Sept. 25 From Niagara Falls, Canada to Albany, N.Y. area

We left on a beautiful morning to head
 back to the States and our first stop-Ft. Niagara in New York.  It was in the low 60's and overcast, not like yesterday's sunny skies and shirt sleeve weather.  The fort was the site of many bloody battles as it went from French control to British, to American, British, and finally American.

There were so many trees for about 200 miles, that we couldn't see a whole lot, but it was interesting to see all the types and to see a little changing color of the leaves, and even some that had fallen.  Highlights of what we saw during the drive:

Erie Canal cruise boats

Some large, very pretty green valleys

Toll booths.  Today we paid $1, $3, $12.75.

Like many countries in Europe, New York has rest stops,  not areas, about every  35-40 miles, that have a gas station and two fast food restaurants

It is odd that CVS and Walgreens are all over most of America, but we've only seen Rite-Aid in
a few states, like in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, I think, but they are out here

Key Bank, too, like in the Northwest

Planet Fitness sign:  no gymidation

Today was just a travel day and tonight was eat, get cash and some items at Wal-Mart, sleep.  However, a couple about our age were entering the room next door as we entered ours.  They both took showers at 3 a.m., right through the wall from our bed.  I didn't fall back asleep.

Sept 24 Fantastic second day at Niagara Falls. AWESOME 4-D IMAX, Boat trip to the falls, and more

What a day!!!!  The locals say it has been an unusually nice September and these two days have been perfect-80 or so and blue skies.  Guide said it was as nice a day today as they ever see!  By the way, we were told there are so many more activities here on the Canadian than on the American side.  If you're going to come, stay on the Canadian side!!!

When the air is cool, the mist from Horseshoe Falls looks like a geyser.  This was at 7 this morning.   The American Falls are downriver on the left.

We took a 6 hour bus tour of several attractions.  Our guide said if we weren't nice to him today, he'd have his relatives in Ft. Erie shut the falls off.  He also said he hoped we had all read the fine print on our tickets, which said BYOB:  bring your own barrel.

We took the outside elevator - the yellow bug - to the observation deck, which is the top layer of windows in the round tower, the Skylon Tower.  The deck s 775' high and you can see 80 miles around.

 This was outside the windows,  I don't know what they do on it, but I'm not signing up, even though it was tethered to the wall.  There was a spider suspended from the top of the windows.

 

          This reminded me of 1987 when Tom had the lead in a fundraising musical for our son's
           high school.  He played a Canadian Mountie and sang Nelson Eddy's song.

                         Here are our barrels and our frightened looks as we went over the Falls.

 This is the Aero car, which was invented in 1916 by the same man who invented derigibles, the first computer, and several other things.  It is 220' above the swirling vortex of Whirlpool Basin.  We didn't ride it

We weren't allowed to take pictures in the animated 4-D theatre called The Fury, which taught about the formation of the falls.  We were given ponchos.  First, it snowed on us.  Then the rain came.  Thunder and lightning.  More rain.  The floors shook.  It was just awesome!!!

 The floral clock was built in 1950 by the Ontario power companies.  In the Spring it is planted with over 15,000 pansies.  They're removed before the hot summer and replaced with grasses and herbs.


We went behind the falls in tunnels which were 125' down and totaled 650' in length.

This is a boat like what we rode.  All the red is passengers in ponchos.  We were soaked!  No way were we going to sit inside the bottom deck!

This is how close we were to the Canadian Horseshoe Falls, above, and the American Falls below.  The falls on the right are called the Bridal Veil Falls.  They aren't the tallest falls in the world, by far.  A glacier formed in Wisconsin during the last Ice Age, which formed the lakes.  Scientists figure that in 55,000 years the falls will have eroded away.  During the winter, an ice boom 1.7 miles long is placed in Lake Erie to hold the ice as long as necessary before letting it go.

Approved and non-approved daredevils have attempted to run the falls and others have crossed them on tightropes.  A man named Blondin carried a 56# stove, lit a fire in it, cracked 2 eggs, and cooked them on it.  Nick Wolenta had permission to cross it.  60 attempts by14 people.  The first to succeed was a 63 year old woman teacher and her kitten in 1901.  Today Canada charges $10,000 and America $20,000 for a rescue.

Fishing is good in August.  20-30# salmon come from Lake Ontario to spawn at the base of the falls.

Niagara Falls City, Canada
Tourists used to come in nice weather and stay in small motels.  Once casinos were allowed, tourism increased dramatically to between 13-15 million annually and during all 12 months. Several corporate skyscraper hotels now are here.

