Year 2000 Road Trip Extravaganza!

First things first. Don’t forget, this is the Week Of Dave (WOD) and it is going strong. To recap, we saw David Benoit last week in D.C. performing with the Symphony Orchestra in front of the Capitol. Friday we saw Dave Letterman in New York. Saturday we drove to Boston and stayed with our friend Dave. Sunday we saw Dave Matthews. Monday we took a Duck Tour of Boston and guess who was loading our duck? That’s right, Dave.

Today we hit the Falls, Niagara Falls that is, Canadians and one really big swimming pool. On our way into the falls we stopped at an information booth and signed up for a tour that included a jet boat ride to the whirlpool, a visit to the Horseshoe Falls, and a trip up to the top of the Minolta Tour. The tour departed from the Sheraton Four Points Hotel at 12:00. We arrived approximately 15 minutes early. Our bus arrived approximately 15 minutes late. Guess who was driving? WOD. Poor Dave, a bus broke down that morning and he was now trying to play catch up. He kept radioing to his base station trying to give them updates and get information back and like an I Love Lucy episode the messages kept getting mixed up and garbled. At any rate, we finally picked up all 12 passengers and headed to the Canadian border. A Canadian border agent boarded the vehicle, asked about everyone’s citizenship, then took four visiting Dominicans off to stamp their passports. Ten minutes later the agent returned with the family and informed Dave that they did not have the proper Visas. This man runs the largest bank in the Dominican Republic, has been to more countries as I’ve been to states, but because his Visa was European and not Canadian, they would not let him in to the country. Exactly what they are afraid of, I don’t know. At any rate, we had to turn around and return the family to the stop we picked them up at, but first we had to go through U.S. Customs, despite the fact that we never actually made it into Canada.

Apologizing profusely, Mr. Jiminez and family disembarked the bus at their hotel and we headed back to the Canadian border, with all eight passengers on board. We made it through (thank God) and picked up our remaining passengers about an hour late. Meanwhile, Dave’s looking like he’s going to have a nervous breakdown. We high-tailed it to the jet boat, arriving only about 30 minutes late. Our pilot, Dave (not our bus driver), gave us quite a thrill ride as we jetted up the river and back doing 180’s—or Hamilton’s as they’re called. The thing is literally a huge Sea-Doo, only this bad boy has three Volvo Penta 6-cylinder engines powering three separate jets to put out about 1500-1800 horsepower. Those are the same engines Volvo uses in their big-rig tractors (and we had 3 behind us!) more power HO HO HO!!

Needless to say the jet boat was exciting, although we would still like to ride the Maid of the Mist, which goes right up to the bottom of the Falls. Next time. Dave is feeling much better now and we continued our tour without event. Details of that are best read on the web site where you can see the corresponding pictures.

We left the Niagara area around 8 I think it was and headed south to Chattanooga, TN. Around midnight we switched drivers and due to our late start and my night-owl nature, we drove until about 3:30AM. Not wanting to have to pay for a motel for only 5 hours, we pulled into a rest stop in Southern Kentucky and slept surprisingly well until about 8AM. I even remembered to lock the doors AND roll up the window this time.

We arrived in Chattanooga, TN mid-afternoon on Wednesday where we are staying with some friends of my family, The Fischers. Yesterday we went boating on the Tennessee River in X9, the Fischer’s high performance boat. Perhaps I should say what used to be their high performance boat. Yes, fun follows THE ROAD SCHOLARS around and as we were heading back into dock the engine sputtered, coughed once, gave us the finger, and quit. Talk about the Midas touch. Chris and Mike (Fischer) were over the side before I knew it, pulling the boat to the dock. If you ask me I’ll tell you the distance was measured in yards. If you ask Mike’s karate class, I’m sure they’ll say it was miles. Regardless, they only pulled us a few feet before another boat came along, glanced quizzically at us and asked, “what are y’all doin’?”. I looked up plaintively from the engine (as if I could fix the damn thing) and said “pushing”. He gave us a good tow, we arrived at the shore without a hitch (pun intended), and I’m sure Mike will keep us posted on what the problem was. We did luck out though, not only did we miss the thunderstorm that was brewing, the boat waited until we were literally a stone’s throw from the dock before dying. St. Christopher strikes again.

