Note: It's been five days without a cigarette, and this is the first time I've tried to write anything. When I write, I chain smoke, so this is killing me. All I can think of is "I would drown kittens for a cigarette."
THURSDAY NIGHT:
When we stopped in Louisville, KY on the first night, we fell in love... with a hotel. Our room, specifically, at the Hyatt Place hotel. It's not that I haven't stayed in nice hotels before, but never one so brand-spanking new, with a radically different layout from the common hotel room, which is basically one/two beds across from a desk and a... oh, hell, you know exactly what I mean because they all look pretty much alike.
This was so clean, sleek and modern in design, yet comfortable. I mean, I took my first photos of the hotel room, for heaven's sake. Because of the way it was designed, with a wide open floor plan, it seemed gigantic. The beds were fabulously comfy.
I could live happily in that hotel suite. It's all the space I really need. I could use another bookshelf, and maybe a larger desk, but that's about it. As I closed the door one last time and went to checkout, I whispered: "I will always love you...."
FRIDAY, SATURDAY, SUNDAY MORNING:
Detroit went okay, though in reality we never actually got to Detroit. Having spent 12 miserable days in the Motor City back in December 2000, I counted it a small loss. Rex's conference was actually in Romulus.
The hotel had apparently gone through a recent sale and was now called the Metropolis or Metropolitan, some unfamiliar name on a vinyl sign that struck fear in hearts when we first saw it in what looked like the middle of nothing but airport car parks. The hotel "restaurant" was really a bar that served nothing but bar-food in front of wide-screen tvs playing sports. Food nearby was in such short supply we actually ate two meals in the same restaurant... and the other two meals in another restaurant.
One was a decent local Italian place, the other a diner called "Coney Island," where we experienced the Detroit version of the chili dog, which, strangely, has a layer of ground beef on the bottom. This is referred to as "loose" as in: "Give me one loose," while a standard chili dog is referred to as "one-up." I have no idea why. But Yankees have many strange and unfamiliar customs. (And why do people find it weird that I put ketchup on hot dogs?)
The waitress, bless her, slipped me a cigarette when my jailers weren't looking. When we returned for the great breakfast special on Sunday morning, her daughter waited on us. I did not, however, try to hit her up for a smoke. I hit up a smoking fellow customer. Can you believe it? There's STILL a smoking section in a restaurant?)
And yes, food is the focal point of my life, so why should a trip being any different? Of course, I'm now sick to death of fast food. But I digress.
The hotel, of course, did not measure up to our previous love affair. While the beds were nice, it took three calls and one annoyed visit to the front desk to get more towels. This place also had the most freakishly small elevators I've ever seen.
I mention the beds because sleep is the second most important aspect of my life. And while I adore Rex, and he's the best bed companion ever (now that he has a CPAP) -- an excellent cuddler, but not smothering, prone to an affectionate pat or rub or kiss if you should stir in the middle of the night -- the double bed was annoying. i am accustomed to having a queen all to myself most of the time. It wouldn't be so bad if you could detach an arm.
Sunday afternoon, it was onward to Canada. We excitedly oohed and ahhed over the enormous stretch of Lake Erie (a really great lake!) as stupidly as any other yokel tourist. Having been raised on the coast, I'm used to see great expanses of water, but never at the edge of a city full of high rises, never without a beach.
When we saw a lighthouse on the shore of Lake Erie, we desperately wanted to take a photo. Rex is, after all, a professional photographer. But to our dismay, the lighthouse was on the Coast Guard base, behind a locked fence. Patti brazenly pressed the button of the call box and asked if we could come in. To our surprise, they said they would send someone to escort us.
The female officer was polite but seemed completely ignorant of everything except the pair of geese on the path to the lighthouse. She urged us to veer away from the increasingly agitated male honking at us, and the sleeping female on her nest a few feet away.
But she didn't know what the little round building about a half mile out on the lake was, nor did she know when they stopped using the lighthouse. No, she wasn't sure if the gigantic ship with missile launchers around the bend was an actual Navy vessel still in use. She didn't even know that name or location of any kind of restaurant in the area. We took our pictures and trudged back to the car.