The border between Canada and America is in the center of the river.

There is a Stanley Thompson golf course that was built in the 1950's.  It is one of the top 25 courses in North America.

Hydro plants are in the deepest part of the gorge and fuel power for areas 8 hours away, like Ottawa, Canada and NYC.

We drove past very nice old homes that look onto the river.  The guide said they are some of the original homes in town.  Many are now B & B's.

Wine country is just downriver from the town

There are some fine wines because the soil has only been farmed about 150 years, not hundreds of years such as land in France or other areas.  It is the same latitude as Burgundy, France.

Ice wines are developed here.  The grapes are left to freeze a number of times.  It becomes pure nectar and a wonderful dessert wine.  On a scale of sugar, some sugars may be 3 or 4, but this nectar is 18, 24, 30 "count".  Good with chocolate or a sticky cheese.

Sept 23 Driving to Niagara Falls, Canada and the first day there

Temperature got to about 80 degrees.  Passed a restaurant called Quaker Steak and Lube.

So many semi truck drivers are a menace to interstate drivers.  We never saw a trooper giving any of them tickets for tailgating so close at 65 and 70 mph that it was scary, or passing on the left side and staying out there way too long.  Pennsylvania semi drivers were the worst we've seen in all the states.

Finished driving across Ohio as part of the 3 hour drive and then it was only about 45 miles across PA. to reach NY.   A few leaves have started to turn!  On the first toll road of the trip in NY.  Passed orchards, vineyards, wineries, farmland.

Sign on interstate:   It can wait.  Text stop 2 miles ahead

Buffalo, NY.  Beautiful old buildings with new ones mixed in.  Bridge:  Niagara River on the right and Lake Erie on the left.

Border patrol stations.  Some had sign saying guard spoke English and French.  Remember that Quebec and other areas of Canada are French.

Guard to Tom:  do you have a concealed carry permit?  Yes.  Do you have any weapons in the car?  No, I know better than to bring a weapon into Canada.  Repeated question a total of 3 times.  The last time asking if had any mace or pepper spray.

To Tom:  what was your occupation? (weird question) Where are you going?  Do you have any liquor in the car?

Arrived at the skyscraper Embassy Suites Hotel.  Tom upgraded our room to a suite on the 21st floor which looks out on both the American Falls and Canada's Horseshoe Falls.  These falls are estimated to be 12,000 years old, emptying from Lake Erie.  Now I know the Lake is huge and deep, but it still seems it would be empty by now!  It is amazing to watch the flow of the water out of the lake from our room.

                                                  We're on the Canadian side.  This is the
                                                   American Falls as viewed from our room!

                                          This is Canada's Horseshoe Falls from our room!

                                                          What a great shot, Tom!

                                                                    Buddhist temple

                                          We took the Wild Water Walk.  The water is green
                                          because 60 tons of minerals are swept over the falls
                                          each minute-shale, limestone, and sandstones.
                                          The water in this area ranges from 4-160 feet deep.
                                          Across this Niagara River is New York.  A small
                                          walkway for part of the way could be seen and a
                                          sign said it was in a state park.  It cost $13.50 per
                                          person to do this walk, but our fee was included in a
                                          tour we'll take tomorrow.

                                               At night with lights on Horseshoe Falls.

                                                 Great lighting on the American Falls!

 

Sept 22-23 With friends in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

Drove around more outskirts of Dayton and then Columbus, the capital.  Big city traffic. Skyscrapers.   Building going on downtown and along the freeway. We drove under a overpass with 4 x 5' or so flags hung all over it and yellow ribbon above each.

I-76E in Ohio is The Military Order of the Purple Hearts highway.
Much of today's 3 our drive had beautiful trees.

We stayed with Duane and Sandy Powell.  He was a childhood friend of Ev's. They drove us around Cuyahoga Falls and parts of Akron.  We passed the stadium of the Akron Arrows AAA baseball team.  Drove through a very expensive subdivision. 

Cuyahoga Falls National Park isn't like any we've been in  It's long and narrow, it appears, with lots of hiking trails.  Stopped at a viewing area for blue herons, but they were either gone or camouflaged in the trees.  Two pumpkin farms are ready for business.

Nice evening visiting at a tavern by the river, in an old mill building, and then at home.  Their king size guest bed was voted the most comfortable bed we've been on this whole month.

