So we fought traffic and much larger crowds on September 3 to view the falls from the city of Niagara Falls, NY (and not Goat Island). The first stop--after thankfully finding a parking spot in one of Niagara Falls' massive parking ramps--was Starbuck's. I must emphasize how much all four of us love Starbuck's. Yes, I know it is a giant monstrous corporate coffee chain, and I'm not necessarily proud of my devotion, but the product is consistently good. So we stopped there, as we did often on this vacation, and I got my iced brown sugar oatmilk shaken espresso and was ready to face the hordes.
The view of the falls was as equally impressive as it was from Goat Island. Niagara Falls reminds us of how small and insignificant we are as humans--at least that is my theory. There is something awe-inspiring to witness this enormous cascade of water tumbling 170 feet. The sheer power, danger, and beauty of the natural world right in front of us.
After about an hour, we were ready to head out of town. It wasn't the falls that we we were tired of, but the crowds of tourists get to be a bit much. So we trudged back to the parking ramp, got in the car, and headed to East Aurora, New York.
East Aurora was home to Elbert Hubbard and the Roycrofters. Roycroft was a collective of artisans, artists, and crafts people and a birthplace of the Arts & Crafts movement of the early 20th century. This description is a bit reductive and sells Roycroft short. East Aurora is a lovely small town and is home to both a revived collective of Roycroft crafts people AND the Roycroft Inn. L. and I spent a few nights at the Roycroft Inn on our honeymoon in June 2000. We hadn't been back in 22 years. I was happy to see it hadn't changed much since then.
After a few hours in East Aurora, it was off to Ithaca, another place we last visited on that June 2000 honeymoon. We checked into our hotel on route 13 (all the hotels in downtown Ithaca were booked), took some time to rest and recuperate from the day's activities, then headed into town to eat dinner at the Moosewood, a famous vegetarian restaurant that--yes--we dined at in June 2000. I had a vegetarian jambalaya and it was splendid. It makes me wonder why I don't just go full vegetarian, but I don't know if I could prepare food as scrumptious as the Moosewood.
Ithaca is a wonderfully weird, funky, freak-flag-flying college town, home to both Ithaca College and Cornell University. It's like a smaller Ann Arbor with better scenery and less pretension.
Next: Day Four.
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