WELL, WE ALL MET for breakfast this morning at the hotel dining room. Then we checked out, helping each other with our bags, did some last-minute souvenir shopping, and left for home.

Mary, Lou, and Liz drove back across the Rainbow Bridge to Niagara Falls, New York and back to Pennsylvania, stopping to visit with friends in New York on the way.

We didn't go back the same way we came, but instead drove along the beautiful Niagara Parkway as it follows the river upstream to Fort Erie. It's hard to believe, as we pass mile after mile of the wide, calm (and very lovely) Niagara River, that there is so much turmoil going on downstream. Pleasure boats (sail and power) cruise the river.

At Fort Erie, we cross the Peace Bridge into Buffalo, New York. The drive through Buffalo to Erie, Pennsylvania, to Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio and back home is all freeway and pretty uneventful.  Well, actually there is one thing kinda interesting... while on the New York Thruway, we stop at a service area. What makes it remarkable is that it serves travelers in both directions by being located on a bridge between the eastbound and westbound sides of the highway. Cars exit to the left as you would expect, and park there, where the gas station is. Then you walk across a completely enclosed footbridge to the rest area. And the rest area itself is a large, complete food court, like you'd find in a shopping mall, with several fast food outlets and a big central area with tables. I think there may have also been stores in the complex. Folks traveling in the other direction do the same, across a bridge extending from that side of the highway. It really is pretty nifty, at least as turnpike rest stations go.

So all right, this isn't a very exciting page; but the story has to end somewhere, doesn't it?

Story and original photography copyright ©1999 by John Lipman. All rights reserved.