2022 Niagara Falls - Buffalo
2022-09-15 to 2022-09-22: Niagara Falls & Buffalo NY
Travellers: Me, Foz, Cupcake. Meeting up with Kenny G, then Red Snapper & Bushwhacker
2022-09-15 (Thursday) – Winnipeg (10C) to Toronto (18C)
Since we will land past 11 pm, we think it may be a challenge to find a liquor store or open bar near our hotel. Room drinking is fine and I stow Cupcake’s 375 millilitres of rum in my suitcase, as well as 1.75 litres of gin for me and Foz.
Things start out quite fine. Foz picks me up at 14h45, Cupcake at 15h30 and the journey begins. We arrive at the airport but we’re not permitted to check bags until three hours to takeoff. With almost an hour to kill, let’s grab a drink. First vacation drink is always the best: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aq3Q9JgRAlD9kZROtqg3OCob3uN7jg?e=oenGWV
After our refreshment, I check my bag. In short order, we’re through security. Even though Foz’s Nexus pass has expired, he followed me through my card and we skip the peasant line. Being ahead of us, Cupcake ends up beating us through security; we’ll see if that holds true when we return and go through Pearson.
We head straight for the Plaza Lounge where my credit card gets me unlimited visits plus a guest. Cupcake finds out that his credit card also gets him access, but he needs to update a number of apps (I just had to show my card!). We have never seen these lounges so full but we manage to find seats together. It looks like most of the people are on the same flight as it empties out quite quickly.
House wine is Sawmill Creek chardonnay, which isn’t nearly as hideous as I remember. In fact, the seventh glass tastes quite lovely. Dinner includes butter chicken and steamed vegetables at the buffet. I don’t think they anticipated so many guests; by the time I reach the station, there were only a few pieces left—enough for me, which is great. Sadly, no butter chicken for Foz. He fills up on salad and his face looks as sad as the salad.
We are surprised the lounge opens at 4:30 am, but then closes at 7:00 pm. Then seeing the last flight out of the airport at 8:00 pm tells the story.
Uneventful flight gets us to Toronto on time.
Cab ride from airport to the Est Hotel costs $43, which is fine, but Cupcake thinks it’s too steep and has no problem telling the cabbie! Cabbie replies, “next time, you should walk.” This could get ugly, so I tell the cabbie just give me the machine and I’ll pay for it. Then he wants cash, so yeah, maybe it’s somewhat shady. Still, I don’t think arguing with him would get us anywhere (except maybe the pokey).
“I have no cash—credit card or nothing,” and he reluctantly hands me the machine.
Checking in, the registration desk tells us that we may not have hot water.
!!!!!!!
Cupcake manages to get them to shave 15% off the charges.
2022-09-16 (Friday) – Toronto to Niagara Falls (24C)
Good to their word, there’s no hot water in the morning and my cold shower was essentially a sponge bath. I stand for a while, watching the water as it flows out of the showerhead, hoping against hopelessness that warmth appears. Alas, the stream of cold water turns to ice pellets as it beat out of the pipes. The specks of ice make the same sound as you hear during a sleet storm when those pellets hit your car.
Cupcake led us to believe there would be bacon, sausage and eggs for breakfast. Instead, breakfast comes in a tray full of brown paper bags. In each paper bag, we find:
One tiny berry muffin
Mini plain yogurt
6-ounce tetra pack of orange juice
One cold egg muffin, no meat, no cheese
Since there wasn’t a lot of food at the airport lounge, none of us had a real dinner last night. Come this morning, I’m a ravenous bear. As disgusting as this brown bag breakfast is, I still ate it. It would have helped a lot of the dining room at least has a microwave to warm the horrid egg muffin. Cupcake runs to Tim Horrible’s and picks up some doughnuts for himself and Cupcake. I can eat anything for breakfast (or any time of day) but doughnuts do not fit my menu at all.
Est Hotel: don’t go there.
I thought I booked a rental car from the airport (that’s what I searched anyway) but my search got hijacked and the rental place is outside the airport. Even though we moved our reservation to 0900h, the clerk says that we won’t get a car until 10h30.
☹
Then a Toyota Corolla returns and the clerk offers it to us. I booked an SUV to be able to fit four of us and luggage, but the guys insist we’ll be fine in the sedan. We take it. We’re in a bit of a time crunch as we need to get to Niagara Falls in time to be picked up for our wine tour.
After we left, I notice damage to both the front and back bumpers; they were not noted on the damage sketch. I know we’re going to get dinged for this. On top of that, the car is not exactly new with 110 000 km on it, and the wiper is ripped, leaving severe streaks on the windshield. Is it just me that thinks when you rent a car, it should be quite new? At least new-ish? If I wanted an old car, I would have booked Rent-a-wreck.
