Buffalo Day #5 and Home

Today's adventures were relatively brief and unexciting, at least compared to our prior several days.

We slept in (relatively speaking), then quickly packed and checked out of the hotel before the noon deadline. I had already checked us in with Southwest Airlines last night so we already had our boarding passes in hand. All we needed to do was kill a few hours before our flight.

Our first stop was the carousel museum in Lockport, NY. cuyahogarvr was especially keen on visiting it but our timing so far this weekend was worse than usual. This time, all went well: the place was open and the nearly empty thanks to it being a weekday.

Carousel Museum North Tonawanda, NY 2007-08-20

I had not known that the area of North Tonawanda was a major hub of carousel and kiddie ride manufacturing 1880 through 1950 or so. Well, I actually didn't know that North Tonawanda was a center of anything at any point in its history until this moment... go figure.

There were a number of displays concerning the manufacturing of paper scroll controlled automated musical instruments, carousel rides and such. We even were able to ride a restored carousel from the early 1900s, now powered by electricity instead of steam as the original was.

We then began the quest for lunch which took and astonishing long time. Who'd have thought so many restaurants wouldn't be open for lunch on a weekday? We eventually found a family restaurant near the airport and had a surprisingly good meal for only $30.

Our attempt to park at the airport for a leisurely farewell was thwarted by the complete absence of any empty parking spots in the intermediate-term 'preference' lot. We cruised the lot for spare spaces for a while, then gave up; we stopped near the walkways into the airport, collected our luggage, said our good-byes and headed into the airport.

Ongoing attempts to return home were also thwarted by nature: immediately as we were about to pull away from the gate just after 6 PM, we got word BWI was closed because of extreme weather and we would have to wait for alerts at the top of the hour whether we'd be able to proceed.

Some folks chose to de-plane but for reasons I can't begin to fathom, one family with clearly hyper and frustrated young children chose to stay in their seats for the 50 minute wait until the announcement. The kids were bouncing off the walls, crying and screaming through the wait although all but one mercifully settled down while in flight --and that one kid kept up a shrieking tantrum for the entire flight itself. Whee.

In any case, we are now back in DC and I am catching up on LJ, e-mail and laundry, as well as considering knoshing on something before going to bed. Returning to the real world tomorrow is going to suck big-time.

Buffalo Day #5 and Home

Today's adventures were relatively brief and unexciting, at least compared to our prior several days.

We slept in (relatively speaking), then quickly packed and checked out of the hotel before the noon deadline. I had already checked us in with Southwest Airlines last night so we already had our boarding passes in hand. All we needed to do was kill a few hours before our flight.

Our first stop was the carousel museum in Lockport, NY. cuyahogarvr was especially keen on visiting it but our timing so far this weekend was worse than usual. This time, all went well: the place was open and the nearly empty thanks to it being a weekday.

Carousel Museum North Tonawanda, NY 2007-08-20

I had not known that the area of North Tonawanda was a major hub of carousel and kiddie ride manufacturing 1880 through 1950 or so. Well, I actually didn't know that North Tonawanda was a center of anything at any point in its history until this moment... go figure.

There were a number of displays concerning the manufacturing of paper scroll controlled automated musical instruments, carousel rides and such. We even were able to ride a restored carousel from the early 1900s, now powered by electricity instead of steam as the original was.

We then began the quest for lunch which took and astonishing long time. Who'd have thought so many restaurants wouldn't be open for lunch on a weekday? We eventually found a family restaurant near the airport and had a surprisingly good meal for only $30.

Our attempt to park at the airport for a leisurely farewell was thwarted by the complete absence of any empty parking spots in the intermediate-term 'preference' lot. We cruised the lot for spare spaces for a while, then gave up; we stopped near the walkways into the airport, collected our luggage, said our good-byes and headed into the airport.

Ongoing attempts to return home were also thwarted by nature: immediately as we were about to pull away from the gate just after 6 PM, we got word BWI was closed because of extreme weather and we would have to wait for alerts at the top of the hour whether we'd be able to proceed.

Some folks chose to de-plane but for reasons I can't begin to fathom, one family with clearly hyper and frustrated young children chose to stay in their seats for the 50 minute wait until the announcement. The kids were bouncing off the walls, crying and screaming through the wait although all but one mercifully settled down while in flight --and that one kid kept up a shrieking tantrum for the entire flight itself. Whee.

In any case, we are now back in DC and I am catching up on LJ, e-mail and laundry, as well as considering knoshing on something before going to bed. Returning to the real world tomorrow is going to suck big-time.

Weekend Thoughts

Although I completely destroyed our original long weekend plans, the trip wasn't an entire loss.

• We got to see three movies we didn't have time to see thus far: The Simpsons Movie, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and Spider-man 3. This was largely in part because we could find nothing --absolutely nothing-- to do in Buffalo on a weekend night. Believe me, we tried.
  
• Buffalo is a mixed city. It is definitely in need of revitalization and renewal in many areas but there are also some very nice neighbourhoods. The people were all unfailingly friendly and they drove in a sane fashion (ie. at or only slightly more than the speed limit, keeping right except to pass, acknowledging turn signals as a request for cooperation rather than a challenge to their masculinity, etc.).
  
• We were able to find Coffee Crisp bars, so how bad can the place be?
  
• We discovered lots of local history which we had previously overlooked, largely because Buffalo has always been just a border crossing point, a necessary jumping point to get to Toronto and points beyond.
  
• Despite the initial & astronomically high spike in my blood pressure when we realized I had misplaced the documentation required to return to the US, we actually had a relaxing time. We kept ourselves largely amused and well-fed, and there was lots of opportunity to simply relax and unwind, even though we never did get ourselves to the hotel swimming pool or spa.
  

That said, I think we've largely exhausted the entertainment possibilities of the greater Buffalo area in five days of sight-seeing. If we do get trapped there again though, we know some restaurants to revisit and where to find really cheap seats for a movie.

EDIT: Photos are available here.

Weekend Thoughts

Although I completely destroyed our original long weekend plans, the trip wasn't an entire loss.

• We got to see three movies we didn't have time to see thus far: The Simpsons Movie, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and Spider-man 3. This was largely in part because we could find nothing --absolutely nothing-- to do in Buffalo on a weekend night. Believe me, we tried.
  
• Buffalo is a mixed city. It is definitely in need of revitalization and renewal in many areas but there are also some very nice neighbourhoods. The people were all unfailingly friendly and they drove in a sane fashion (ie. at or only slightly more than the speed limit, keeping right except to pass, acknowledging turn signals as a request for cooperation rather than a challenge to their masculinity, etc.).
  
• We were able to find Coffee Crisp bars, so how bad can the place be?
  
• We discovered lots of local history which we had previously overlooked, largely because Buffalo has always been just a border crossing point, a necessary jumping point to get to Toronto and points beyond.
  
• Despite the initial & astronomically high spike in my blood pressure when we realized I had misplaced the documentation required to return to the US, we actually had a relaxing time. We kept ourselves largely amused and well-fed, and there was lots of opportunity to simply relax and unwind, even though we never did get ourselves to the hotel swimming pool or spa.
  

That said, I think we've largely exhausted the entertainment possibilities of the greater Buffalo area in five days of sight-seeing. If we do get trapped there again though, we know some restaurants to revisit and where to find really cheap seats for a movie.

EDIT: Photos are available here.