Sept 20-22 Driving to Dayton, Ohio and visiting the Air Force museum Trip total: 3,400 miles

Today we drove through parts of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.  What'd we see?  Mainly America's heartland: farm country.  Some towns, cities.  Lots of interstate construction.  People who didn't totally read the construction zone signs and drove 45 mph for 8-10 miles on Sunday when no work was going on.  Single lane, string of cars behind them wanting to drive the allowable 60.  Grrr.

We talked to some farmers in Iowa who said today's implements cost so much - $250,000 is on the low end.  Do they really need cruise, GPS?  I don't get it.  Farms are getting larger and larger, because it's hard for the little guy to make it.  When I worked in the County Assessor's Office in Washington State I took care of the farm, ranch, orchard, and winery documentation.  I was surprised to learn how many of the state's farms were owned by the Mormon Church-thousands of acres at a time.

We saw riverboat casinos on the Mississippi on the Illinois border and on the Illinois River in Peoria.
In Indianapolis we saw the Angie's List headquarters building.  Maybe you've seen ads on TV.  You go to that site and get recommendations for companies and individuals to work for you, etc.

Strange bank name:  Third Fifth Bank.   We had time to find a Laundromat and grab a sandwich before the Packers game.

21st
Tom has always hoped he'd be able to visit the AF Museum here.  Today he spent 6 hours walking around airplanes!  There were 8 hangers and five former presidential aircraft.

I stayed at the hotel and putzed around, read, worked on the blog, walked to lunch.  We went for pizza for dinner and, on the way back, saw two yards that were so decorated for Halloween already.
One was mainly pirate ships.  They were as big as floats, pulled by trailer hitches.  The horse's bridle in the front yard moved.

Across the street was the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.  A full size zombie buster truck, antique hearse, gigantic Grim Reaper and other gross characters.  The people must have acres to put them on and be covered, or large storage sheds.  And how much did it all cost?

We didn't have our camera with us and can't get it transferred to here via the phone.

Sept. 17-20 Tom's 50th class reunion weekend in Waterloo, Iowa

17th:  We drove the 40 minutes from Clarksville to Waterloo.  In 1965 there were one or two houses around the high school.  Today there is a huge medical center next to it and houses all around it.

We drove around the University of Northern Iowa, in Cedar Falls, where Tom's recruiter said he should attend one year before enlisting in the Air Force.  I attended one year, the summer (I couldn't bear to go home since he would leave in August), and the next Fall semester.

We drove around some more before meeting his favorite teacher, Barbara Corson, for coffee.  She said he was one of her favorite English students.  We had stopped for a short visit while on our honeymoon, knowing we wouldn't be back here for many years, because his family had moved to Minneapolis.  He attended his 25th class reunion here in1990.

We drove to the home of Dennis and Anita Kabele for dinner.  Anita was in his class and Dennis, in the class ahead.  Tom was so surprised to see them at the Tucson church we began attending 18 months ago!  They spend 3 months each winter there.  Tom joined the choir with them.

18th:  Tom toured the new Iowa Veteran's Museum here in Waterloo. Several of his classmates on the reunion committee were there this morning, getting things ready for the "meet and greet" this evening.  Waterloo is the home of John Deere and Rath Packing Company (closed in 1985). The museum houses many exhibits of early Waterloo history and some great dioramas.  Lots of military history exhibits.

      
                                                The Rath Packing plant 1890's - 1985

                       Railroad roundhouse.  Steam engines were manufactured here for awhile.
                     Below is an exhibit of firearms used by both sides during the Vietnam war.

                                            Tom inside an M4 Sherman tank from WW II

 

                                            Someone actually collected a USO flag from Cam
                                            Ranh Bay where Tom was stationed when he first
                                            arrived "in country."

                  This is one façade of First Congregational Church that Tom and his family attended

 Tom's family lived here during his junior high and high school years, and moved

to Bloomington, MN. the year after he enlisted-1967

541 Sunset Road

 

Mike's DX gas station, where Tom worked during high school is

now a convenience station

 

 

We enjoyed the reunion meet and greet tonight.  Tom saw a lot of people he knew and I met them.  It was often funny to see someone looking at a person's nametag and saying oh my gosh, or it IS you.  He doesn't look anything like he did back then and I think he was the youngest looking guy there.  I had met 3 women classmates in recent years.  One is a professor in Flagstaff, one lives near Denver, and I just met one 2 months ago in Las Vegas.

