Day One: Thursday, July 26

After getting off of work on time at 5:00, I
headed home and we packed the car. We
managed to make my departure time goal of
6:00, and we were off! The first leg of our trip
was a four and a half hour drive to Plainsville,
OH, where we spent the night in a rather posh
resort hotel room that we got through Priceline
for $40. Too bad we didn't really have time to
enjoy it! The trip there was uneventful, with the
notable exception of Grandpa's Cheesebarn,
a roadside attraction that we happened upon
by accident in Ashland, OH when we stopped
there for gas. We didn't have time to
investigate, and it was probably closed at that
time of day anyway, but we decided to check it
out on our way home. We arrived at our hotel
just before 11:00, and went to bed about an
hour later after barely noticing our
surroundings.

Day Two: Friday, July 27

We did NOT set the alarm clock; nevertheless
I somehow managed to get up around 7:00.
We had a twelve-hour drive ahead of us, and I
was anxious to get on the road, so naturally
we went for a swim in the hotel's indoor pool
before getting around to packing our stuff back
into the car and checking out. We stopped at a
McDonald's for breakfast, and then hit the
road around 9:30.

Today's planned route was to take us on I-90
out of Ohio, through Pennsylvania, into New
York where it becomes the New York State
Thruway (toll roads are T3H EVIL!1), then into
Massachusetts where it becomes the Mass
Pike (toll roads are T3H EVIL!1). We were
going to take 290 through Worcester (which is
inexplicably pronounced "Woos-tuh" -- if you're
going to pronounce it that way, why not spell it
"Wooster" like we sensible Ohioans do?) to
495 to 93, which would take us north to our
final destination in New Hampshire. We stuck
to our planned route for the most part, only
veering off of it later that evening to take a
longcut through Vermont. But more on that
later.

This route was somewhat nostalgic for us
since it was the same route we took home
from our honeymoon nearly three years ago.
We'd been back to New Hampshire since
then more than once, but had either flown or
taken a different route. We were going the
opposite direction, of course, but it was still
neat to spot old landmarks that we'd seen
before and reminisce about our previous
journey.

Traveling twelve hours in one day with a
16-month old in the car is no picnic. We had to
stop frequently for food, diaper checks,
bathroom breaks, and sometimes just to give
Jonathan a chance to get out of his car seat
and run around a bit to stretch his legs. All that
stopping kept him fairly happy and
well-behaved for the majority of the trip, but it
also turned twelve hours into fourteen and a
half. Such is life on the road with a youngster.
Jonathan is currently fascinated with trucks;
especially semi trucks. At every single stop we
made, the first thing he would do when he got
out of the car was to point at the nearest semi
and say his word for trucks, which sounds
something like "duck cars." This is CUTE
CUTE CUTE.

When we hit the Albany, NY area, we became
confused by the highway signs and had to get
off and look at our map. Remember, we had
been this way before but going the opposite
direction. I was under the impression that I-90
and the Mass Pike were one and the same,
yet we saw signs for both with road going off
in two different directions. We followed the
signs for Mass Pike and found ourselves on
I-87 South. This didn't seem right to me, so I
got off at the junction of 87 and its bypass, 787
(or was it 187?) to look at the map. At this
point we decided we were sick of interstate
driving anyway and opted to take our longcut
through Vermont. We hopped on the bypass
north to Troy, NY, where we got on state route
9 east towards Vermont. This became
Vermont state route 7 when we crossed the
border. I might be remembering that
backwards.

Cool, I thought. Vermont! I'd never been in
Vermont before. We came to the quaint little
touristy-antiquey town of Bennington right
around dinnertime, so I started looking for a
place to stop and get dinner. I discovered that
fast food, or "chain" restaurants of any kind, for
that matter, do not exist in Bennington, VT. We
ended up eating at a nice little hole-in-the-wall
type of place called Papa Paul's Diner. When
we went in, it was like walking into a Norman
Rockwell painting. Everyone in the rather
small dining room looked up at us, and I'm
sure their first collective thought was
"TOURIST." Everyone there looked like
regulars, and we stuck out like a sore thumb.
There was a sign above the kitchen window
that said "Beware: Men Cooking." For a greasy
spoon, the food was quite good. I had a
"Chicken Cordon Papa" sandwich; my wife
had a veal parmesan sandwich, and Jonathan
had a hot dog and fries that he didn't eat. I
also ordered a ginger ale to drink, and there
was a contest in the cap that reminded me of
Faux Pas ("Sorry, Please Try Again"). When
we left the establishment, we saw a Meat
Shoppe across the street with a handmade
sign out front advertising moose meat for
sale.

