Day 12 - Buffalo, NY - Pittsburgh, PA

No rest for the weary as we were up and at it first thing as we had a travel day in front of us.  Another nice hotel breakfast and all of us jetted north to see Niagara.  What a different experience it was during the day; not better or worse, just different.  In the daylight, you can really appreciate the mist and the power better.  Obviously, the color of the river and falls is different as is the crowd, the circling seagulls, the ponchos on those walking near the falls, and the boats of folks getting misted upon.  We started out at Prospect Point which allows easy viewing of the American Falls, Canada, and the Rainbow Bridge which takes cars and pedestrians between the countries.  Before coming on the trip, we had been advised by many to bring our passports so we could walk to Canada where they have even better views of the Falls.  With our passports on us, we had to make a decision whether to do the crossing or not.  Due to time constraints (we had a baseball game in Pittsburgh to get to), we decided instead to make the short drive to Goat Island.  This island sits between the American and Canadian Falls and is where you can visit the Cave of the Winds with a ticket.  This area is much less crowded than Prospect Point AND there's a statue of Nikola Tesla.  After a short walk, we found ourselves even closer to the edge of the Falls and could really feel the intensity and power of the water.  The views were even better here and we were thrilled with our decision.  After marveling at this great sight, we loaded up and headed west on I-90 towards Erie, PA.

I was only able to catch a fleeting view of Lake Erie as we whizzed along, but it counted as my second Great Lake visit!  After a pretty unremarkable, disappointing Steak and Shake lunch in Erie, we made the turn south towards Pittsburgh.  Our hotel was right across the street from PNC Park where the Pirates played the Tigers tonight.  Franklin has been so excited about this game since we got the tickets; he loves Roberto Clemente (former Pirate ball player).  We had amazing seats on the club level:  fantastic food, a stunning view of the field and downtown Pittsburgh past the outfield, and we were in foul ball territory.  In fact, we almost had one in the 1st inning off of Sterling Marte (it was just beyond our reach due to safety).  Because Franklin celebrated his 9th birthday on this trip, I had arranged for a Happy Birthday greeting to be on the scoreboard at the end of the 4th inning.  The smile on his face made it so worth it.  It was a fantastic evening at a great ballpark AND the Pirates even won (although we normally don't cheer for them, being Cubs fans, you know!).  Tomorrow we have our last major travel day as we go from Pittsburgh to Milton, WV, and then to Cincinnati!

Day 11 - Milford - Buffalo, NY

The whole reason for our last minute jaunt to the north on this trip was to visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame.  It's something none of us have ever done, and considering where Cooperstown is located, it's not likely we'll get back any time soon.  It's beautiful countryside, but nowhere near anything else, so you'd have to be going to here on purpose.  Before we left on the trip, Jason joined the HoF as a member and boy were we happy he did.  When we arrived at the museum, we learned that today was about halfway through a 2 week or so baseball tournament that's held yearly in town.  This translates to hundreds of Little Leaguers and their families descending upon the Hall.  We got treated like royalty, however, as we were ushered to the members' only entrance gate, bypassing the already long ticket line.  The HoF is mostly a museum which encompasses the top two floors with the actual Hall on the first floor (near the gift shop).  We all agreed this was a really great museum and you can tell it's privately funded:  a lot more updated and newer exhibits using current technology and lighting.  The collection of artifacts is quite robust and presents baseball's story all the way from the beginning (Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, etc.) to the Cubs' win in October.  The temporary exhibits were fantastic as well:  women in baseball, Latinos in baseball, baseball art, broadcasters, to name a few.  We ended up spending more time here than we planned, but it was very well worth it!

After leaving Cooperstown, I had the opportunity to squeeze in two more history-based stops:  Harriet Tubman's grave and the Women's Rights National Historical Park.  Harriet Tubman lived out her final days in Auburn, NY, and although nearly penniless by the end, townsfolk made donations and she was buried with semi-military honors at the city cemetery.  I, for one, will be happy to see her face on the twenty-dollar bill soon.  A bonus find:  William Seward (Secretary of State under President Lincoln and the one who convinced President Johnson to purchase Alaska) and his family is buried in the same cemetery.

A few miles west of Auburn is Seneca Falls.  This was the location of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 organized by local Quakers and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  Lucretia Mott was a featured speaker, along with Stanton.  Frederick Douglass was even in attendance, being one of the few men there.  This two-day meeting played such an important role in this country and I'm glad it's being recognized with a National Park presence.  The Wesleyan Methodist Chapel where the meeting took place is still there (3 of the 4 walls are original) and there is a nice park next to it with a water feature which draws attention to the Declaration of Sentiments the participants drew up.  Our visit was brief, but moving.

We continued west and soon arrived at Batavia, NY.  Batavia is the hometown of Caroline's ancestors once they immigrated from Czechoslovakia.  Her great-grandparents on the Martaus side are buried in the Catholic cemetery and some of their children (Caroline's grand aunts & uncles) are in the adjoining city cemetery.  We always love to work in genealogy to our trips when possible and were thrilled to be able to do this.  We located the graves after a bit of searching and even saw two groundhogs running throughout the headstones before diving into their holes.  A major employer in Batavia before and during WWII was the Massey-Harris (Harvester) company.  In fact, Caroline's family worked at the factory back in the day.  It still stands, although the Massey company shuttered its operations there in the 50s.  Parts of the old factory have been converted into new office spaces, lofts, and warehouses.  Jason navigated the Durango into any space he could which gave us the opportunity to get some cool photos.  After stopping at another local diner (we avoid chains on vacation when possible), we headed west to our hotel near the Buffalo Airport.

After getting the car unpacked, Caroline took the kids to the pool and Jason and I headed northwest to Niagara Falls to see it at night.  After many detours due to road construction, we arrived and first noticed a strong scent of wastewater effluent in the air (Jason and I work for the utility company back home, so we know this smell).  Apparently they were dumping treated water into the river last night.  Pee-yew!  We soon parked the car and walked over to the Prospect Point park, a part of the Niagara Falls State Park.  Seeing the falls lit up and night was quite neat.  First impressions:  they weren't as big/tall as I thought; they weren't as loud as I thought.  We were able to walk up to the Maid of the Mist overlook for free (since it was after dark) and get some great shots of the falls and the river as the rapids pick up right beforehand.  We headed back to our hotel, quite tired, but happy and we'll return in the morning with everyone in tow.