 

They had about 680 in their class and 100 have already died.  They lost 5 men in Vietnam.  Some classmates produced a video to honor their memory and it was wonderful.  Four of the families shared the last letter the parents or wife had received.  There were 112 veterans in the class that they know of.  Below is a board of pictures that some returned.  Tom is in the top row towards the left, without a hat.  The 5 on the bottom, with stars, are the Vietnam casualties. The sheet behind each is where someone ran over their name on the Vietnam Wall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 19th

Visited with some classmates at our hotel.  For lunch we went to The Wishbone Restaurant, where Tom and I used to eat 50 years ago.  He had to have one of their gigantic tenderloin sandwiches on the biggest bun, with the pork hanging over an inch or more all around it.  We took a picture on my camera.

 

The reunion evening was held at the Elks Club, which served a nice dinner.  Cathy, the emcee had some cute stories and jokes.  Tom sang "I Just Don't Look Good Naked Anymore" and the crowd laughed and clapped between sentences, so he had to pause.  Then a big applause.  Later he told them he had been many places in the world, but it always felt so good to be home and then this month with all our traveling, he felt "Americana" was very appropriate.  They really enjoyed it, too.

                         Several cameras were being used, so it was hard to know when to smile.

 Marilyn's husband was one of the classmates who died in Vietnam.  She was a classmate, too.  I shared with her about the care package program I started and the cards we make for troops to mail home.  She thought it was fantastic.  Jack was a classmate, and his wife Pam.

Wendy, in the stripes, told Tom twice she wished we lived closer because she wanted me for a friend.  I had met Gretchen in Las Vegas in August.  Tom hadn't met her husband until then, and found out he loves Garand rifles, too.  They plan to do gun stuff when we're there in January.  The lady in the vest is a spouse of a classmate.

 

A couple of  women classmates told me Tom was "just the neatest guy" in high school.

 

A couple of coincidences with classmates happened when we were stationed in Alaska in the '70's-'80's.  I worked in a bank in Fairbanks, and Elmer Leistikow was a construction worker who was roofing it.  He approached me one day and asked if I was from the Midwest.  He, his brother, Tom, and his brother had been in Boy Scouts together and schoolmates.  One day Tom was in Penney's in Anchorage and saw a friend named Rita.

 

20th

All over town  gas station signs read $2.24.  When we got to the pump, we found out that was the price for their government subsidized ethanol, with $3.11 being the unleaded price.

 

We left at 5 a.m. because we had a 9 hour drive to Dayton.  48 degrees.  We drove past Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, and other places we'd heard of our whole lives, but never visited.  This part of Iowa is very flat, as was the sections of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio we crossed today.

Sept. 16th-touring scenic eastern Iowa

                    





Bob drove us around for over 7 hours.  Ev is from the very northwestern corner of Iowa, which isn't very scenic., and Tom spent 7 years near Clarksville, in Waterloo.

On this drive we saw lots of pretty, country churches, old barns, and rolling hills.  We could see for many miles in every direction most of the time.  The corn is almost ready to be harvested.

Readlyn-small town with sign saying "857 fun people and 1 grump". They also have a grump festival.

Oelwein had a nice war memorial, with a marker for each of various wars.  It is close to Back Bone State Park, which we drove through.  Jan told us there are a number of nice campgrounds on this side of the state.

In the small towns many flags flew on houses and in yards and had a lot of nice buildings.

Strawberry Point has a statue of the world's largest strawberry and more beautiful Victorian homes.
A house in the country had a flagpole and a figure of a soldier in uniform out by the highway.  We passed Jan's childhood home, which her brother still owns - the Schmidt house.

The countryside was very pretty, with limestone cliffs and rolling hills.  Drove around the first round-a-about built in this part of Iowa-in the middle of nowhere.  It cost a small fortune, both for it and for the temporary road they built while it was being built, which was then torn up.  It is near a school, but the kids are brought by bus and everyone said a four way stop would have been sufficient.  Taxpayer money at work.

Clayton is a big grain distribution center, where trucks bring grain to boats on the Mississippi River.  Bob and Jan's favorite restaurant on the river was closed several days per week for the Fall and winter, including today.  So we had Mexican instead. 

Pike's Peak of Iowa is the highest point here, overlooking the River.  Everything is so green and they said this view is very pretty after the leaves turn color.  Standing at the overview we could see the town of McGregor on one side and Prairie Du Chien, Wisconsin on the other.  We later drove across the bridge and through the downtown so we could say we entered Wisconsin on this trip!

 

Bob and Jan Longmuir

    Jan was one of Ev's college roommates

in 1967