Economy Rentacar: don’t go there.
We arrive at Niagara Falls, find our hotel, and walk to the nearest restaurant: Chuck’s Roadhouse Bar and Grill.
After we share a salad, a Chuck Burger, and a jumbo Caesar, things feel much better.
With plenty of time to spare, we return to the hotel where our shuttle picks us up to start The Grape Escape Wine Tour:
Wine touring is big business here. Our shuttle is just one among many buses darting in and out of vineyards, each one packed with passengers. Ours is a small tour troupe, with less than a dozen people in the shuttle. There are some full-size buses here, packed to capacity.
Our first stop takes us to Nomad at Hinterbrook Winery. Hinterbrook started farming in 1963 when they grew stone fruit and concord (juice) grapes. In 1998, they converted the crops to grow Vinifera (wine) grapes. Today, we sample five delicious wines.
Among the hundreds of vineyards that dot this countryside, our tour guide says that their tour only selects the small, family-owned and operated vineyards, rather than the mega corporations, like Peller. This company also offers bike and wine tours, which would be a great way to see the countryside and sample wine too. That’s on the agenda for next time.
The next stop finds us at Between the Lines Family Estate Winery, a newer winery owned and run by two brothers who went to Germany to earn their wine degrees. Here too, there are floods of visitors, saturating the tasting room, leaving us to the patio tables outside. It’s quite warm in the sun but I’ll take this over the 6C back home.
This tasting includes pairing with a number of cheeses, cranberries and pepperoni.
Our final destination takes us to the Reif Estate Winery. Reif is one of Niagara-on-the-Lake's founding family wineries, established in 1982. Reif first planted grapevines in 1977, spanning 125 acres today. They are located on one of the warmest and sunniest sub-appellations; river air currents moderate the temperatures, preventing early spring and late autumn frosts.
The session comes with three wines to taste, and one where you get to select what you want to taste. The choice is either a “fun” red or a late harvest. I opt for the late harvest, which tastes incredible. If this is what the late harvest tastes like, I can’t imagine what the ice wine would taste like.
I eye the bottle on the bar and wonder what would happen if—when the host looks the other way—I grab a bottle, run out the tasting room tipping the bottle into my mouth as I run? Maybe I’ll just buy a bottle instead.
The shuttle takes the long way back and offers us a quick drive through the beautiful Niagara-on-the-Lake area. After returning us to our hotel, we take a walk around the area and make our way to the kitschy part of town (the area Donna and Jim call “Las Vegas” and explore a bit). Able to check-in now, we return to the hotel to unpack and settle with a snort of gin and a few hands of cards. Bismarck is the game.
After a few rounds of cards and a few gins, we head out to meet Whacker and Snapper for dinner; they found a quaint patio overlooking the falls.
After a delicious dinner, we stroll along the Niagara River to see the Falls lit up by the spectacular beacons:
Returning to the tourist mecca, we decide to take a spin on the Ferris wheel, offering panoramic views of the falls and skyline. Each gondola holds six people, or in our case, just the four of us (Whacker stayed on earth with Storm). The ride averages 10 minutes long. The SkyWheel stands 53 metres tall and is currently Canada’s largest observation wheel. My last Ferris wheel ride was in Vegas on the high roller, standing at 168 metres so this one looks rather small to me. Still, the views are nice and peaceful.
The evening ends with a few spins around the Speedway. The course spans over 600 metres through a four-storey helix rising, then dropping on a roller coaster type ramp. The entire structure weighs almost 300 tonnes, has 10 000 bolts, stands 12 metres at its highest point, and accommodates 36 karts at each run.
The karts feature 9 HP motors with maximum speeds of 32 km/hr. I guarantee that my kart does not go 32 km/hr because, somehow, I always end up with the slowest car. Even though I start off ahead of our company, Cupcake and Foz pass me like I’m not moving, despite my foot pressed firmly on the floor as hard as I can. While they passed me, I putt-putted my way along, watching tumbleweeds as they blew by and passed me in their dust. Poor Whacker was caught behind a slowpoke and he never managed to pass neither them nor the tumbleweeds.
Returning to the hotel, it’s another round of gin and cards before retiring.
2022-09-17 (Saturday) – Niagara Falls (26C)
The day starts off at the Whirlpool Aero Car, which is a cable car ride spanning the teal waters and class6 rapids of the Niagara River. The cables swing almost 1100 metres over the river and span 500 metres across the canyon. Because of the winding nature of the river, the car actually crosses the international border four times by the time it returns to the boarding station. Construction completed in 1916 and has been running ever since.
Apparently, the whirlpools created by the rapids spin anti-clockwise during the day and clockwise at night, presumably due to lunar effects.
