As I left Niagara I rode south on the Canadian side of the river along the Niagara Boulevard, looking at the big houses as I went. This is clearly an affluent road with many desirable houses and no doubt, the prices to go with them. I took photos of a few....
These were all very much the same type of style until I saw this house, which sort of came into sight and slapped me round the face with its contrast from the others. I am not sure if I like it in the setting it was in, but it was very striking....
I crossed back into the USA over the Peace Bridge, south of Niagara....
Each vehicle in the queue ahead of me took about 2 minutes to clear the immigration officer. It however took me about 10 minutes as the officer looked at my number plate (US = licence plate) and was then very confused asking what state it was from and she was not at all sure about what to enter into her computer system, as she had never had a foreign vehicle to deal with before. I imagine the people in the car s behind me were getting a little impatient....
I decided I would go and see Buffalo. I had been told it was just a shadow of its former self and after seeing it today, I had to agree. The obvious industrial and farming might of the city’s west side was in major decline and it was sad to see so many buildings that were clearly the powerhouse of the city now in such a state of neglect. I had seen on the web that there were some WW2 battleships in Buffalo, so I went and took a look....
The main ship was a Cleveland Class Cruiser, the USS Little Rock and it seems it had seen its fair share of action....
There was also a submarine, the USS Croaker....
I am sure that its kill list didn’t include a kangaroo, so I am not sure what it is doing on here....
As I headed west along Lake Erie, I reached the 4000 mile point of my tour. As with the other ‘000 mile points I took a picture of exactly where I was as the clock hit the mark. This time, I had just rolled into Little Erie Beach in Angola, NY, so the photo has the waters of Lake Erie in the background....
The beach is small, but really nice. I had a drink (non alcoholic) in the beach bar “Castaways”. A couple of pictures of the beach, which I expect gets full at the weekends in summer....
I saw this in Portland NY. Is this a water tower?.... I stopped and took a picture as my wife Jackie spent some of her early life near Portland, but in Oregon.....
My journey today then took me to Barcelona, NY, where I saw two young women trying to paint a disabled parking bay – the type with blue paint on the road surface. As you can see, one of them wasn’t doing a good job, with a lot of paint on her legs....
I continued on and stopped at the beach at Barcelona, where I saw this....
Called the Sea Lion, it was most peculiar as it was a small reproduction of a late 16th century 3 masted square rigged English merchant sailing ship. It took 14 years to build the replica and I was told that some time later, nobody could afford to continue to maintain her, so the ship was scuttled, to be bought back to the surface later and then refurbished. The masts are not in place, but there were lying next to the ship. I hope they manage to finish the refurbishment.
I had heard about a military plane located in a cemetery, so I went to find it. Yes, it really does exist and the plane is a F-94C Starfire and it is inside the cemetery near exit 23 of I-90 in Pennsylvania. Very strange, but it did appear to be mainly a military cemetery....
The sign defining the Pennsylvania state line was beautifully simple....
The state line going into Ohio was a much more complex affair....
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