We woke up freezing cold this morning, it seems that
cabooses are much like tents or caravans, unless the sun has been shining on
them for hours they don’t hold much heat. It was cold, very cold. We finally
managed to drag ourselves out of bed and left to find some breakfast.
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Cabooses |
During the run up to the holiday, I had done a lot of
research surrounding places to eat, I really wanted to find at least one proper
retro diner to eat breakfast in. I’d found a place called Jennie’s using Google
maps that was close to the Red Caboose and had done a street view; it looked
perfect – an aluminium building with a big ‘diner’ sign outside, surrounded by
trucks and lorries.
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Jennie's Diner |
As we drove up to it, we kept our fingers crossed that it
was still open and that it serve a nice breakfast. It was open and the
breakfast was just as we’d expected, although the pancakes were the size of
dinner plates rather than the small side plate size you usually see.
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Authentic 50s interior |
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Looking at the jukebox |
It was
very tasty; streaky bacon, pancakes and maple syrup go so well together.
Knowing that we weren’t going to eat again until we got to Buffalo, we ate as
much as we could fit in and got back on the road.
The drive
up to Buffalo was going to be long, so we took it steady, stocked up on drinks
and snacks and enjoyed the amazing scenery along the 340 mile drive. Natalie
started the journey, making sure we got onto the nice, quiet roads safely and I
took over once I was sure I wasn’t going to have to make too many left turns.
Driving in America is actually pretty easy, having an automatic car with cruise
control helps but actually the roads are pretty good too, they’re so long and
straight, you don’t have to do an awful lot. It’s loads better than driving in
England!
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Covered bridge |
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Covered bridge inside |
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Old bridge pier with statue of liberty on it!? |
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Heat haze |
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Entering the Empire State :) |
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So many places with English names. Also went through a 'Liverpool' today too. |
The journey
took six and a half hours but it flew by in no time and before we knew it we
were pulling up to our hotel in Buffalo. As we’d only paid £53, I don’t suppose
I was expecting too much, I knew it looked ok when we’d booked it months ago
but neither of us could remember exactly what type of room we’d booked or what
the hotel was like.
The
receptionist (we’ll call her Meredith) was really friendly and had a bit of a
laugh with us, which made us feel very welcome. Although we waited to discuss
it in private, we noticed that the accent up here is pretty strong, more like
Canadian than American, but that makes sense I suppose as we’re pretty close to
Canada! We were very pleasantly surprised with the room, which for the money
was amazing. We had booked a suite, but that doesn’t usually mean too much in
England so when we opened the door to a lounge and a bedroom we were delighted.
When we saw Meredith, we let her know it was the best room ever; she seemed to
find this amusing.
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Massive suite |
We had to move The Beast to a secure car park which was a block away, when we said hello to the attendant (we’ll call him John Candy), he picked up on our accents and started talking to us about Monty Python, Argentina, how Toronto isn’t as good as it used to be, his faded desire to travel to Europe, his ex-girlfriend’s drug addiction, the best route to drive to Niagara…after 20 minutes, Natalie managed to find a conversation escape route. As we were leaving we found out his name was Dan, but I’m sticking with John Candy as it suited him more.
We got back to the hotel room and decided to have a shower to wake us up before heading out. The shower turned out to be amazing, we let Meredith know it was the best shower ever; she seemed to find this amusing too.
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Sunset from the hotel room |
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Buffalo sign |
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Lovely theatre around the corner from the hotel |
As we were
in Buffalo, we decided to find The Anchor Bar, the home of the Buffalo chicken
wing, invented in 1964 by Theresa Bellissimo when her son’s friends arrived in
the bar ravenous. Theresa was going to use the wings for soup stock but decided
to deep fry them, they were amazing, everyone flocked to try the new phenomenon
and a world famous taste sensation was born. (This blog is not only fun and
entertaining, you also learn something from it.) The bar itself was really
cool, it’s decorated with license plates, random photographs and the main bar
has motorbikes hanging from the ceiling, it looks like another pretty retro
place. There was also a guy performing jazz songs, mostly Sinatra, it created a
lovely atmosphere.
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Anchor Bar, Buffalo, NY |
Forgetting
for a moment that we are in America, we ordered a stupid amount of food; 20
wings, fries and onion rings. At the time this didn’t seem like a huge amount,
after all if we ordered that in England there would probably be a small bowl of
chips and four onion rings. Not in America. In America there was more. Lots
more. I think I’ll let the picture explain…
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Soooo much food at the Anchor Bar |
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Buffalo Wings |
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Mmmmmm! |
Anyway, the
food was yummy, we didn’t eat it all and for the first time since arriving in
the US we asked for a box to take our leftovers home with us. We walked home,
slightly cold and very full. When we got to the hotel, Meredith wasn’t on
reception but her friend, let’s call her Christina, asked if we’d had a nice
night. We told her we’d been up to Anchor Bar for some Buffalo Wings and that
they were the best chicken wings ever; she seemed to find this amusing.
Back at the
room, we chilled out on the sofa, updated the blog and that brings us up to
now. Bedtime.
Love following your blog. Hope you have a great time in Niagara.
ReplyDeleteT-bikes!
ReplyDeleteS-Mmmm wings!