I suppose I should mention this was my first experience with a GPS. It is an astonishing device -- and while i understand how it operates, it is still both amazing and eerie how it always knew exactly where we were, directing turns at just the right moment.
The GPS is, however, downright annoying at times. In the middle of a conversation, "she" butts in with instructions to continue down the road you've been on for fifty miles and will remain on for the next sixty. I have named the GPS after my mother; she knows exactly where you should go, she is always right, and when you get it wrong, she just keeps telling you to make a u-turn until you finally get it right.
The road we took was plagued by construction, and even with the GPS, we kept making turns that led us down into nerve-wracking cattle-shoots of concrete and orange barrels, only to end up going the wrong way, with the GPS constantly telling us to make a U-turn. We could see the gates of the border up ahead, so tantalizingly close and yet so apparently inaccessible. Our laughter teetered on the edges of hysteria.
Finally we see a sign that says: "Follow signs not GPS." Oh, now you tell us.
And there it was: CANADA.
What is about being faced by people in uniform that makes even the most innocent person feel like a criminal? "Where have you come from? Where are you going? For what purpose? How long are you staying? Are you carrying any drugs, firearms, farm animals or firewood?"
They asked us to open the trunk. I can only imagine that the officer took one look at the jam-packed mass of suitcases, tote bags, camera bags and cosmetic cases crammed into ever possible inch of space and thought to himself: "Oh, fuck it. I'm not to move all this stuff. Let them smuggle a few logs into Canada, I don't care."
I was crushed to learn that they do not stamp your passport unless you come into the country by plane. I still have a virgin passport, untouched by any official proof that I have, indeed, left American soil.
Almost sunset, we arrived at Niagra Falls. And my mouth fell open.
It was the most God-awful rabbit-warren of neon crassness since Gatlinburg. It was, in many ways, indistinguishable from Gatlinburg, or any other over-crowded, plastic toy town aimed at sucking the wallets of bleary-eyed tourists. It even boasts a Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not.
What on earth is the point of traveling to another town, let alone another country, to find yourself parking behind a Dave and Buster's, across the street from a Hard Rock Cafe? Everywhere I looked, I saw the same chain names I left in Nashville. The only non-chain establishment we saw as a closed restaurant.
We made our way down the walkway to the Falls. There it was.... the Mighty Niagra.
And it was totally underwhelming.
I don't mean to dis the falls. They are perfectly nice falls, bigger than any I've ever seen in person. Maybe it was the towering mass of casinos and hotels we'd just passed through that made it seem smaller than I'd imagined, the glare of neon that made it seem dim and ordinary. Leave it to humans to surround a natural wonder with crap and ruin the whole damned thing.
We were going to go to our hotel and come back in the morning, but decided it really wasn't worth it. That was our first mistake.
Canada was, well...not that different really. Mainly it was flat. Flat, flat and more flat. Nothing but far-flung farms, and yet not a single cow or horse in sight. Yet minor differences made it seem like we'd traveled through some vortex to a parallel universe. Flag poles sported the big red maple leaf, not the Stars and Stripes. Road signs were amusingly unfamiliar: "Fatigue kills. Take a break." Kilometers, not miles, on speed markers ("Maximum Speed: 100 km.") Gasoline prices of 94.9 shocking, until you remember they are talking liters. Signs in both English and French.
(No Spanish anywhere. Not a Hispanic person, either. We wondered who did the yard work. A dearth of Mexican and Chinese restaurants. We saw no black people. Only one possible Indian woman at the A&W. Not even in Detroit. I mean, Romulus.)
Funniest t-shirt spotted: "What is a Canadian? An unarmed American with health care."
Oddest food difference: something called "poutine" on the menu of an A&W stand. French fries, cheese and gravy. Um... okay.
Another hotel, on yet another shore of a Great Lake -- still Lake Erie. Always Lake Erie. Miles and miles of Lake Erie. We're not sure, but we think that our hotel was the only one on the Grand Island. We arrived in the dark, weaving down a twisting road of residential lake houses, wondering if the GPS was screwing with us. At one point we got sidetracked down a dead end under a bridge. It looked just like one of those places where the Law and Order detectives pull bloated bodies from the river.
