Vermont Destruction, Niagara Falls & the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame
Days 58 - 60 (September 11th - 13th)
Concord, NH; Rutland, VT; Albany, NY; Niagara Falls, NY; Lockport, NY; Cleveland, OH; Parkersburg, WV; Bowling Green, OH
Our day started off very early as sleeping in the cold was very difficult around 4 AM. We woke up, made a pot of coffee for the road and headed off. We knew that this day would not be very fun because we had planned to stay at a hotel in just outside Albany, NY which was around 10 hours away. We especially needed to make it there by 7 PM in order to watch the Dallas Cowboys play the New York Jets on TV. The day seemed to be going as planned as we drove through Maine into New Hampshire. We made our way through New Hampshire in no time and made a stop into White River Junction, VT. We pulled off into a little strip mall with a big grass area in front of it. Around the perimeter of the grassy area there was a small red train engine followed by a yellow cart and a blue cart. I'm sure that there have been many children that have had the time of their lives riding the train but from the looks of it, I don't think it's been used in quite a few years. The train outside seemed to follow the theme of the mall as we walked into the store. There was a model train set that encircled the store with little puffs of smoke coming from it every few feet. I don't remember the name of the store. They had everything that you could think to make maple syrup into. There was maple popcorn, maple cookies, even maple soda (I couldn't help myself from buying a bottle) and of course maple syrup in many different sizes, shapes and colors. After buying some homemade jams and a few pints of maple syrup we hit the road again. After all, we still had a schedule to keep.
Driving through Vermont after all of the flooding was shocking. Half of the roads were washed away. There were whole trees uprooted from the ground. The damage to one house we drove by was so bad that you could see directly into their basement. The above picture was just one of the horrific views throughout Vermont. Thankfully the roads weren't that terribly bad for us until we got about 20 miles away from the New York border just outside of Rutland, VT. The road was closed. The only major road within 100 miles north or south that led to Albany was closed. The police officer told us the best thing to do would be to head back into New Hampshire and head south around Vermont. We did that. We turned right around and headed back to White River Junction, VT. From there we jumped on I-91 south and headed toward Massachusetts. We didn't want to take anymore chances with road closures so we went all the way down to the I-90 turnpike. After a few more hours of driving, we finally made it to our hotel. The drive we planned to take only 10 hours ended up being 13 hours.
We had only missed the first few minutes of the game by the time we arrived at our hotel. Sadly, I was really interested in the pregame show since the game was being held in New York on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. The game was pretty good. As a Cowboys fan, I didn't really enjoy the 27-24 loss to the Jets.
A good night's sleep was just what we needed after so many nights of sleeping in the car and camping in the cold. We abused the continental breakfast as always then headed east to Niagara Falls, NY. While driving into Niagara Falls you should watch out for the blue street signs that have a drawing of the falls on them. They are supposed to lead you to the falls but unless you want to go into Canada, they only lead you to the general area. I was a little underwhelmed by the height of the falls but the shear volume, both in amount of water and level of sound, really took my breath away. We talked to some park rangers that told us they light up the falls at night. We didn't want to hang around for hours waiting for that so we decided to head over to Lake Erie. A friend of ours, Justin, had suggested that we dip our feet into each of the Great Lakes. We took him up on it and did him one better. At each lake I was going to fill a little bit of sand into our empty Sailor Jerry bottle so that we would have one bottle full of the five Great Lakes.
We still had one stop left on our tour of the east coast. There was a Friendly's close to Niagara Falls in Lockport, NY. It may have been that particular Friendly's but it was nowhere near as good as I remembered. After we ate, we went back to the falls to see the light show. They do light up the falls every night with an array of colors but sadly on this night there wasn't any music to accompany it. Wal-Mart was becoming our nightly destination as we found another close to the Pennsylvania/Ohio border to stay for the night.
The next morning we drove not too far away to Cleveland, OH to see the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. What we didn't know upon arrival was that due to the agreements with various artists within the Hall of Fame, no pictures were permitted. They were working on a few exhibits so we didn't get to see the whole thing. My favorite part was the Beatles exhibit that they had. They were playing the Beatles anthology on loop. I kept walking away and coming back to different parts. The highest level, level 6, was a dedication to women in music. I was surprised to see Lady Gaga was a main attraction as well as Taylor Swift. I realize that they bring in people but I think they really should've shown more love to bands like Heart or artists like Joan Jett and Pat Benatar. I'm rambling on but the Hall of Fame was really cool and I suggest it to anyone who is a fan of music. Since the Cleveland Browns stadium was right next door to the hall, I had to snap a few pictures for our friend, Matt, since he's the only Browns fan I've ever met.
West Virginia was our next stop. I had been to West Virginia before and it wasn't a pleasant experience. It was nothing but weird hill people and windy roads. We drove into Parkersburg, WV, the closest town to the border, grabbed a slice of pizza at The Pizza Place and drove right back out of West Virginia. A few teenagers outside the restaurant just reaffirmed my belief in weird West Virginian hill people. After a few more hours of driving, we stopped for the night somewhere around Bowling Green, OH.
Only a few updates left! Stay tuned for the end of our journey!

















