I'll start at the very beginning.
My Manager had made the schedule for that particular week. I work nights. And Weekends. However, neither of those factors saved me from the fact that the other "nightshifter" managed to weasel getting New Year off. (Our company requires everyone in the store to work at least a 4 hour shift on holidays.) I was rather angry about it. I worked a full 8 hour shift on Christmas and to top it off I wasn't going to get to celebrate my first New Year as a legal alcohol consumer. (I don't celebrate Christmas, but the rest of my family does. So I missed out on quite a bit of family activity.)
It was December 28th. I had worked a morning shift that day. (6 a.m. to 2 p.m.) I was in unusually high spirits that day for a convenience store clerk. The weather was nice and I was eager to be outside and just GO. Anywhere. So when I came home I told my roommate, The Jess, my desire to simply be going somewhere else. Even if it was just a trip to Wal-Mart. I had been missing The Don quite a bit. He resides Olean, N.Y. and I would have been ecstatic to go and visit him. However there were several problems with this idea.
1.) No Transportation. The Jess had wrecked her car months prior and I didn't own a car at all.
2.) The Don had made other plans.
But the adventure just simply couldn't end there. The Jess called a good friend of hers who graciously said we could use his car and the idea of going to Niagara Falls was formed. We spent most of our evening gathering things we'd need. My camera, Money, Food, and warm clothes. We were on our way at around 8 p.m. with a full tank of gas and some convenient store burgers.
The trip to Bradford was rather uneventful, snowing a little here and there. We talked about how we couldn't believe how easy it was that we were going and just how thrilling the freedom was. We made it to the turn for Salamenca. Left took us to Salamenca and Right took us to Olean. We took that right. We agreed that we should leave something for him to find and that there might be a slight chance he'd be there.
We Pulled in, and even though I knew he wasn't going to be there, was disappointed that I didn't see his "Short Bus" in front of his place. So, I pulled out a notebook and a sharpie and started to scribble a silly note to tape to his door and The Jess pulled out a map. When I finished my note, I got out of the car, scrambled up his ridiculously steep stairs and left it in the door. We sat there in the car for a few minutes more and looked at the map. Of course, You can imagine what I am leading up to, can't you? I notice some headlights and a flash of obnoxious yellow. The Don pulled in right behind us. We were there until 6 in the morning. Keeping him up all night despite the fact that he had work the next morning.
The Jess played her guitar, then played Don's guitar, and then eventually he played his bass a little. He told stories, like he always does, making us laugh, gasp, and we gave him quite a few shaking's of the head. Most of those stories ended with,"No one does what they say they are going to do." And The Don is a man who does what he says he will. A good time was had by all, If I do say so myself. We made a trip to Perkins ate an early breakfast and went on our merry little way. (I could easily get into far more detail with this, pictures and all...but I'm a tad hesitant to show all the photos.) The Don had suggested that we just go ahead home instead of traveling up to Buffalo. I had been awake for a full 24 hours or more by that point and we were both rather tired, but when we came to our turn we kept on going straight. After all, "No one does what they say they are going to do."The sun started to rise just outside of Buffalo. The colors and cloud were an amazing display of
golds and blues. The whole morning had been highlighted with the colors that my heart was feeling. That simple joy and thrill of life, of being alive. Despite the fact that we couldn't pull over for photos on a rather busy freeway, I snapped photos in any case from the car window. Life couldn't have been more grand in the last 10 hours prior to this photo. The radio played good tunes(Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours" 8 times counted), The Jess and I got to talk freely, and we had just shared company with the most interesting man that I know. Things couldn't go wrong that day and to be honest, it didn't.We sped down the interstate being glared at by the New Yorkers, passed Buffalo statuettes, and the Casino. We took a wrong turn, but The Jess had a good eye and we were quickly back on track again. We pulled into the parking lot, paid our parking fee, and sat in awe of the Hard Rock
Cafe. We Wandered around that area a little wondering if there was a place open where we could get some information. There wasn't of course. December isn't a peak season. Its cold and potentially dangerous near the falls when the weather is freezing the mist as soon as it hits pavement. We wanted to enter the Hard Rock, but they weren't open at 8 in the morning and there was no way of knowing if they would open at all that day. I snapped a few photos and we wandered over to the falls. The air was frigid, but it was worse close to the water. The spray stung sometimes with frozen malice, but we braved it for the sake of adventure. =]
At one point we had the idea of going over to the Canadian side, but we didn't make it even half way across the bridge before coming back. It was far to windy and bitter to make it the entire way. We came back through border control. We chatted with some Canadians then went to the first available desk. I had an ID, SS card, and my Birth Certificate. The Jess had her ID and her SS Card. The look on officer's face was priceless. He was so confused. We told him we didn't even make it half way across the bridge before coming back. He said,"Well, That's actually a good thing. I doubt they'd have let you any further than Border Control." Then we had to give him the time line of where we had been for the last 2 days or so. Where we were from, who we visited, when we left, what color our socks where, and our kindergarden teacher's name before he'd let us back through. I believe that we'll simply have to get passports for the next trip. lol It is in our best interest.
When we got back to the car, we checked the map over, had a few smokes and then went on our way back home. We missed out turn and ended up going quite a distance out of our way...but in the end it was worth it. Its embarrassing to say, but we had never seen Wind Turbines before...at least not as big as the ones we passed. The Jess pulled over to let me snap a few photos of those too. It was the coolest thing to see them so close. They were enormous! There were hundred or more of them too! Everywhere- Scattered on Hills, fields, forest, and farms. Every turn we made and every hill we crossed there were more of them. It was one of the more awe inspiring things in my life and I wondered how the locals felt about them. Did they find them useful or did they just not like them at all? I can't recall the name of the town, but we wrote it down.I fell asleep sometime after. We didn't get home until about 3 p.m. on December 29th. We slept all day and woke up early morning on the 30th. I was no longer upset about working the New Year. Who else can say they did what we did for our New Year Kick Off?