It starts a bit dicey as there’s some confusion about where we embark. The ticket booth instructs us to stand and wait at an oddly abandoned gate. Cupcake doesn’t believe we’re at the right place so he unlocks the gate and proceeds downwards. It didn’t take long until an operator chases him out and brings him back to where the rest of us obediently wait for instruction. We pretend he’s not part of our group.
Next, we’re off to Niagara’s Fury, a 4-D experience recounting the Falls’ creation 10 000 years earlier.
The “ride” starts with a cartoon reciting the events. Afterwards, we move to the sensory room where the ground shakes, the walls rumble and a waterfall emerges from the walls, complete with winds and temperature changes. If you’re next to the walls, you get a tad wet but people like me in the centre of the room, nothing more than a mist.
This was the weakest of our excursions and for next time, this is something that can be dropped from the itinerary.
The Falls Incline Railway takes us from the Fallsview area to the Table Rock Centre. The rail is a funicular but they do not call it a funicular because there is another inclined rail downriver that they call the funicular.
Sigh.
It only costs $2.66 to take the railway so this should be part everyone’s experience as it offers the perfect view of Horseshoe Falls. It runs 60 metres at a 30-degree angle. Each car holds 40 passengers and it moves at a rate of 1 metre/second. The journey takes 62 seconds.
Up top, we take lunch at Turtle Jack’s Muskoka Grill. This is a Southern Ontario chain offering standard grill fare. The dog-friendly patio and the first-rate view of the Minolta Tower draws us to this location. Lunch for me is Tuna Poke Bowl. It’s beautifully presented but alas, there isn’t very much tuna and it’s cooked (and there’s no bowl).
During lunch, a gale-like gust of wind lifts the patio umbrella out of its housing and its return to the ground just about impales Cupcake. Yikes! Go thing he didn’t catch it; the wind would have blown him right over the Falls. Thanks to the size of the patio umbrella, he probably would have just wafted to the bottom of the Falls à la Mary Poppins, where we could meet him for the next excursion.
After lunch, we head to the Niagara Parks Power Station, established in 1905. Running or a hundred years before retirement, this generating station was one of the engineering feats harnessing the hydroelectric power from the currents of Horseshoe Falls. Throughout the building, artifacts give us an idea of what the machinery used to generate the power looks like.
Even today, dams divert between 50% to 75% of the flow of the Niagara River to generating stations. This serves two purposes:
Power generation
Reduce the speed of erosion of the actual Falls. Before reducing the flow of the Falls, the eroded the bedrock at a rate of 1 to 1.5 metres/year. Now, erosion is reduced to 1 metre/3 years, and eventually, they want to slow it to 1 metre every 30 years.
Shortly after we enter the Power Station where we join up with a tour group. In short order, I realise that all of those tour members have a lanyard with the tour number identified. I think we just crashed this tour without paying. We quickly and quietly disappear from their ranks before we get caught and thrown into the rapids.
Part of the tour, a glass elevator takes us 55 metres below ground into The Tunnel. They excavated the Tunnel in 1901 with just shovels, pickaxes, hand-held lanterns, and rudimentary dynamite with the trademark logo “Acme” on the side. The Tunnel served to return water to the river after its diversion from the upper river and through the turbines.
As a surprise to us, the tunnel ends at a viewing platform where the tunnel once dumped water back to the river. This deck at river height offers stunning views of both the Horseshoe Falls and the American Falls. In fact, with such a spectacular view, we deem it unnecessary to pile onto the boat cruise into the mist.
Too bad for us, we didn’t return in the evening for the power light show. We did not realise there is another attraction offered in the evening.
Next, we return up the inclined railway to find Journey behind the Falls, which takes us behind the Falls through tunnels that are 130 years old.
Among a mass of humanity lined up like a Disney ride queue, we crawl through this endless line until we finally reach the elevator and descend 40 metres into the bedrock, only to find more masses of humanity in endless lines. After a considerably wait and a few line switchbacks, we finally reach the view, which is disappointingly just a hole cut in behind the Falls. I guess the description says it all:
Since we’re here already, we pursue the line where it forked. Fortunately, this line is quite short and actually takes us to a viewing platform. If we had not had such a great view already at the exit of the Tunnel, this would have been the highlight of the Falls so far. As is, it offers a slightly different perspective from we just recently saw, but much of it looks quite familiar now.
There is one platform that offers a view right beside the Horseshoes Falls where you could almost reach out and touch the water.
Fortunately for us, the return line up the elevators is much (MUCH) shorter than the wait to descend. If this is something any of my readers want to visit, trust me and skip the line to see behind the falls. Stick to the line that goes outside to the platform (the line to the left) and you’ll avoid most of the masses of humanity.
