still in Cleveland, we visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Man oh man, so man incredible artifacts in that place. I took a million pictured in there and will be posting them soon. We then hit the road again and drove to Niagara Falls, Canada. There, we checked into our hotel room on the 49th floor of the Hilton and spent some time staring at the falls from our room. The view from our room and the falls were equally amazing. After dinner we went back to the room and watched the Sunday evening fireworks that they shoot off above the falls. Wow.

Day Four: Our longest day yet. This morning we woke up and had breakfast in the hotel before visiting the giant indoor pool. After swimming, we ventured out down to the falls and rode the Maiden of the Mist boat ride, which takes you literally to the foot of both sets of falls. Again, I’ll be writing and posting more pics from this adventure later, when I get more time. After that we walked up and down Clifton Hill, which was a cross between Vegas and a circus sideshow. We went through a wax museum of questionable quality, but it was fun nonetheless. After walking all over town and eating we went back to the hotel, got our car, and drove to Rochester, New York, where we met up with my friend Steve and his wife Karen and had our first ever garbage plate. I had been told two things about garbage plates — that they were delicious and that they looked like garbage — and both turned out to be true. Basically they involve picking two “meats” and two sides and then having them tossed into one big pile with mustard, onions and hot sauce thrown on top. I picked “cheeseburger” and “fried egg” on top of macaroni salad and home fries for mine and Susan got I think a grilled-cheese sandwich and a scrambled egg on top of home fries and baked beans for hers. It was very unique and very delicious! After dinner, Steve and his wife accompanied us to a beach on Lake Ontario where we had some ice cream and let the kids run around on the beach and play in the park and burn off some steam. We left Rochester around 7 PM and arrived in Albany around 11:30 PM, which is where we are now.

Tomorrow we’re going to let the kids swim in the morning before driving over to visit Funspot in New Hampshire for a few hours and then landing tomorrow night in Maine, a state none of us have been to before.