On the other side of Vermont, we stopped for
gas in the town of Brattleboro, and got to see
the gas station attendant making out with his
girlfriend. Then we hopped on I-81 for a brief
stint to get back on 7 as it entered New
Hampshire. Now we were driving through the
beautiful and scenic New Hampshire State
Forest which we couldn't see because it was
dark. It was getting very late by this time and
we just wanted to GET there. In Keene, NH,
we got onto state route 101, and later
switched to 101A, but I don't remember exactly
where. 101A took us into Nashua, where we
almost got lost but somehow made it through
into Hudson, where things finally started to
look somewhat familiar. 101A dumped us
right onto 111, which, if you go in the right
direction (west) will take you almost straight to
my mother-in-law's door. We did (go in the
right direction) and finally arrived a little after
11:00. Ugh.

We went to bed.

Day Three: Saturday, July 28

We went to the RinkUnion.

Day Four: Sunday, July 29

We went to the RinkUnion.

Day Five: Monday, July 30

The RinkUnion was now over, but that was
only half of our vacation! Today we were
headed for Niagara Falls, which was more or
less on our way back to Ohio. I had the alarm
clock set for 6:30, which is SUXX0R, but we
were supposed to meet my father-in-law for
breakfast at 8:00. We were only ten minutes
late, which isn't bad. We met him at a little
hole-in-the-wall place in Hudson called Kay's
Diner. This is where he always eats when he
goes out for breakfast once a week. The food
is good, but we'd much rather go someplace
like Bickfords or Bob Evans. Can't complain
though, since he was buying. After breakfast,
we said our goodbyes and went back to the
house to load up the car, and departed at
10:30.

According to Yahoo, it's supposed to be
approximately 8 and 1/2 hours from Windham,
NH to Grand Island, NY. It took us 10 and 1/2
hours. I think we've determined that if one is
traveling with a toddler, one should always
factor in an extra two hours to whatever Yahoo
says. Nothing exciting happened on the road
today, just more of the same. We decided not
to take the longcut this time, and discovered
that it actually took us about the same amount
of time to get to Albany going the "faster" way.
Now I wish we'd gone through Vermont again
so I could've seen the National Forest in
daylight.

We arrived at our hotel, the Grand Island
Holiday Inn, right around 9:00 on Monday
night. I originally had been thinking about
going to see the Falls that night, but we were
exhausted from another long day on the road
so we just got settled into our room and
vegged out on the beds watching free cable.
There was nothing on.

Day Six: Tuesday, July 31

We only had one full day at Niagara Falls and
we wanted to make the most of it. So naturally,
the first place we went to was K-Mart. Yes,
that's right. K-Mart. Jonathan had lost two of
his sipper cups while we were in New
Hampshire, and he needed replacements
before we could go to breakfast that morning.
I once heard Jay Leno say on the Tonight
Show that K-Mart is "The Place where Cheap
Crap is Sold." It's true. At least it was true at
this particular K-Mart. We bought two new
sipper cups for Jonathan there, and we had to
poke a fork through the rubber insert in the
first one for him to be able to drink anything
out of it. The second cup was completely
unusable. Gah. Playtex is stupid for letting
crap cups go through their quality control;
K-Mar t is stupid for selling them. And I guess
we were stupid for going to K-Mart in the first
place.

For breakfast, or rather, brunch, since it was
nearly 11:00 by the time we got there, we went
to Bob Evans. I tried a new menu item, their
steak tips skillet, and it was GOOD. If you live
within a hundred miles of a Bob Evans, go
there NOW and GET ONE. You won't regret it.
My wife had a regular Sunshine Skillet, and
Jonathan had a kid's breakfast meal
consisting of scrambled eggs, which he ate,
and toast and maple sausage links, which he
did not eat. He also had milk, which he could
only drink after we jimmied his stinking new
crap cup from K-Mart with a fork.

The Bob Evans was located right on Niagara
Falls Boulevard, so after we finished our meal,
we just drove right down the street toward the
Falls. This turned out to be the "scenic" route,
which means that it went through the
residential part of town and had about five
hundred stop lights on the way. It did take us
straight to the state park where the American
Falls are located, and where there is no place
to park. There is a parking lot there, but it was
full. So we drove around until a dude in an
orange vest yelled at us to go "UP TWO
BLOCKS ON THE LEFT PAST DENNY'S SIX
BUCKS ALL DAY!" He didn't look at all like
Darien. So we parked, and then spent the next
twenty minutes getting our gear together and
putting on sunscreen. Some other people in
the same lot were doing the same thing, only
they had forgotten their sunscreen, so we
shared ours. They offered my wife a tip, but
she said no thanks.