Dinner takes us to the Table Rock House Restaurant, offering one of the best dining views of Horseshoe Falls in the area:
Prix Fix dinner costs $60 and includes your choice of appetiser, main and a dessert. I order off the menu because, who needs dessert? Apparently, everyone here but me.
With dinner, I try a flight of local wines:
It’s wonderful to be in wine country. We met a couple earlier that recommended the Megalomanic wine. The description calls it a “pompous” wine but we find it rather insipid and without much pomposity.
Our last stop takes us to the Skylon Tower.
The dining room rotates once per hour and the view on a clear day extends 125 km. The Tower stands 160 metres tall and movement goes through three, yellow, “bug,” outside elevators. Ascension takes 52 seconds or you can choose one of two staircases that rise 662 steps.
2022-09-18 (Sunday) – Niagara Falls to Buffalo (25C)
The fun starts early today. We leave the hotel with our luggage and head to the rental car. I press the trunk release and the trunk opens on our silver Corolla. I head towards the car and Darcy calls to me that I’m going to the wrong car.
“What do you mean?”
He pointed and I look—sure enough, it’s not our licence plate. By stupid coincidence, someone else with a silver Corolla opened their trunk at the exact same time I opened ours, and they parked only two spaces away. This of course reminds everyone about the time Ava walked into the wrong white van!
We cross the Rainbow Bridge border control and in short order, we’re on Goat Island and looking for a kiosk to purchase tickets. Whereas the Canadian side of the Falls teems with amusement park activities, souvenir stores and kitsch, the American side is a State Park, which means it’s serene, natural and pristine.
Our first excursion takes us to Cave of the Winds. There’s no actual cave at Cave of the Winds, but there certainly is wind! In the 1800s, there was a rock overhang that was called a cave, and people walked under it to “stand under the falls.” It collapsed in the early 1900s but the name stuck.
The anteroom features a collection of clips and videos that talk about the history of the area. There are a number of stereoscope viewers that show the slides in 3-D. A number of exhibits talk about people going over the Falls in a barrel. What a stupid thing to do. Really! If someone’s suicidal, they can easily jump over the fence. Those who go over in barrels are attention getters—isn’t there a better way to get attention? Your chances of survival are very slim—is it worth the risk?
According to the records, 16 people have survived going over the Falls, all over the Horseshoe Falls. Guess how many people have tried? Go ahead, guess.
What was your guess? My initial guess was less than 20, but that was before I knew 16 survived. I would have changed my guess to 40. The actual answer? I’ll tell you later.
The adventure starts with a short video showing the history of the Falls development. After the video we don our requisite blue or yellow ponchos and descend through the elevators. When we come out, we’re right at the base of the American Falls and the boardwalk takes us right up to the Falls, and if you want, you can even stand right underneath it! The following photo shows the boardwalk as it wends its way through the base of the Falls and climbs up until there’s a section where you can stand under the water if you choose—known as the Hurricane Deck. The water doesn’t hit you directly; it’s a carom off the nearest rock face and redirected right into you. It’s exciting!
Just a bit of facts here: Niagara Falls consists of three major Falls: the Horseshoe Falls, which is the round part, the American Falls, and the small part off to the right of the American Falls, known as the Bridal Veil Falls. The part we stand under is the Bridal Veil Falls.
Cited from Niagara Parks:
More than 168 000 cubic metres (6 million cubic ft) of water go over the crestline of the falls every minute during peak daytime tourist hours
The Canadian Horseshoe Falls drops an average 57 metres (188 ft) into the Lower Niagara River
The crest line of the Canadian Horseshoe Falls is approximately 670 metres (2,200 ft.) wide. The plunge pool beneath the falls is 35 metres (100 ft.) deep
The height of the American Falls ranges between 21 to 34 metres (70-110 ft.). This measurement is taken from the top of the falls to the top of the rock pile at the base, called the talus slope. The height of the falls from the top of the falls to the river is 57 metres (188 ft.). The crest line of the American Falls is approximately 260 metres (850 ft.) wide
The rapids above the falls reach a maximum speed of 40 km/hr or 25 mph, with the fastest speeds occur at the falls themselves (recorded up to 68 mph.) The water through the Whirlpool Rapids below the falls reaches 48 km/hr or 30 mph, and at Devil’s Hole Rapids 36km/hr.
The Niagara River is a connecting channel between two Great Lakes, Erie and Ontario.
Niagara Falls has moved back seven miles in 12,500 years and may be the fastest moving waterfalls in the world.
After that exciting hike, we settle in for lunch at the Top of the Falls Restaurant. Because it’s a state park, there’s very little development. The only restaurant in the park is the one we’re at, and in a couple of weeks, they close for the season until next May.
