Rochester, NY

Well, we finally left Kendallville, IN after a nice day of relaxation and errands.  That’s the first time in a long time that Fiwe have made a two-day stop on our way east – kind of worked out nicely. 

Stayed on US 6 through the rest of Indiana and into Ohio.   US 6 is nick-named the Grand Army of the Republic Highway and there are monuments to the Civil War in a lot of the small town squares.  One example was the small town of Egerton, OH where US 6 takes several turns to get around the town square.  We stopped to take a picture of one Union soldier and noticed a woman painting a huge mural on the side of the fire house.  She was working on it for the sesquicentennial Edgerton celebration later in the summer  Of course, down south they call it the War of Northern Aggression, but that’s another story!  Good two-lane road through the farm land and various manufacturing plants.  The area has a lot of auto-related industries and manufactured/RV home builders.  Unemployment rate is really low in Indiana and there were help-wanted signs on most places.  The fields seemed to have a lot of winter wheat which was fully grown, but not yet turned to those “amber waves of grain”. 

Since we wanted to stay off the Interstate as much as possible, but still continue heading in an easterly direction, we switched from US 6 to US 20 in Ohio – it varied from two-lane to four-lane and passed through lots of small towns which was fun.  It also took us around Cleveland which is always a mess to drive through because it’s where I-80 and I-90 split and has several twists and turns.  Finally got on I-90 and headed up to Erie, PA.  Past Erie, we went on I-86 (old Route 17) through the southern tier of New York.  We enjoyed that drive because it goes through the thickly-wooded hills – more trees on that one stretch than we have in all of Nevada! 

At one point, we saw the Seneca-Allegheny Casino materialize out of the forest.  Huge casino and hotel in the middle of nowhere.  Gee, I wonder where that financing comes from J.  It is truly said that the Indians are taking the country back one quarter at a time.  We noticed that in New York the Rest Areas are also called Text Stops.

Headed north at Hornell to take I-390 into Rochester.  At this point, we just wanted to get to Tim’s place as quickly as possible.  Finally arrived there around 6:00 p.m.  Nice place, think we’ll stick around for a couple of days.  Went out to dinner at the Genesee Brewery which is built on the banks of the river which runs right through the heart of Rochester.  I always enjoy seeing the old buildings and some of the remnants of the even older buildings.  After dinner, we took a walk along the bridge over the river and looked at the falls – not quite Niagara Falls, but impressive.  They used to have a laser light show over the falls, but it was cancelled years ago because of a lack of funding.

Back to Tim and Kathy’s for the evening.