The hotel was nice, a convention center, but the beds were hard... Thanks to the Netbook, Rex and Patti managed to keep swashbuckling on the high seas. I collected a few rents in My Town.
MONDAY MORNING:
The hotel offers no breakfast, so we are on the road again, looking for someplace to eat. We detour through a little town in New York called Hamburg. This is our second mistake.
Working our way down a two lane of lovely homes, we realize we are still finding nothing to eat, and attempt to turn around.
We are sitting there, fully stopped, and the SUV behind us (that has already honked rudely at us for driving too slow) also comes to a full stop behind us. The blinker tick..tick...ticks as we wait for traffic to pass.
Then the loud screeching of rubber, the involuntary cringe of wondering what terrible thing has happened behind us, but a split second of thinking we are well ahead of it. And then... WHAM. The horrible crunch of metal, the violent jerk forward and back, the car moving forward without our permission. I hear Rex first, then Patti, say, "F*ck!"
I am first aware that my head has hit the back of the seat. It hurts. I reach back instinctively, and am relieved to find no blood or hunks of hair. My back feels wrenched somehow.
We get out of the car. Patti looks at the rear of the first new car she has ever owned, not even a year old, and I know she wants to cry.
The two women inside the SUV are sitting still stunned. One of them begins to cry.
Then we see the cause of it all, a POS brownish-red pickup, the hood completely smashed with something running out if it. For a moment I worry that it might be gas, but it is only water from the radiator.
The police and two fire trucks are there quickly. Even the mayor of Hamburg responds to the call. A three-car crash is apparently a major event in this sleepy little hamlet.
I immediately fish in my purse for the single forbidden cigarette I've smuggled out of Detroit. I no longer care if Rex sees me smoking. I've waited two days, and I've had no coffee, no breakfast, and by God, I want that cigarette.
There are words with the women in the SUV, who still have not moved. The driver insists that she did not hit us. Patti informs her angrily that she did, having been pushed forward by the truck behind her. The crying woman is becoming hysterical, rubbing at her neck.
The paramedics end up taking both the women out on boards. Rex disagrees politely but firmly with one of the paramedics that no, we do not want to go to the hospital, but no, we will not sign anything.
The paramedic comes to me, questions me, takes my pulse. We find out we have the same birthday.
The police are questioning two witnesses. I need to pee, and trudge behind the nursery we're blocking to ask the owner if I can use his bathroom. He kindly obliges.
Traffic is being directly around us, lights are flashing, police and firemen and paramedics milling around, talking. It is a circus. I ask one of the officers directing traffic if he has a cigarette. He does not, but tells me to go ask the Chief, who does smoke. Rex hears me and tells me not to do it; I have a mini-temper tantrum-meltdown.
Finally everyone is gone but us, one cop -- Officer T. Brooks -- and the thirty-something construction worker who ruined our day. The crash-causing bastard is nice and easy until the police officer tells him he is being cited the accident, and held 100 percent at fault.
"How do you know it was my fault?" he asks, a little angrily. "You haven't even talked to me yet."
"We've got two witnesses who both said you caused the wreck," T. Brooks explains.
"But you didn't ask me what happened!"
"You're not exactly objective," T. Brooks says. He then tells Mr. Bastard that he will, in all likely hood be sued by the women in the SUV.
Finally beginning to calm down and regain ourselves, Patti, Rex and I realize that it could have been so much worse. We could have been seriously hurt, or pushed into the path of an oncoming vehicle; the car could have been damaged more, rendered undriveable and leaving us stranded in New York State.
Finally... we find breakfast. Three Grand Slams at Denny's. I defiantly eat pancakes.
More driving... another hotel. That night we go to a place called Mimi's Cafe -- a chain, but still rather good -- for dinner. We are ignored by the wait staff until someone tracks down our waitress, who apologizes profusely for the mixup.
Our meal is very nice, and we have completely forgiven our waitress who turns out to be excellent, but as a final apology she brings us four complimentary HUGE muffins. We leave her a nice tip.
And more driving... driving... driving.....
