Hellooooooooooooo Buffalooooooooooooooooooo

Another fantastic travel day. Up early as usual thanks to Roku, so to thank him we went to the picnic table and watched the day come in. He enjoyed it for once, did alot of sniffing of air. Daylight did not improve "Creepy Campground" and we couldn't wait to get out of there. But first, the shower test - because of the rundown shape of this park, we shuddered a the thought of what their showers could possibly look like. My vision was large spiders and bugs, long hair in wads on the floor, dirt crammed in the corners. And surprise! Clean and tidy, no bugs. Some hair on the floor but nothing I couldn't avoid.

On the road to Gasport, NY, aka Buffalo and Niagara Falls. AKA Anchor Bar hot wings!!!!! Very excited. My plan was to save time and head up on the highways, cut over to Chautauqua, NY, which I have always wanted to experience. They are currently having their lecture and art series and I would love to have visited some of the events...but we missed the exit. There was alot of road work being done and some of the exits just weren't available.

We did make Pennsylvania, however, or at least a little corner of it. We actually passed into the state halfway across a causeway:

Missing another exit, we passed into New York via a toll booth at State Line. You don't pay the toll there, but you tell them where you're going, and they give you a punched slip to pay...when you get there. She did warn us, as we were heading to Buffalo, that the toll would be $11.80. Yikes. On we went, driving totally on the freeways, until we got to Buffalo, where we relied on my Galaxy for directions, which I thought was very convoluted. As a side note, we are currently disciplining Gertie on our GPS, as she has behaved very badly recently, repeating herself in a kind of rap-stutter, directing us to weird places, constantly berating us and shouting for us to "U-turn, U-turn!!!" Geez Gertie, take a load off already! To pull her back in line, we shut her down until she could behave.

It seems we spend alot of time looking for our nightly RV park, and this day was no exception. We had the added pleasure of watching the sky darken alarmingly, and knew to expect a hell of a storm. It rained buckets, shot out lightening, thundered uproariously while we drove. Found the Niagara Heartland RV Park:

After paying triple what we normally would for our RPI membership space, we quickly set up, unloaded the car, realized the electrical is for 50 not 30 amp, unloaded and rinsed the car for our later journey. During the middle of this activity if flipping dumped on us, so we huddled inside until it cleared.

After kissing up the cat and assuring him we'd be back later, off we went to Niagara Falls. Top down, soft air blowing, we gave Gertie another chance and she graciously found our way to the Falls. Parked - like Rushmore, no fee for the Falls, but parking is $10.00 - and a short walk led us to spectacular views of not only the Falls, but Toronto.

Although neither of us ever expected to visit Niagara Falls, we're glad we had to opportunity to do so. It is a beautiful experience, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. But.....wings were calling.

I insisted one of our visits while in Buffalo would be to eat wings at either the Anchor Bar, or Duffs. Both claim to be the originator of the Buffalo hot wings, with Duff's recently winning a "wing off" on the food channel. My choice was made by which was closer, and that was the Anchor Bar.

And by the way, I have heard my whole life what a dump Buffalo is, to avoid it at all cost, it's just a dirty little town. Nothing could be further from the truth, it's delightful and old and has great bones. The freeways were great to travel on, as well as the side roads, and there is just a ton of stuff to see. Plus it's right on Lake Erie! How can that be wrong?! We loved it.

Twenty minutes later we pulled into Jackie's idea of heaven - the Anchor Bar for hot wings. Place was packed outside and in, the matre'd gave Tony a bad time about his name...pronouncing it like a NY gangster. We opted for the real bar, as there was no wait. Our beautifully aged and gracious (all business) bartender took our order - excellent Arnold Palmer Marcy, thank you! Tony, not being a wing fan at all, had a buffalo burger. We enjoyed the ambiance of the old place, watched the customers come and go - you can't sit at the bar unless you're 18, but you can be IN the bar under 18 - which was the case with a baby. I ordered double spicy wings (20 each), then texted everyone I knew who would appreciate the experience.

My first bite. Hm. I can describe it as perfect, but that word does not do these beauties justice. They are lightly crisp, meaty and juicy, and the spicy barely heated up your lips. Dipped in blue cheese with a celery stick chaser, I am not sure when I've had such a perfect food morsel to eat. Both the "drummies" and the "flats" were delicious. Tony tried a "flat" and stated, "I'll have to re-think not liking chicken wings." They are that good that they turned him! I finished half, boxed up the rest, left a humongous tip. Out the door into the balmy night in a bad neighborhood, the place had pretty much cleared out.

These are shots of heading back home, which was done on a different route, very pleasant:

And here are some random shots from the road:

Just 125 miles to Long Point State Park in NY's Thousand Islands. Tomorrow will be around 300 and a killer - but with a lovely reward at the end of this part of our journey - the Welton's!!! Mr Smeems and Bullet!