Click HERE to go to Day 1 entry.
After checking out of the wonderful Lake 'N Pines motel, we went back into Cooperstown for breakfast. Either Cooperstown
doesn’t have breakfast eateries or we just didn’t happen to find any that was
open so we got back on Hwy 80 and headed toward our next destination 250 miles
away – Niagara Falls. Hwy 80 (known as Cooperstown Road in this part of the country) is a 2-lane, black-top rural road
with beautiful open fields and groves of old-growth trees with little towns every now and then. Going
through one of these little communities (it’s called a community because
calling it a town would be ridiculous), I spotted a little Mom & Pop store
with a sign that said, “Breakfast.” A wooden building with peeling white paint,
it looked like it had been there for many years, but there was something homey
about it. Chip didn’t see the sign as he drove by, but I got him to turn the car
around and return to it. I figured at the least we could get some road goodies
to snack on (plus it’s nice to help support little privately owned businesses).
Our room at Lake 'N Pines Motel
As soon as we walked in, conversations ceased and every head in the place turned to check us out. There were only a couple of small tables along the wall and the tables were occupied mostly by old farmers and ranchers wearing overalls and Massey Ferguson or John Deere gimme caps. These are the old-timers who come to town every morning to have their coffee at this little store and grumble about the weather, wives, and the state of the union. One asked in a polite but warry way where we are from. After we told them we were a couple of old U.S. Navy buddies who temporarily left our wives and kids behind to take a road trip to see the Baseball Hall of Fame and we were just passing through, they all seemed to relax, smiled, and after a few welcomes, went back to their grumbling with each other. I guess we passed their test. Everyone was very nice after that and we actually had a pretty decent hot meal cooked up by an older lady in the open kitchen. It was one of those places where people know each other by a nickname, where everyone got up, refilled their own coffee, got milk from the cooler, and chips and candy from the shelves, and then told the cashier what they had and paid up or put it on their tab. It was a nice little interlude - an enjoyable slice of small-town USA. Back on the road toward Niagara Falls, our luck changed. To say things didn’t go as planned would be to engage in careless understatement.
Just a few miles down the road, it started to rain. I’m not talking a little summer shower. I’m not talking about a mist. I’m talking full-on rain. A few minutes later, the sky really opened up and it started a heavy rain. Impressively heavy. As in monsoon rain. And it continued to rain. Every now and then, it would slow to a heavy downpour, but then back to the monsoon. And it continued like that for the next 250 miles! Instead of the expected 4 hours of driving, it took 6. My back started really acting up and every time Chip hit a little pothole, or the road got a little bit rough, a stabbing, red hot pain shot up my lower back. I ate Excedrin Extra Strength like M&Ms to keep the pain tolerable. In short, it was miserable.
When we entered Niagara Falls, it was still raining. We were hungry and tired. Open parking spaces were non-existent unless we were willing to pay $20 or more to park for 30 minutes so we could eat. We finally came across a hotel a few blocks away from Niagara Falls Park with a restaurant that advertised Chinese Buffett. We got lucky and found an open, metered parking spot just down from the hotel, so we grabbed it, dropped a few coins in the meter, and squished our way into the hotel.
As soon as we entered the restaurant, we knew something was not right – there was not a single customer in the place. That's not good. Thinking maybe it was because it’s the middle of the afternoon, we went in. The food on the buffet looked like it had been cooked yesterday morning and left in the warming pans since then. Every item had a film over it and everything just looked old and unappetizing. We started to walk out, but a waitress came over and told us they also had pizza. With her assurance that the ingredients were fresh, we ordered one each. A little surprisingly, they weren’t bad, so we sat in a booth eating our pizzas and watched it rain.
We then drove to Niagara Falls Park and looked around, but the paved walkways in the park were pretty much underwater. Plus, it was cold. Here it was May and the temperature was in the lower 40’s with rain and a strong, cold, persistent wind. We had on t-shirts and single-layer windbreakers. We saw a couple of hardy souls walking down the sidewalks. They had umbrellas and raincoats over their heavier coats and were walking in ankle-deep water. We were not prepared for the weather and with my hurt back limiting my mobility, I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk very far. In this case, “Skooter” (my mobility scooter) couldn’t be used. It runs on battery power and not only does water and electricity not mix but running it in water would cancel the warranty and I had only had it for about 6 weeks. That thing is too expensive to take a chance like that so Skooter stayed folded up in the back of the SUV. I had intended for us to take the Maid of the Mist boat excursion, but it was closed due to the storms and high water. I had also thought about us taking a helicopter tour of the falls, but it too was shut down. We checked the weather and the rain was forecast to last solid for the next 3 days. We reluctantly decided to put off seeing Niagara Falls until some other day. Big disappointment. Really big disappointment.
We entered our next destination, Rossford, Ohio into my portable GPS and set out for the Rossford Library where we could see the size 37AA shoes of Robert Wadlow. Standing 8’11” tall, he was the tallest man in the world. Turning onto the bridge the GPS told us to take, we were surprised to find halfway across that we were going into Canada! There are signs telling you to not turn around and walls on the side of the road to prevent it. So here we are, going into Canada with no passports (we both have one, but didn’t have them with us), a big bunch of packages in the SUV backend, and an illegal weapon (illegal in Canada anyway) in my possession. I knew it didn't matter in Canada that I have a carry permit and we just knew we were going to jail and there was nothing we could do about it.
The Canadian border guard was actually pretty nice – where are you headed (“back home to the U.S. hopefully”), why did you come to Canada (“we didn’t intend to”). You followed your GPS, didn’t you? (“Yes, sir, that’s exactly what happened.”) Is it just the two of you? (“Yes, just us 2, sir.) Where’s home? (Texas and Oklahoma, sir.”) Do you have any drugs in your vehicle? “(No sir, no sir. We don’t do drugs.) Are you carrying any firearms? Oh crap, what do I say?! I replied as calmly as I could - “No, sir” while thinking, please don’t check my bag, please don’t check my bag. "Oh, that gun? Gee, sir, I’m really sorry. I forgot that was in there. Silly me." I felt bad about the little white lie, but I would have felt worse being thrown into jail or even just having my gun confiscated. Fortunately, he just smiled at us, asked for our driver's license, and said, “This happens all the time. Pull over there by those doors and I’ll bring your licenses back in a minute with some paperwork you’ll need to fill out to get back in the states.” Yes, sir! Thank you, sir! Several minutes later, I guess after he verified we were not terrorists or wanted criminals, he gave us our stuff back and said to make a U-turn around the building, drive safe, and have a nice day. He seemed rather amused about the whole thing. We were not.
Getting back into the states was, what with the open southern border, inexplicably tougher. We explained what had happened and then the questions came. Where are you going? (“Back home.”) Are you U.S. citizens? (“Yes.”) Were you born in the U.S.? ("Yes.") Do you have passports? (“Yes, but not with us.”) Why do you not have your passports? (“Because we didn’t plan on going into another country.”) Why were you in Canada? (“It was a mistake. We didn’t mean to be.”) How long were you in Canada? (“About 10 minutes.”) Why do you want to come into the U.S. (“Because we live in the U.S and want to go home.”) Are you bringing anything back from Canada with you? (“No, we accidentally went into Canada on that side of the road and basically immediately came back on this side of the road.”) Are you bringing any plants into the country? ("No, we were just over there and now we're here and we didn't go anywhere else to buy anything.") Turn off your car, give me your license and wait here. 15 long minutes later, he came back, gave us our stuff, and told us to drive back across the bridge. No smile, no amusement at our predicament, no welcome home, just suspicion, and gruffness.
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| Driving across the Niagra River in the rain |
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