Not much more to say. I'm sore, headachey, sick of the car, sick of eating, glad to see my cat and eager to get to my own bed.
THURSDAY NIGHT:
When we stopped in Louisville, KY on the first night, we fell in love... with a hotel. Our room, specifically, at the Hyatt Place hotel. It's not that I haven't stayed in nice hotels before, but never one so brand-spanking new, with a radically different layout from the common hotel room, which is basically one/two beds across from a desk and a... oh, hell, you know exactly what I mean because they all look pretty much alike.
This was so clean, sleek and modern in design, yet comfortable. I mean, I took my first photos of the hotel room, for heaven's sake. Because of the way it was designed, with a wide open floor plan, it seemed gigantic. The beds were fabulously comfy.
I could live happily in that hotel suite. It's all the space I really need. I could use another bookshelf, and maybe a larger desk, but that's about it. As I closed the door one last time and went to checkout, I whispered: "I will always love you...."
FRIDAY, SATURDAY, SUNDAY MORNING:
Detroit went okay, though in reality we never actually got to Detroit. Having spent 12 miserable days in the Motor City back in December 2000, I counted it a small loss. Rex's conference was actually in Romulus.
The hotel had apparently gone through a recent sale and was now called the Metropolis or Metropolitan, some unfamiliar name on a vinyl sign that struck fear in hearts when we first saw it in what looked like the middle of nothing but airport car parks. The hotel "restaurant" was really a bar that served nothing but bar-food in front of wide-screen tvs playing sports. Food nearby was in such short supply we actually ate two meals in the same restaurant... and the other two meals in another restaurant.
One was a decent local Italian place, the other a diner called "Coney Island," where we experienced the Detroit version of the chili dog, which, strangely, has a layer of ground beef on the bottom. This is referred to as "loose" as in: "Give me one loose," while a standard chili dog is referred to as "one-up." I have no idea why. But Yankees have many strange and unfamiliar customs. (And why do people find it weird that I put ketchup on hot dogs?)
The waitress, bless her, slipped me a cigarette when my jailers weren't looking. When we returned for the great breakfast special on Sunday morning, her daughter waited on us. I did not, however, try to hit her up for a smoke. I hit up a smoking fellow customer. Can you believe it? There's STILL a smoking section in a restaurant?)
And yes, food is the focal point of my life, so why should a trip being any different? Of course, I'm now sick to death of fast food. But I digress.
The hotel, of course, did not measure up to our previous love affair. While the beds were nice, it took three calls and one annoyed visit to the front desk to get more towels. This place also had the most freakishly small elevators I've ever seen.
I mention the beds because sleep is the second most important aspect of my life. And while I adore Rex, and he's the best bed companion ever (now that he has a CPAP) -- an excellent cuddler, but not smothering, prone to an affectionate pat or rub or kiss if you should stir in the middle of the night -- the double bed was annoying. i am accustomed to having a queen all to myself most of the time. It wouldn't be so bad if you could detach an arm.
Sunday afternoon, it was onward to Canada. We excitedly oohed and ahhed over the enormous stretch of Lake Erie (a really great lake!) as stupidly as any other yokel tourist. Having been raised on the coast, I'm used to see great expanses of water, but never at the edge of a city full of high rises, never without a beach.
When we saw a lighthouse on the shore of Lake Erie, we desperately wanted to take a photo. Rex is, after all, a professional photographer. But to our dismay, the lighthouse was on the Coast Guard base, behind a locked fence. Patti brazenly pressed the button of the call box and asked if we could come in. To our surprise, they said they would send someone to escort us.
The female officer was polite but seemed completely ignorant of everything except the pair of geese on the path to the lighthouse. She urged us to veer away from the increasingly agitated male honking at us, and the sleeping female on her nest a few feet away.
But she didn't know what the little round building about a half mile out on the lake was, nor did she know when they stopped using the lighthouse. No, she wasn't sure if the gigantic ship with missile launchers around the bend was an actual Navy vessel still in use. She didn't even know that name or location of any kind of restaurant in the area. We took our pictures and trudged back to the car.