Lunch for me came in the form of Buffalo Mac & Cheese, made with Cavatappi (corkscrew) pasta, house-made Yancey’s fancy three-cheese sauce, which is a local blend consisting of Romano, cheddar and blue cheese. It’s topped off with boneless buffalo wings and extra buffalo sauce. Delicious!
Foz and Whacker have the Beef on Weck, which is the other Buffalo specialty, consisting of thinly sliced roast beef on a Kaiser roll with caraway seeds, horseradish and jus. Yummy all around!
The Trolly takes people around the park and for only $3, you can jump on and off all day. It’s a nice way to get around but everything looks so scenic here, I’d rather walk. Because the Falls are so dominant an attraction here, it’s easy to look in just one direction and miss all the other lovely scenery around us.
Back in Winnipeg, we drive for hours to get to the Whiteshell to see falls that are a lot less scenic than this, but here, people walk by them like they’re nothing. Compared to the three main falls, they are tiny, but by themselves, gorgeous.
Our hike takes us along the American rim of the River until we reach the Niagara Falls Observation Tower, a lookout platform at Prospect Point that extends out over the Niagara Gorge providing the only unobstructed view of all three Falls. Access to this platform costs a total of $1.25 – can you believe that?! What can you buy for $1.25 today? Bet you can’t even find anything at Dollarama for $1.25!
As we leave the platform, we make our way back to the car. En route, we pass over Luna Island, the piece of land that segregates the American Falls from the Bridal Veil Falls. Here again, we get so close to the water, we can almost reach out and touch it. Rain starts, which hastens our steps. Departing Luna Island marks the end of the first leg of our trip and our departure from Niagara Falls—next stop, Buffalo.
Kenny’s already at a sports bar waiting for us and watching football. Before picking up Kenny, we stop by a liquor store and load up. We see some very interesting ports, of which, the 1977 is quite a special vintage for us. We consider the extremely favourable price considering the age of the bottle. We are about to purchase when I noticed they improperly stored all of the valuable ports, and the temperature is not climate controlled. Considering the age of the port, there’s a very good chance the storage ruined the wine, so we pass on it and I get cognac instead.
We pick up Kenny and bring our bags to the VRBO. Flipping through the TV, we find that we literally have a thousand channels, but no access to either CBS or Fox Network, meaning no football games.
??!!
Within minutes, we’re off to the nearest local microbrew, Thin Man Brewery. There’s no shortage of football (nor beer) here.
We settle in with some drinks; 25 beers on tap means that we have a tremendous selection available. Whacker and Snapper join us for dinner.
For me, dinner includes: delicious Truffle Fries, Jerk Wings and a rich Beer Braised Beef Stew. I smelled truffles as soon as I entered the brewery and I’ve been craving truffles ever since.
They don’t disappoint—the food here tastes wonderful.
After hanging out for a while, we return to the VRBO and miraculously, now we get the game. No one touch the dial! It took four of us an hour to figure out how to adjust the volume! Of all the dumb designs, they hid the volume control to the side of the remote. If at least the buttons protrude, we’d feel them, but they’re flush with the body of the remote.
More cards after the game, more gin, and it’s time to settle for the night.
2022-09-19 (Monday) – Game Day: Orchard Park (22C)
Cupcake seeks out a breakfast/brunch place in Larkinville. The Buffalo tourism bureau describes the neighbourhood as,
…a collection of businesses, new apartment buildings and public spaces centered along Seneca Street southeast of downtown Buffalo–[and] is one of the city’s most impressive transformations. Formerly empty warehouses and vacant parcels are now home to weekly concerts, food truck rodeos, beer gardens, breweries and distilleries. There’s even a historic diner that’s been refurbished and relocated here.
We arrive and discover there’s a half-hour wait to get into the historic diner. We wander around the area, find there isn’t much open here. A colourful open plaza tells us that this could be a lively and fun place, but it’s a ghost town right now.
I have the portabella-bacon omelette (actually spelt the French way!). Knowing it’s going to likely be an all-meat dinner tonight, I want to load up on vegetation matter. I hoped for a whole portabella but alas, there are only a few chunks of mushroom but lots of bacon, cheese and hashbrowns—all excellent candidates for gunking up the digestive system! Ah well, it tastes good. How can it not? Look at how yellow the egg is! It reminds me of the all-yolk eggs we ate in France.
Skimming the menu, someone notices something called a Brûléed Grapefruit; I cannot think of anything more hideous. Upon my comment, Kenny decides to order it. Then we find out Kenny hates grapefruit as much as I do, but it was intriguing enough for him to want to try it. I’m glad I’m not so self-sadistic; if I was, no one would want to be around me, considering the atrocious foods my parents made me eat.
On appearance, the grapefruit looks a lot more appetising than I imagined. In reality, it tastes like ass. Kenny agrees but between Foz and Cupcake, most of it gets eaten anyway. That’s good; I hate to waste food and it would be a disaster if I had to choke down the rest.
