Burger King Deceit

New post here.

Know Your Stuff

New post here.

Breaking In

New post here.

Halloween Costumes

Link to new post here.

What's in a name

New post found here.

Yard Work

New post found here.

Chronicles Update

Not from the land of Narnia, but I did start a private blog, so those of you who'd like an invite, let me know! I'll still keep this blog to update you that the private blog has a new post, so don't delete it!

Sunsets and Waterfalls

Week 2 was our first week back in Buffalo!  It honestly was quite chilly and while I should have had a hard time adjusting to the fact that I'm now living with a guy, I was having a much harder time adjusting to the cold.  Lucking this past week it has been in the 80's and gave me a little reprieve before fall finally sets in.  

On one of those chilly nights, Darren wanted to go watch the sunset.  We have this amazing canal system here and the views are just beautiful.  Well, the canals we found were all tree-lined, so we made our way out to the Niagara River and watched the sunset over Grand Island.  What you can't see in the pictures is me under two blankets shivering to death, and Darren is wrapped up in his hoodie, pulled tight around his face.  He brought pretzels to throw to the birds and did that for about a good 30 minutes.  I'm adjusting to his love for wildlife.  We had a little birdfeeder outside the kitchen window which is always full of birdseed, and he keeps the squirrels and skunks well-fed also. Anyway, watching the sunset minus the birds and the cold was of course very romantic.

pictures with my phone at night aren't great. 

Along the canalways are some great walking trails.  I got out and did a little walking this evening close to the University. 

On Saturday we went to Letchworth State Park to enjoy the changing colors!  There are three magnificent waterfalls.  The timing was perfect to see the trees.

I think these were the Lower falls

Lower Falls again

These are the Upper Falls.  And yes, those are railroad tracks on the bridge above, and yes I did walk out on them.  

Upper Falls

The railroad tracks.  We kept seeing people up there and I thought it was a lookout point.  

View from the railroad tracks looking upriver from the  falls. 

One last picture of the Upper Falls

The Middle Falls - these were the largest.  And yes, we went in order of Lower,  Upper and Middle.  

On the way home, we stopped at this Pumpkin Farm and got a few pumpkins (including some baking pumpkins for pies!)
And we tried the pumpkin ice cream which literally tasted like pumpkin pie.  It was so good. 

This was a little arched footbridge that was built to connect both sides of the gorge.  The picture is a little washed out.  I think the setting was too bright on my phone. Sorry.

View looking down from the railroad tracks.  You can't even see the falls, but you can tell where the rocks drop off and the gorge begins.  

Post 2 Week 1

More pictures.  I think this is more for me to look back on, but enjoy if you want.  

We spent a morning walking around the northern end of the island.  

This picture is so we don't forget where we went.

we went up this one street trying to head back to our hotel and there were
some houses under construction. This was an amazing view
from the sidewalk we were on, through the 'house' and the water was just on the other side!

Then we found that there was a boardwalk on the other side of the
houses and we started walking along it instead of the street.  The view was much better!

The boardwalk ended and we had to walk along the beach in front on all the hotels.  This was a bridge going out to a hotel on a little island (which we later drove on with the scooter). 

I couldn't get enough of these views.  By this time, I was severely dehydrated and irritated that we weren't back at our hotel.  I might have been a bit sunburned on my shoulders as well.  We hadn't intended to be out so long.  But luckily none of that is captured in the pictures!

Darren LOVES motorcycles.  It's shocking to me that I married someone who loves motorcycles because I've been fairly opposed to them.  But I guess if I can ride horses, he can ride a motorcycle.  So, you can imagine his joy when we rented this moped/scooter for 24 hours.  He was in heaven. 

There are little speed bumps all over the island, so you couldn't go too fast for too long.  We did manage to find a stretch where we got up to 60 kph.  We even went 'off' roading' the second day and drove right along the cliff for a little way down near the southern point. 

We got 'take out' room service and took our dinner on the moped down to the southern tip of the island and had dinner watching the sunset...well, we were on the wrong side of the island for it, but it was still beautiful and peaceful (no one else was around) to be there in the evening. 

There is a little turtle sanctuary on the island and they had these little baby turtles in huge tanks.  So tiny!

at the turtle farm

We scouted out this little stretch of beach where no one else was and spent a few relaxing minutes listening to the waves.  On the beach where our hotel was, we didn't have any waves, so this felt like we were really at the beach. 

Despite the number of times I mentioned I wanted to watch the sunset, we weren't actually on the beach to watch it until the last day.  On our way over to stand on this pier, we saw a guy kneeling down proposing to his girlfriend.  How romantic.  

This cove was just around the corner from our hotel.

I think this was taken as we were on the ferry leaving the island. 

This is out of order, but this is the southern tip of the island. that we went to for dinner.  There is a small Mayan temple ruin there with lots of odd statues.  If you walk to the very end, there are stairs down and a boardwalk below the cliffs.  Since we were there afterhours and no one else was around, I didn't think we were supposed to go down there.  I was sure we would fall through a crack or slip and die.  It didn't help that right then Darren started wondering aloud how many Americans die in Mexico each year....I was glad we weren't a statistic.