I suppose I should mention this was my first experience with a GPS. It is an astonishing device -- and while i understand how it operates, it is still both amazing and eerie how it always knew exactly where we were, directing turns at just the right moment.
The GPS is, however, downright annoying at times. In the middle of a conversation, "she" butts in with instructions to continue down the road you've been on for fifty miles and will remain on for the next sixty. I have named the GPS after my mother; she knows exactly where you should go, she is always right, and when you get it wrong, she just keeps telling you to make a u-turn until you finally get it right.
The road we took was plagued by construction, and even with the GPS, we kept making turns that led us down into nerve-wracking cattle-shoots of concrete and orange barrels, only to end up going the wrong way, with the GPS constantly telling us to make a U-turn. We could see the gates of the border up ahead, so tantalizingly close and yet so apparently inaccessible. Our laughter teetered on the edges of hysteria.
Finally we see a sign that says: "Follow signs not GPS." Oh, now you tell us.
And there it was: CANADA.
What is about being faced by people in uniform that makes even the most innocent person feel like a criminal? "Where have you come from? Where are you going? For what purpose? How long are you staying? Are you carrying any drugs, firearms, farm animals or firewood?"
They asked us to open the trunk. I can only imagine that the officer took one look at the jam-packed mass of suitcases, tote bags, camera bags and cosmetic cases crammed into ever possible inch of space and thought to himself: "Oh, fuck it. I'm not to move all this stuff. Let them smuggle a few logs into Canada, I don't care."
I was crushed to learn that they do not stamp your passport unless you come into the country by plane. I still have a virgin passport, untouched by any official proof that I have, indeed, left American soil.
Almost sunset, we arrived at Niagra Falls. And my mouth fell open.
It was the most God-awful rabbit-warren of neon crassness since Gatlinburg. It was, in many ways, indistinguishable from Gatlinburg, or any other over-crowded, plastic toy town aimed at sucking the wallets of bleary-eyed tourists. It even boasts a Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not.
What on earth is the point of traveling to another town, let alone another country, to find yourself parking behind a Dave and Buster's, across the street from a Hard Rock Cafe? Everywhere I looked, I saw the same chain names I left in Nashville. The only non-chain establishment we saw as a closed restaurant.
We made our way down the walkway to the Falls. There it was.... the Mighty Niagra.
And it was totally underwhelming.
I don't mean to dis the falls. They are perfectly nice falls, bigger than any I've ever seen in person. Maybe it was the towering mass of casinos and hotels we'd just passed through that made it seem smaller than I'd imagined, the glare of neon that made it seem dim and ordinary. Leave it to humans to surround a natural wonder with crap and ruin the whole damned thing.
We were going to go to our hotel and come back in the morning, but decided it really wasn't worth it. That was our first mistake.
Canada was, well...not that different really. Mainly it was flat. Flat, flat and more flat. Nothing but far-flung farms, and yet not a single cow or horse in sight. Yet minor differences made it seem like we'd traveled through some vortex to a parallel universe. Flag poles sported the big red maple leaf, not the Stars and Stripes. Road signs were amusingly unfamiliar: "Fatigue kills. Take a break." Kilometers, not miles, on speed markers ("Maximum Speed: 100 km.") Gasoline prices of 94.9 shocking, until you remember they are talking liters. Signs in both English and French.
(No Spanish anywhere. Not a Hispanic person, either. We wondered who did the yard work. A dearth of Mexican and Chinese restaurants. We saw no black people. Only one possible Indian woman at the A&W. Not even in Detroit. I mean, Romulus.)
Funniest t-shirt spotted: "What is a Canadian? An unarmed American with health care."
Oddest food difference: something called "poutine" on the menu of an A&W stand. French fries, cheese and gravy. Um... okay.
Another hotel, on yet another shore of a Great Lake -- still Lake Erie. Always Lake Erie. Miles and miles of Lake Erie. We're not sure, but we think that our hotel was the only one on the Grand Island. We arrived in the dark, weaving down a twisting road of residential lake houses, wondering if the GPS was screwing with us. At one point we got sidetracked down a dead end under a bridge. It looked just like one of those places where the Law and Order detectives pull bloated bodies from the river.