If you ever want to try it out for yourself, this is the Swan Street Diner:
After brunch, it’s time to head to the game. We only get a drizzle here and there but Whacker and Snapper said that they went through a hurricane earlier this morning, complete with torrential rainfall and gale-like winds. Those conditions would make for an absolutely miserable time at the game. Bills’s stadium is a bowl, meaning there’s no cover anywhere, and no windbreaks at all.
A nice drive and we’re at Orchard Park; we meet the rest of our crew at the parking lot of Tops, a Northeast grocery chain. It also happens to be the only grocery store I ever visited in The States that does not sell spirits nor wine. They offer plenty of beers and coolers, but that’s it.
I do not want to fill up on beer before the game—and more importantly—I don’t want to have to leave my seat and miss parts of the game to visit the trough. I guess I don’t have a choice—it’s beer or nothing.
Tailgate food will be fast and simple: bratwursts and weiners for Storm (and anyone else who wants to eat lips and anuses). This grocery store is quite disappointing since we cannot find proper buns to match. There’s nothing whole wheat and the selection of brats is very limited.
Things are a bit chaotic on the approach to the stadium. In preparations for construction of the new stadium, some of the access arteries are closed and getting is a severe bottleneck. The periphery lots seem like a good idea until they complete the new stadium and demolish the existing one. This time though, we want the full experience of being in the real lot.
During the line up and at a standstill, at one point both I and Kenny (in the passenger seat) fall asleep. I don’t know how long we were out before Foz from the back says,
“Hey! We can move!” Ok, so we creep 10 metres, and it’s naptime again.
As soon as we get in, Whacker has the tent up and secured with the efficiency of slaves building a pyramid in 2500 BCE Egypt.
Whacker sets up the grill on the tailgate in the wind-shade and I get cooking.
It’s truly a great sight when someone looks this happy eating their food!
There are some questionable moments at the tailgate, but in the end, no rain haunts us.
Here’s a shot of the entire gang, clad in Bills’s blue!
WAIT FOR GROUP PHOTO FROM JIM AND CUPCAKE
And of course, we have our special Bills’s fan!
Shortly after dinner and one more beer, we’re packed and ready to head to the game.
Sometimes, I hate technology. By no means am I a luddite but there are occasions where I prefer the old way of doing things—like right now. I would rather have a physical ticket in my hand, rather than rely on the graces of my phone to produce the QR code.
I purchased five tickets, and transferred four of them, one each to Kenny, Foz, Cupcake and Whacker—the last one is mine. All four of them scanned in no problem, but mine returns as invalid. They shuffle me off to a secondary scanner who views my transaction. Sure enough, it shows five purchases, four scanned and the fifth pending. That’s not good enough though. He needs to sign me into wifi, and re-issue the e-ticket. You think that things travelling at the speed of light should arrive soon, but it takes a while. It finally arrives. He scans it and I’m in at last. The other guys kept wondering if I would get thrown out and miss the game.
Kickoff weather: 22C, winds from the west at 20 km/h, gusting to 45 km/h.
We make our way to our seats. We sit on the 40-yard line about halfway up the upper deck. These are great seats offering us a spectacular view:
The opening ceremony features Legends of the Game, including Bruce Smith, Jim Kelly and Marv Levy—all bona fide legends of football.
Speeches complete and the players take the field!
The game gets underway! The Bills receive first and march authoritatively down the field. Touchdown! After a GREAT game, the Bills walk away with an easy victory, pounding the hated Titans 41-7!
Bills Mafia have this tradition of people jumping through tables—the extreme people light the tables on fire first. I’m not willing to try fire but when in Rome, or Buffalo…
Bottleneck again leaving the stadium. We can either sit in our cars and wait in line with our thumbs up our butts or we can sit in the parking lot and drink beer! No worries about missing the game now so two beers go down quickly. That’s my limit because I still have to drive.
Back to our VRBO, we watch the highlights on TV. Afterwards, it’s time for more cards and gin. We try our hand at 500 this time: Foz and Cupcake are partners against me and Kenny. Little did I know that Kenny would not make a bid all night, meaning that I would have to do all the bidding, often times with nothing in my hand.
2022-09-20 (Tuesday) – Buffalo (27C)
Late night means a delayed start to the day, which is fine. Our research found Anchor Bar to be the Home of the Original Buffalo Wing. We planned to visit Anchor but some input from the locals tells us that the Buffalonians regard Anchor as shit, and only ignorant tourists go there.
Well…!