I think it was at this point, or slightly before,
that we realized that we had forgotten
Jonathan's birth certificate, which we needed
in order to visit the Canadian side of the river.
At first I was just resigned to the fact that we
wouldn't be able to go, but then my wife
suggested having someone back home fax it
to us. We made our way to the Visitor Center
in the park and probably spent about half an
hour on the phone attempting to arrange this. I
had to call our hotel to find out what their fax
number was, and then I called my mom back
in Ohio to see if she could fax us the birth
certificate. I told her where it was and gave her
the number, and she said she would do her
best to get it to us.

That done, we entered the park proper and
headed straight for the Falls. Neither one of us
had ever seen them in person before, so it
was a momentous occasion. My only previous
experience with Niagara Falls were the
scenes from Superman II. We were both
suitably impressed. I doubt I can adequately
describe the experience. The power of all that
water thundering over the edge and crashing
down onto the rocks below is amazing. It was
a lot louder than I expected it to be.

We visited the park's viewing area first, which
sort of has you looking at the falls along the
same angle that the river pours over the cliff
face. It's probably the least spectacular view
that Niagara Falls has to offer. After that, we
walked across the bridge to Goat Island,
which is in the middle of the Niagara River
and splits the American Falls into two
sections. Goat Island has a much better
viewing of the falls, right in the spot where the
river goes over the edge, so that you're
standing in between the two sections of the
falls.

I had been taking pictures all afternoon, using
up the same roll of film that I had shot the
majority of my outdoor pics of the RinkUnion
on. I knew that the roll of film in the camera
was only 24 exposures, so when the counter
hit 30, I began to think something was wrong.
When it hit 36, I knew something was wrong. I
should have just stopped using that camera at
that point and waited until we were back at the
hotel to investigate the problem in a darkened
room. Instead, I displayed my brilliant intellect
and opened the back of the camera in bright
sunlight. So much for my pictures of the White
Mountains. For some reason the spindle had
stopped pulling the film through; it looked like
it was about halfway through the roll. Grrrr. I'm
going to throw away that camera. I'm also
going to be kicking myself for the next three
weeks for ruining the shots I had taken earlier.

After we had seen all of Goat Island and
purchased a $3.00 bottled water at the Cave of
the Winds Snack Shop, we went back to the
"mainland" and headed over to Prospect
Point. Prospect Point is the location of
(surprise!) Prospect Point Observation Tower,
which you can experience for the minimal fee
of fifty cents. It is also the departure point for
the Maid of the Mist boat ride on the American
side, at the base of the tower. On Tuesday, we
stuck to the top half of the tower, checking out
the awesome view all around the main
observation deck and then riding the elevator
up to the top for a view that was a wee bit
higher.

By the time we came down from Prospect
Point, we were hot and tired. We needed to go
back to our hotel anyway to see if our fax had
come in, so we decided to go back and have a
swim in the hotel pool. When we arrived back
at the Holiday Inn, our fax had arrived, so we
knew we'd be able to go to Canada that
evening. Jonathan and my wife both needed a
nap, so I let them sleep while I explored the
hotel. I found a game room near the pool with
some classic arcade games from the
eighties, including the original Gauntlet. I
played those for about an hour, and then went
back to our room, where my wife was up and
getting ready to go to the pool. We all went,
and had a good time. Jonathan loves the
water, and he even went under a couple times
without getting upset. No, we didn't dunk him
on purpose; we're not that cruel. He was
walking around in the 1 and 1/2 foot-deep
kiddie pool and slipped; either mommy or
daddy was always with him to make sure he
didn't drown.

After our swim, we got cleaned up and
dressed to go out again, this time to the
Canadian side of the falls. We had been
warned that it would be unwise to go to
Canada without Jonathan's birth certificate.
We were told that while getting into the country
without it wouldn't be a problem, attempting to
return to the USA could be a major hassle if
we didn't have proof that he was our son. It
actually seemed to be the other way around
when we went, however. The Canadian
customs official asked us what country we
were citizens of, where we were going, and
then asked for the certificate. On the way back,
the US official practically waved us through.
Still, we were glad to have it so we didn't have
to worry.