The hotel was nice, a convention center, but the beds were hard... Thanks to the Netbook, Rex and Patti managed to keep swashbuckling on the high seas. I collected a few rents in My Town.
MONDAY MORNING:
The hotel offers no breakfast, so we are on the road again, looking for someplace to eat. We detour through a little town in New York called Hamburg. This is our second mistake.
Working our way down a two lane of lovely homes, we realize we are still finding nothing to eat, and attempt to turn around.
We are sitting there, fully stopped, and the SUV behind us (that has already honked rudely at us for driving too slow) also comes to a full stop behind us. The blinker tick..tick...ticks as we wait for traffic to pass.
Then the loud screeching of rubber, the involuntary cringe of wondering what terrible thing has happened behind us, but a split second of thinking we are well ahead of it. And then... WHAM. The horrible crunch of metal, the violent jerk forward and back, the car moving forward without our permission. I hear Rex first, then Patti, say, "F*ck!"
I am first aware that my head has hit the back of the seat. It hurts. I reach back instinctively, and am relieved to find no blood or hunks of hair. My back feels wrenched somehow.
We get out of the car. Patti looks at the rear of the first new car she has ever owned, not even a year old, and I know she wants to cry.
The two women inside the SUV are sitting still stunned. One of them begins to cry.
Then we see the cause of it all, a POS brownish-red pickup, the hood completely smashed with something running out if it. For a moment I worry that it might be gas, but it is only water from the radiator.
The police and two fire trucks are there quickly. Even the mayor of Hamburg responds to the call. A three-car crash is apparently a major event in this sleepy little hamlet.
I immediately fish in my purse for the single forbidden cigarette I've smuggled out of Detroit. I no longer care if Rex sees me smoking. I've waited two days, and I've had no coffee, no breakfast, and by God, I want that cigarette.
There are words with the women in the SUV, who still have not moved. The driver insists that she did not hit us. Patti informs her angrily that she did, having been pushed forward by the truck behind her. The crying woman is becoming hysterical, rubbing at her neck.
The paramedics end up taking both the women out on boards. Rex disagrees politely but firmly with one of the paramedics that no, we do not want to go to the hospital, but no, we will not sign anything.
The paramedic comes to me, questions me, takes my pulse. We find out we have the same birthday.
The police are questioning two witnesses. I need to pee, and trudge behind the nursery we're blocking to ask the owner if I can use his bathroom. He kindly obliges.
Traffic is being directly around us, lights are flashing, police and firemen and paramedics milling around, talking. It is a circus. I ask one of the officers directing traffic if he has a cigarette. He does not, but tells me to go ask the Chief, who does smoke. Rex hears me and tells me not to do it; I have a mini-temper tantrum-meltdown.
Finally everyone is gone but us, one cop -- Officer T. Brooks -- and the thirty-something construction worker who ruined our day. The crash-causing bastard is nice and easy until the police officer tells him he is being cited the accident, and held 100 percent at fault.
"How do you know it was my fault?" he asks, a little angrily. "You haven't even talked to me yet."
"We've got two witnesses who both said you caused the wreck," T. Brooks explains.
"But you didn't ask me what happened!"
"You're not exactly objective," T. Brooks says. He then tells Mr. Bastard that he will, in all likely hood be sued by the women in the SUV.
Finally beginning to calm down and regain ourselves, Patti, Rex and I realize that it could have been so much worse. We could have been seriously hurt, or pushed into the path of an oncoming vehicle; the car could have been damaged more, rendered undriveable and leaving us stranded in New York State.
Finally... we find breakfast. Three Grand Slams at Denny's. I defiantly eat pancakes.
More driving... another hotel. That night we go to a place called Mimi's Cafe -- a chain, but still rather good -- for dinner. We are ignored by the wait staff until someone tracks down our waitress, who apologizes profusely for the mixup.
Our meal is very nice, and we have completely forgiven our waitress who turns out to be excellent, but as a final apology she brings us four complimentary HUGE muffins. We leave her a nice tip.
And more driving... driving... driving.....
Not much more to say. I'm sore, headachey, sick of the car, sick of eating, glad to see my cat and eager to get to my own bed.
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