Locals recommend Gabriel Gate Restaurant, which sounds like a winner to us. They warned us in advance to forgive the place for the animal head “trophies” on the wall. Yeah, there’s some morbidity here:
Questionable décor aside, the menu looks fabulous—but really, most of us don’t need to look at the menu. WE’RE HERE FOR THE BUFFALO WINGS!
Orders come as a single (10 wings) or a double (20 wings). With the sparrow wings we get in Winnipeg, 20 would not be enough and I’d need a side of something. This is ‘murica and I suspect you get a lot more food here than at home. Ten wings still sound scant, so Foz and I decide to get 30 between the two of us—20 spicy and 10 regular Buffalo. Whacker, undaunted as ever, orders 20 for himself, plus fries.
As I suspected, when the wings come, they’re not sparrow-sized; they’re not even chicken-sized; they’re almost turkey-sized!
They’re delicious. We have nothing like this at home and I can see what an entire city would rally behind this dish. Between Foz and me, 29 of the 30 wings is enough.
Whacker continues to work at his 20 wings and it takes some effort, but he finishes it. Then he tells me that we cannot leave one behind. I offer it to Foz and he doesn’t want it. I consider it, then decided to make a go at it. Subconsciously, I know I don’t want it, so it falls out of my hand and falls to the floor. With a big sigh, Whacker picks it up and eats it. I look at him and suggest,
“Now eat your fries!” Whacker’s terse response was,
“FAAAAAAWWWWWKKKKKK!!!” and the fries get left behind.
Snapper polished off her ten wings and Cupcake didn’t get go down Wing Alley.
Kenny then says,
“Step aside! You ain’t seen nothing yet!” and orders 40 wings for himself! He gobbles them down like a black lab eating steak and yells, “I WANT MORE!” We have to physically restrain him for continuting his rampage!
After lunch, we head to Canalside, the hub of activity in this city. Not unique to this area, but I noticed in most every neighbourhood we visited, an abundance of rainbow flags flying from houses and businesses. No, there aren’t as many rainbow flags as there are ‘murican flags, but you see them on every street. Pleased to see that this is a very gay-friendly city.
Canalside is supposed to be where all the fun happens; I guess it was full of activity during summer but now, a couple of weeks into September, it looks abandoned. I don’t understand it. The temperature tops 27C today; why would things close for the winter? Originally, we booked a canal tour aboard a Tiki “raft.” The raft is a private vessel with a capacity of six, and by coincidence, there are six of us! It’s a floating, full-service bar that floats us to the highlights while serving beverages. It’s a fantastic concept. Too bad they closed for the season. I called and they arranged a private tour for us but then they couldn’t fire staff to run it. No Tiki Tour for us. This is a different Tiki Tour running right now, but it’s a larger raft with dozens of passengers. If we would have known, we would have booked this one.
The Buffalo Naval Park is here, with a retired submarine, destroyer and cruiser; we thought about taking a tour.
Instead, we decide to stroll along the Canalside trail and see what else is here. The trail ends at an open-air canopy with a number of cornhole games set up. Immediately, Foz and Whacker start up a match. Cupcake wants to start up a game too but Kenny looks concerned; Snapper zips off with Storm, and I look for photo sites.
Within moments, and official-looking woman comes out and asks if she can help them; that was her polite way of saying “what the hell are you doing?!” It turns out that this is a private terrace and they’re prepping for a closed party! Trouble-making tourists!
Back to the trail tail, I catch a glimpse of the Resurgence Brewing Company, one of Foz’s highlighted want-to-see microbrews. Let’s go!
This beautiful pub sits in a restored warehouse, blending the charm of the old-timey building with the modernity of a state-of-the-brewery. Nestled in between two buildings, their patio has nice, cozy tables and welcomes dogs. Here we are!
If you know Whacker at all, you know he doesn’t drink beer. Surprisingly on this trip, he has already ordered a couple of taster flights earlier in their travels. Here, he orders another flight, but it doesn’t take long for him to declare, “they all taste like shit.” Subsequently and surreptitiously, all of his taster glasses empty into Foz’s glasses, and he mocks Foz that he finished his beer first.
After a nice break, it’s time to hit the road again. We cross a very industrial bridge to arrive at Riverworks, a reclaimed space adapting former industrial buildings. Activities here purportedly include: zipline, watersports, ropes coarse, silo climbing, roller skating, curling, axes and ales (axe-throwing), brewery tour, ice rink, Ferris wheel, various rides, and more! Like everything else, it’s closed for the season and we’re the only ones here.
Not quite, there’s a couple here who used to live in Buffalo but returned for a visit. They said that it’s very vibrant here on season—it used to be an absolute dead zone before the reclamation. I reiterate: why does everything close down so early for the season? Anyway, I can see how this area is an absolute eyesore if they didn’t make efforts to remediate it.
