Ian and planned our Niagara Falls pit stop as soon as we knew we were moving. I introduced him to the skit, and he found Flickr photos of when the falls froze. We were excited, and we were not let down.
Yesterday morning we loaded up, then drove the Penske around Ohio State's campus. Ian will be working on the campus master plan, and Fox specifically requested photos of certain areas on campus. It's not easy to drive a moving truck around a campus during classes. To get the requested photos, I hopped out of the van with the camera, walked the full length of 17th Street snapping photos as Ian drove around, then jumped back in at the other end of the street. Despite it looking like I was casing the joint, I only got a few funny looks. Armed with photos, we headed back to interstate and on to Buffalo, New York.
We passed through Pennsylvania, and through a miscommunication, barely got the state's welcome sign.
We continued on I-90 along Lake Erie and the state of New York welcomed us as well.
We drove on to Buffalo and crossed two scary toll bridges to Niagara Falls, New York. It's not exactly a picturesque town, and it was a challenge to navigate past all the tourist traps and "official welcome centers" for the falls. Peering through the drizzle we managed to avoid crossing the Canadian border in the truck (we have passports, but didn't want to deal with customs coming back in a moving truck). We parked (free, as we got there later in the day) and went in to the state park (i.e. official) welcome center. The nice people at the desk told us we were just in time to go up to the observation tower before it closed. And what a view!
It started to get dark (earlier than we're used to) and we left the observation deck. We took the Penske around to the other side of American Falls. It was getting very dark by that time, but it made for some great photos.
After filling up with gas, we headed back over the toll bridges and back on I-90. We originally planned to stay in Syracuse, but Ian was wide awake and decided to continue driving. As we reached Albany, we saw the interstate ahead of us was closed, and I noticed a news van. Forced to pull over, we found a motel at the exit and checked in.
This morning, Ian flipped on the news as we got ready, and we were surprised with a video of our Penske on interstate. Apparently a trooper pulled over a car and the driver ran for it. I found the story and the footage online. You'll have to wait for the 10-second ad to run, but after that you'll see the news story. Our Penske is the third vehicle to pass.
Now it's onward to Boston!