Eeeee!

[rolanni]

Just made reservations for three nights at Niagara Falls.

This is Going to Happen!

Eeeee!

Moving on now to Binghamton.

Local-to-Binghamton NY folks:  Why is there no Carousel Tour?  Why is there no Carousel Package offered by any of the local hotels?  Golf packages -- eh.  You can take your golf packages and pitch  'em straight outta Broome County for all o'me.  A carousel package, now? You got my interest.

And now with all that excitement out of the way. . .

Time to go to work.

Comments

[xinef]

Hope you enjoy NF. Do you plan to cross over to the Ontario side, or will you stay in the US? For various personal reasons, I am avoiding crossing the border so will probably not be able to see you unless you come into Canada. If you do come to this side, I'd love to give you a tour of the Canadian side, having lived in NF for years.

Falls

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Sharon,

If you and Steve have valid passports you might want to think about crossing over to the Canadian side. The horseshoe falls are best seen from there.

Plus, based on the current exchange rate, your dollar will go further.

[rolanni]

Yeah, a lot of people are urging me to go to the Canadian side, and there are a couple things I really would like to see over on the Other Side (besides the Falls). If we can arrange a day-trip that might happen. However, even before the present situation in which the US border guards feel especially empowered to bully, I processed their whole I'm-bigger-tougher-meaner-and-you-WILL-call-me-Sir as abuse, and it's not a pretty situation. Apparently, there are some life events that really are formative, and, no matter how old you get, they never really go away.

Funny that it's not the border guards of a Foreign Nation that worry me here...

Canadian Side

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Sharon,

Me again.

As a Canadian who crosses that border a lot, Canadian customs for me is a breeze as they cannot decide to deny me entry, all they can do is decide that what I am bringing in warrants a tax (or is possibly illegal). This has never happened to me. Remember that Canadians are a polite lot. :) Please remember that. Thank you very much. So long as you can prove you are not intending to put down roots, you should have no problems on entering. As a reminder to all, handguns are illegal in Canada - to save problems leave them at home please. No one you encounter will have one.

On the other hand, US customs searches my car every other time. As they never complain afterward, nor deny entry, hopefully they will someday realize they are wasting their time. However they are polite about it and they have earned my respect for willing to go as far as necessary to be thorough, but not one bit further than necessary.

If you do the day trip, many folks find the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake to be charming. (This is not Niagara Falls). Of course the Mega City of Toronto is about 75 minutes up the Queen Elizabeth Way, but for a day trip you would need to be very used to urban traffic. I doubt you see much of this in Maine.

Regardless of where you go, it is a nice time of year to visit.

Re: Canadian Side

[rolanni]

I adore the Canadian border guards as a class. The US guards...not so much.

Binghamton NY has carousel?

[ireneha]

It has been many years since I was in Binghamton NY. Hmmm 45?
Back when I was there, it was the home of the Broom Dusters Hockey, Spiedies, and State U of NY at Binghamton (AKA SUNY-Binghamton).

Spiedies seem to still be for sale in Binghamton - on Google.
They were cubed meat (of origin undefined), barbequed on skewer, and removed from skewer with a slice of rye bread.

There wasn't a carousel that I knew about. From Google, I can see that 5-6 carousels have been there something like 80 years. Maybe they weren't advertised in the 1970's ?