They also tell us about the giant six-pack of Labatt’s Blue, re-clad from grain silos. Apparently, in this city, Labatt Blue is the beer of choice. The call it “imported” and the people leap at it. From our various visits, they’re not wrong. Blue signs are everywhere and people order it like it’s gold.
Well, nothing to see here so we backtrack towards Canalside. We have yet to find a souvenir shop, which is rather hard to believe since we’re in tourist-central. I don’t expect it to be like downtown Niagara Falls, but it is unreasonable to ask for just one souvenir store?
Apparently, it IS too much to ask. There is one (just ONE) gift shop near the Canalway Trail Mile Marker Zero, but it’s closed this week—just this week for renovations. I stand gaping through the window, staring longingly.
We’re done downtown, so we Google a gift shop in the Elmwood neighbourhood, near where we’re staying. We arrive and it’s open—and it’s a gift shop!—but it’s not the kind of gift shop that sells Buffalo souvenirs. It’s more like one of the boutique gifts shops in Osborne Village than the kind of souvenir shop you find in tourist meccas.
There’s a grocery store across the street—perhaps they sell touristy kitsch? No, but at least they sell limes for more gins tonight. Last gasp hail mary: drug stores sell souvenir items in touristy areas—but not here. We abandon the quest, give up and return home. Whacker and Snapper head back to their trailer and we return to our VRBO. Pizza and cards sound like a nice way to wrap up vacation.
Our top three choices for pizza are either closed or do not deliver. We end up with a place that’s just down the street from our VRBO called Just Pizza, although we should note that Just Pizza serves more than just pizza, there’s a huge assortment of subs and of course, Buffalo wings.
After a meat-heavy run for the past few days, a veggie pizza sounds good to me—good thing Gumma’s not here or he’d blow his top! Normally, I like the deluxe, or something with a fair assortment of veggies and one or two meats. I don’t like meat-heavy; they tend to get very salty, very quickly. We end up with one deluxe and one veggie.
As you can see from the photo, the deluxe is exactly what I normally like:
It has lots of hot peppers, bell peppers, mushroom, onions and just a bit of pepperoni to add some heft. If the veggie looks just like this with no pepperoni, that’s perfectly fine.
But it doesn’t look like this. Here’s what it looks like:
This is no veggie pizza—this is an olive pizza! And remember what I said about not wanting pizzas to be too salty?! I can’t think of many foods that taste saltier than olives!
WHY?! Why would anyone want to make a pizza like this?! Even the biggest olive fan cannot possibly want this much olive on their pizza! Really!
I pick off as much of the olives as I can off my slices and it measures a heaping cupful. It’s insane. Just Pizza? Pah – it’s Just Olives. The deluxe is good; the olive is a disaster. With so much good food in this city, just don’t go here.
To finish off my meal, and to give the finger to the saltiness of the olives, I take the salt shaker and dump it directly into my mouth (the way I would hot sauce). That makes me feel better.
More cards, more gin and more cognac and then it time to call it. Kenny’s flight leaves at an abysmal time the next morning so he’ll be off way before we’re up. Very happy to be able to connect with Kenny for another football game.
2022-09-21 (Wednesday) – Buffalo to Toronto (25C) to Winnipeg (10C)
Rather than taking the Rainbow Bridge through Niagara, we leave Buffalo via the Peace Bridge, taking us immediately back to Canada. I thought for sure we’d be able to find a souvenir store before leaving the country, expecting a shop like we have at the Emerson border. There’s no such thing. The freeway takes us immediately to border control and in short order, we’re back in Canada. They randomly choose both Foz and Cupcake to do the COVID test. It seems so senseless now that no one cares. The government planned a major COVID announcement for the end of the month, likely wiping the requirement to do these tests.
Relaxing time in the Plaza Lounge at Pearson, which offers a lot more food selections than Winnipeg. In fact, it’s a little too relaxing as we should have left sooner. Halfway during the walk from the lounge to our gate, we hear an announcement that this is final boarding call and we should be on the plane already.
We make a mad dash for almost a kilometre before we get to the gate. We’re not sure why they called us to the gate so early because we seat and wait 20 minutes before takeoff. Eight more people boarded the plane after us, so we are not even close to being the last people on.
Foz and Cupcake went to their peasant class seats but this time, I got the entire front row to myself. I started off in the aisle seat, then moved to the window seat during the flight, then back to the aisle seat for landing. I even have my own overhead compartment!
Here’s a shot of Assiniboine Park, just before we land. Winnipeg doesn’t look so ugly from a few hundred metres in the air. Then reality sets back in.
That wraps another vacation. A good time was had by all and we look forward to the next outing.
By the way, over 5000 people have gone over the Falls—some in barrels, some in canoes, some on jet-skis. Can you believe that? It’s been illegal since 1951.
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