Our first order of business in Canada was to
find a place to park. We circled around and
found a lot that was only $5.00. I have no idea
what part of Canada the attendant was
originally from, but he had an accent that I'd
never encountered before. We asked him
whether that was US or Canadian dollars, and
he said it didn't matter. "You can pay with
Yankee money," he said. "By the end 'o the
day I've got about half and half anyway."
After parking, we wandered down the street by
the river looking for a place to have dinner. We
discovered a restaurant called The Secret
Garden, based on the book, that had a
carefully maintained garden all around it, with
the hedges trimmed into all kinds of cool
shapes and patterns. But after looking at the
menu, we decided that it was a bit pricey for
our budget. We took a shortcut through the
garden up to the next street from the river, and
didn't find anything there either. We made our
way out to what appeared to be the main drag,
full of lights and noises and lots of fast food
places that we didn't want anything to do with.
Why come all the way to Niagara Falls,
Canada, and then eat at Arbys or Wendys? We
ended up going to the Rainforest Café, a really
neat place that I'd heard about often but never
had a chance to go to before.

If you want to know what the Rainforest Café is
like, go to their website at
http://www.rainforestcafe.com. There was a
huge line and a long wait to get in, so we
meandered about the incredibly overcrowded
gift shop for about 45 minutes before our
"safari" was called. Jonathan liked most of the
animatronics, although the crocodile
frightened him. He was absolutely
mesmerized by the shark tank. It had about
five or six small sharks swimming in it, as well
as some fish.

Once we were seated, I ordered a chicken
Caesar salad, Mrs. Grishny ordered
barbequed ribs, and we ordered a grilled
cheese sandwich for Jonathan that he didn't
eat. We also ordered him a milk and
discovered that the second cup from
Krap-Mart was defective. The holes in the
plastic lid that the liquid is supposed to flow
through weren't holes, but only indentations in
the plastic. The café staff tried to fix the cup for
us, but without success. Fortunately,
Jonathan can drink through a straw if he has
help.

It was going on 10:30 when we decided to
take what was left (most) of our meals and go
see the Falls from the Canadian side before
going back to our hotel. The view of the
American side of the falls is much better from
Canada. With the water lit up in multiple colors
on a clear, moonlit night, it was absolutely
beautiful. We spent about fifteen minutes
watching the lights change color against the
waterfall before leaving, and I could have
watched it even longer if it hadn't been so late
by then.

Then we went back to our hotel and went to
bed.

Day Seven: Wednesday, August 1

My goal for today was to be on the road for
home by noon, and we wanted to go back to
the falls and ride on the Maid of the Mist boat
before going, so we were up fairly early. I think
we were checked out by 10:00 or so. It would
have been sooner, if the can of Moxie I was
carrying in my briefcase hadn't exploded.
MOXIE IS DA EVIL. (I know, I know, don't ask
me why I had it in my briefcase; it's just
another example of my brilliant intellect at
work.) My two paperbacks I had brought along
were drenched in Moxie, including my brand
new, not-even-read-yet copy of Red Mars
(sob). Our AAA tourbook was ruined. The
bottom of my briefcase was soaked. I cleaned
up the mess as best I could with a hotel towel
(sorry, Holiday Inn) and threw everything in the
back window of the car to (hopefully) dry out in
the sun.

We made it to the bottom of Prospect Point
just in time to watch the 11:00 boat that we
were shooting for leave without us. Gah.
However, we were pleased to learn that the
boats leave every fifteen minutes and not every
half hour as we thought, and we got to be the
FIRST ones aboard the next boat, which
RULED because we got the best spot at the
front of the upper deck. The Maid of the Mist
was fun. We went right by the FALLS and got
really WET.

Then we got in our car and drove a really long
long long long way for a really long long long
long time until we got home. This time we
managed to do a little bit better and squeeze
the 6 and 1/2 hour trip into nine hours. Hooray
for us! We did stop at Grandpa's Cheesebarn
in Ashland, OH on the way back, and it ruled
because there was lots of CHEESE and they
even had some cheesey music playing! We
bought a hunk of bleu cheese for my mom
(she loves the stuff) and some young cheese
curds that taste kind of like mozzerella for
ourselves. Yum.

Day Eight: Thursday, August 2

Okay, so today wasn't technically part of our
trip, but I think it should count, because I spent
ALL STINKIN DAY typing up this Adventures
Post. HA!!!

Gri"tell Sam I think that Niagara Falls would be
a R0XX0R place for a future RinkUnion"shny