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Big Fat Blog

2001-07-11 - 9:13 p.m.�
Heather and Tiffany's Adventures in Buffalo and Niagara Falls (part one)

It's only a week and a half overdue, but I am happy nonetheless to present to you...

(Tiffany had previously suggested the title of "Tiffany and Heather's Adventures in Buffalo and Niagara Falls" but seeing as this is my page, I get to put my own name first.)

We left town right after work on Friday, and didn't hit any major traffic snags until we hit Toronto. It was to be expected, of course, seeing as it was rush hour. Still, we made it to Niagara Falls NY in about 2 and a half hours, which was not too shabby.

All was going well until we crossed the border. As soon as we hit, we got lost. It took us way too long to get into Buffalo, and when we did we couldn't seem to find an area with any motels. Tired and cranky at this point, we decided to drive into Amherst (a suburb of Buffalo). We found the motel area almost immediately, conveniently located near from fast food, malls, superstores, and Tops Friendly Market. We were especially excited to see the Tops. The slogan from the Tops commercials on local Buffalo TV stations is quite catchy (Tops never stops saving you more), and Tiff and I bought into it immediately. From the time we decided to go on this trip, we had been reciting this slogan to each other. For example:

Tiffany: We have to find a Tops as soon as we check into a hotel.
Me: Damn right! Because you know, Tops never stops...
Tiff:...Saving you more!

Hmm. The story doesn't translate to well in written form, but believe me, this was about the funniest thing ever to us throughout this trip. I guess it was one of those "you just had to be there" sort of stories.

Here's a picture of Tiff outside the Tops:

Anyway, back to the story. We pulled into the first hotel we saw, a nice looking Days Inn. The girl at the desk told us that she was full all weekend. Not promising. We drove to the next motel we saw. It was a cheap looking place, and in fact, the sign advertised the prices as starting from "$33.95" a night. See?

Figuring that we didn't mind forgoing luxury for price, we pulled in. We asked the guy at the desk if he had any vacancies. He said yes. We asked him how much for a room. We said we'd take one with two single beds, or one with a queen sized bed for one night. The bastard replied that his cheapest room was $70.00. We stood there and considered for a minute, when a woman from Colorado who had just checked in told us that we probably weren't going to find anything else. She said she had been looking for a place for hours and and this was it. So, we took her at her word, and asked the desk clerk if we could see the room. Buddy at the desk said sure, and then told us that the price was now $80.00. All the way to the room, Tiffany and I said to each other how we sure as hell weren't paying that much to stay in this crackbox (our new name for the establishment), and we would rather sleep in the car then pay $80. Buddy realized we were quite serious, and back peddled on the price. "I told you $70.00, that's how much. I told you that. I don't change my price for you! $70.00, that's right."

In retrospect, we should have pushed for $60.00.

The room was okay. It was not kept up the best-- the bathroom door wouldn't quite close, a rip in the curtains was repaired with duct tape-- but it was clean, at least.

So we checked in, walked across the street to the surliest McDonalds I've ever eaten in. We were served by the assistant manager, who greeted us by tossing the trays down on the counter and asking "What do you want?" I was going to ask for a free smile, but I was afraid she would reach across the counter and rip my head off. All through our delightful meal, we could hear her screeching at her staff. "Why is it always so busy when I'm hear? Why am I the only one doing any work?" She really was charming.

After that, we hit the aforementioned Tops Friendly Market, where I bought cereal and Hershey's syrup, and some very low alcohol coolers. 3.2% alcohol? Geez, you have to drink twice as many to get drunk in the States as you do in Canada!

We cleared out of the crackbox pretty early on Saturday morning. So early, in fact, that no one was manning the motel office. After buzzing for the desk clerk for about 15 minutes, we decided to just leave the key and take off. Tiffany attached a little note to the key that read "Thank you for the exceptional service." I wonder if Buddy will understand the sarcasm.

Here's Tiffany checking her oil before we left the motel. What a conscientious little motorist she is!

It was then that Tiffany and I discovered the magic of Krispy Kreme donuts. Damn, those were some good donuts. They even gave us each a free hot donut as a sample. Those donuts were the highlight of the trip up until that point.

We did some shopping in Amherst, or we tried to at least. We didn't find much of interest. We then headed off to find the Walden Galleria. We got lost. Very, very lost. But Tiffany earned the title of "Queen of the Map" by finding our way once again.

I had been looking forward to going to the Walden Galleria most of all. It was, after all, home of The Warner Brothers Store. The keyword there, is "was." The Warner Bros. store is no more. Why didn't anyone tell me this? When I saw the empty storefront I wanted to cry. We didn't find anything else in the mall worth sticking around for, so we decided to leave Buffalo and head for Niagara Falls, NY.

We found a place to stay the night. It was a little smaller, but a little nicer. It was also more expensive. But after checking out the prices at the other motels in the area, we decided that we weren't going to find anything better. Besides, it was much nicer than the crackbox motel in Amherst.

After we checked in we hit the outlet mall for some shopping. We had a lot better luck finding good stuff there, as witnessed in this picture of me back at the motel, showing off our collective haul:

Tired and considerably poorer from our adventure, we grabbed some dinner and called it a night. We did a bit more shopping on Sunday morning (mostly in Walgreens, buying up armfuls of American candy), and then crossed the border back into Niagara Falls Canada, just in time for Canada Day. Our adventures in Fort George and Niagara Falls will be in my next entry, probably tomorrow, and will include a whole bunch more pictures than this entry (I took more pictures on Sunday than I did on the rest of the trip). **To read the exciting conclusion of my Buffalo Adventures, click here.

yesterday tomorrow

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