The Check Engine light on my car had been on for at least a week...it does that, and even the service people at Firestone can't make it go away. Somewhere between Cleveland, OH and Buffalo, NY, the darn thing turned off, and my immediate thought was Okay...what's wrong with my car?
There wasn't much going on today except for a ton of driving. I couldn't resist taking a detour to visit the American side of Niagara Falls. A big chunk of the tollway leading there was under construction, and detours through run down neighborhoods wondering just where the heck I was were required. For some reason I was worried that I would somehow end up in Canada by accident and wouldn't be able to get back into the States on account of not having a passport with me. (Really, terrorists suck...I can't believe I need a passport to visit Canada nowdays.)
Anywho...to get to the falls you have to cross two huge bridges. It really made me squeamish, though I knew in my head that the bridge was just a road...a really, really high road. I kept telling myself to keep my hands on 10 and 3 and just go in a straight line. I had the death grip on 12 and 8...my thoughts focused on the fact that I was just one poor decision away from driving off a bridge.
The American side of the falls doesn't have the fun stuff I remember from the Canadian side (visited there when I was a kid with the family), and it doesn't have a good view of Horeshoe Falls--the side that everyone thinks of when they think "Niagara Falls." But it did have a really nice, relaxing park to relax in. And tons of parking. Foreign-looking dudes waved their flags for your attention, trying to convince you that their garage is the best parking in the area.
It's just water, but I could have sat and watched it all day long had I had the time for it. In my opinion, not as affecting as the Grand Canyon, but pretty amazing.
On my way to the eastern seaboard, driving through the mountains, I was almost in an accident. Looked like something from one of those "Wildest Video" shows. The car in front of me had a blowout. He swerved left, then spun right, went of the road, had another blowout, spun back onto the highway, came straight at me, spun again and then ended up in the tall grasses on the side of the road. All I could see was a ton of smoke and dust, and his headlights shining through the grass. Coming at me. I stopped...on the tollway...and then pulled off to the side of the road. Since I couldn't tell where he was headed I figured it just made sense to take my driving out of the equation and wait to see where he'd stop. It actually wasn't that close of a call...one spin later and he was stopped. I drove over to him and got out of my car. He was probably mid-twenties...white as a ghost, looking at his car. "Are you okay?" I asked. He just looked at me, in shock. "Holy shit," he said matter-of-factly; mentally, he was still spinning in his car. "Holy shit is right," I nodded. "That was pretty incredible." He shook his head, "I don't know what to do." I told him that there was a tow truck headed the other way on the tollway...he saw what had happened and was looking for a place to turn around. Me and another driver stayed with him until the tow truck came for him.
Then I was on my way again...to Boston. Boston, it seemed was just an hour away for about three hours. So much construction...which really sucked on the home stretch of a long drive. At one merge, some idiot behind me tried to merge in front of me. Me, and the driver in front of me, wouldn't give him an inch and even at the last moment he was fixing to make me relent. By the time he realized I wasn't giving him space, he was off the road. Dumbass. Got to my hotel at about 11:30 PM.
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