See ya’ in N’orleans,

-Sean

Labels: New York, Tennessee, wod

Niagara Falls. Incredible. That's the only way I can describe it. We took so many pictures I don't have enough story to cover them all, so be sure and click on the scrapbook link above and browse at your discretion.

We left our motel around 10:30 and headed towards the falls. On our way we stopped at one of the many visitor centers and signed up for a Gray Line tour including a jet boat ride to the whirlpool, a visit to the falls, and a trip to the top of Minolta Tower. When we finally got to the jet boat (see issue 6 of From The Road) it was quite a thrill. We were taken right into a category 5 rapid and told "anyone not having a good time can get out now". Our driver, Dave, had quite a bit of fun doing 180's with the 1800 horses he had to play with behind us. After the jet boat, our bus driver, Dave, took us to see the floral clock, the power plants, and a view of the falls from one of two towers overlooking the falls.

Once the Gray Line tour was over, we walked back into Canada to get an Ontario HRC shirt. I was highly amused at the strict immigration policy they enforced. "What is your citizenship?" "I'm a communist with a terrorist plot to take over your country by force". "Proceed". The American's were just as strict, except in order to leave Canada we had to pay 50 cents a piece. Anyway, to top that off, the Hard Rock was all out of the Large and X-Large sizes of the shirt Chris wanted. He had to settle for a medium from the cute little witch with an attitude that was selling the merchandise. I hope they're nicer in Tennessee.

Labels: Canada, HRC, New York

If you are looking for the down and dirty, quick and easy way to see as much of Boston in as little time as possible, a Duck Tour is the way to go. What used to be a WWII amphibious assault vehicle--the same ones used for the invasion of Normandy--is now a land and sea tour bus. This is truly a stroke of genius as far as we're concerned, and we're not alone. A Duck Tour is something you need to work into your day, so get there early if necessary. Week days are better than weekends. Sunday we tried to get a tour at noon and the next available one started at 4PM. However, on Monday morning we walked up at 9:15 and got on a 9:30 tour.

You don't actually learn anything about water fowl on the tour, but everyone on our bus did get an opportunity to drive the duck after we launched into the Charles River on the inner part of Boston Harbor. We especially lucked out with the Sarge, our tour guide. He was extremely knowledgeable, witty, and hell, he let me drive!

After our 90 minute Duck Tour, we hit the road for Niagara Falls, NY, driving alongside the Erie Canal for much of they way. We stopped to eat near Rochester, NY at the Cartwright Inn. Excellent Veal Parmesan if you find yourself in the area. And if you order before 6:30, you qualify for the early bird special.

Special note: the week of Dave continues today with the gentlemen who was loading the ducks, Dave. Sorry, he wasn't available for a photo op.

Labels: Boston, New York, wod

Start spreadin' the news! We're native New Yorkers (for a day), checking out those neon lights on Broadway. The Week Of Dave continued today with a visit to the Ed Sullivan theatre to see a taping of The Late Show with David Letterman. We almost didn't make it. As you read in Day 7, I had quite a night with margaritas, crabs, and jacuzzis (heavy on the margs). We were doing fine once we managed to get my ass in the car headed to Trenton to catch a train into the city. We were advised by Bill (some of you may remember him as Jeeves from the MediNet days) that Amtrak would get us to the city faster, but New Jersey Transit would be cheaper. We were supposed to be at the Ed Sullivan theatre no later than 3:00 and NJT would have been cutting it close. So we shelled out $33 a piece for Amtrak tickets...only to find out the train was running 20 minutes late! We ended up at Penn Station 4 minutes before 3 O'Clock with about a mile to go. We hailed a cab (my first in NYC), called our contact at the Late Show and managed to arrive in the nick of time.

To be honest, the show was okay, I was disappointed with the lack of interaction with the audience. But hey, we were there, Regis made a cameo, who could ask for anything more, aside from being on the show? But we did the next best thing. All you TFTM folks--Dave Letterman now has a matching T-shirt.

Naturally, we hit the HRC for a T-shirt for Chris. As fate would have it, we bumped into a family from Dana Point as we came out of the subway headed to HRC. They took this picture (thanks) and we took one for them. A quick visit to Times Square (Chris was fascinated with Nasdaq) and we made our way back to the homestead in Downingtown. Another day, another whirlwind tour of a city! Just always remember to ask yourself, "why are we here?". Because wherever you go, there you are.

Labels: HRC, Letterman, New York, Pennsylvania, wod