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Here’s the math problem: David has a couple vacation days he needs to burn. Adrienne has never been to Niagara Falls (or many other places on the East side of the Mississippi). What’s that equal? Roadtrip!

This past Saturday morning we took off in our rented Ford Focus for 4 days of, well, driving. Who knew New York and Pennsylvania were so big? This is the quick version of the journal (since the real journal hasn’t yet been finished – or started) – but it’s got pictures. Here’s one:

Here is our new friend at Soon’s Apple Orchard.

You may remember last year Adrienne and I took a train to a cab to an Apple Orchard, about 90 minutes out of the city. We decided to revisit it, but this time we had wheels! Apples (Honeycrisps), donuts, cider, fudge, honey-roasted peanut butter and an “Eat Pie” t-shirt were purchased. Above, we’re enjoying an early snack (in place of lunch). And below, Soon’s Apple Orchard:

Then we headed up through Catskill Park, and searched out New York State’s tallest Waterfall. It was a fun and beautiful hike, about 1/2-mile, but the fall itself was rather unimpressive by Oregon standards!

We had hoped to see some fall color, and there was some, but not too much:

We then made our way over to the Finger Lakes region and to Ithaca. It was dinner time by then, so we stopped downtown and happened across a fall festival – nice little area, with both Cornell and Ithaca Universities to keep it hip. We opted out of street fare and had a delicious but noisy meal at a local joint. It was already close to 8pm, so we attempted to find lodging in Ithaca. Long story short – no room at the Inns! We ended up getting back on the road, and after another unsuccessful try in Elmira, NY, we had to backtrack a bit to Sayre, PA to find an empty room at a Best Western, and paid too much for it.

Short aside: we stayed in Best Westerns all three nights. More on that later.

The next day we pretty much drove straight to Niagara Falls, which was still about 3.5 hours away. Spent the afternoon walking around on both sides, enjoying the scenery etc.

This was also Adrienne’s first visit to Canada:

We headed south through Buffalo, and stopped off for some pizza at Papaceno’s in Orchard Park. Pretty good – it hit the spot for two tired and hungry travelers!

We aimed the car for Bradford, PA, where we saw signs of another Best Western. There was also a Comfort Inn across the street. We’ve noticed sometimes it’s easier to get a lower price by making your reservations via the web. So we pulled up to the Best Western and tried to get on their Wi-fi via the handy iBook. Signal wasn’t strong enough, through, so we went across the street to the Comfort Inn, and successfully booked our room. Then drove back across the street to the Best Western and walked in.

The next morning after a very full and free breakfast from Best Western, we drove 3/4-mile down the street to the Zippo Museum. Zippo continues to be headquartered in Bradford, and makes all their lighters there. We toured the museum, and even picked up a lighter (one of those things everyone should have, no?).

Then it was back on the road, through Pennsylvania with a goal of Lancaster County – Dutch country. On the way we stopped off at Axehead, near the beautiful town of Bellafonte, to have leftover pizza and apples for lunch. It was pretty nice to be able to just sit and listen to the quiet. Yeah, we need to get out of the city more often…

The good Eagle Scouts of Axehead provided the facilities – shelter, picnic tables, even brick grills.

On our way to Lancaster (pronounced LANG-custer) we stopped off at Harrisburg, the state capitol and checked it out:

As you might expect, the building is quite ornate.

Adrienne took a quick rest:

We stayed the night just out of Lancaster, and in the few hours we had Tuesday morning, explored Dutch country – finding with some trouble a covered bridge, seeing the Amish, and eating a family-style Pennsylvania meal for lunch.

Then it was about a three hour drive back home, where our cats gleefully greeted us. Or at least our suitcases.

As always, nice but sad to be home!