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Published: January 8th 2008
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Onaxthiel and I have been on hiatus since about the 21st of December, visiting relations and whatnot. Here's a brief rundown of my vacation, only some of which was spent with Onaxthiel, for a change!
It was Friday when we rolled into Oshkosh. We spent some time with the parents, although not too much, and had dinner, before I picked up my car and drove down to Madison to D's. The plan was to leave early the next morning to drive to New York to visit her relatives, and pick up a car. Of course, that plan ended up being mostly shot up due to a large number of factors, and we didn't actually leave until late in the afternoon on the following day, driving a rented Nissan Armada, which is apparently about the size of an M1 Abrams tank, and gets about the same mileage.
I spent the next few days in Rochester NY, meeting D's various aunts, uncles, cousins, and so forth. One of D's aunts had a large Chow, and a large Chow mix, called a Eurasier, and her uncles had sort of adopted a neighbor's Beagle, so I got to play with dogs, which is
always a nice bonus. Everyone I met there was really pretty nice, and we had a good time relaxing and talking with people. After a few days of that though, it was time to head back to Wisconsin in D's new (old) car.
We had wanted to make a little mini-road trip out of our return leg, so after we got a later start on the 26th than we had anticipated (due in no small part to my managing to lock all 3 sets of keys in the car while it was warming up), we drove to Niagara Falls to spend the night. We had the camping guidebook with us, and were planning on trying to camp somewhere in the area, but for the first time, the book let me down. They listed three campgrounds open in the area, and it turned out that two were closed entirely for the season, and the third was open, but only for cabins. We snapped up a handy New York travel coupon book, and looked up cheap motels in Niagara Falls. Our choices turned out to be between crumby cheap motels on the highway, and better motels near the falls that were
about twice as expensive. We ended up crashing in a pretty shabby place with a folding slidy door between the main room and the bathroom. It was underwhelming, but adequate for sleep, I suppose.
We were hungry and didn't want to spend too much time there, so we went down to see the falls illuminated at night. It was a really lovely night, with a bright moon and a lot of patchy clouds to make the sky look interesting. Apparently the Canadians have a big bank of floodlights they shine at the falls, alternating between various colors and bright white. The effect was rather pretty, and we had a good time wandering around to see the various views. We asked a border guard about going across to the Canadian side, but after a short and highly annoying conversation, it was revealed that without proof of citizenship, we were sort of asking for trouble on our way back in.
The next day, we cruised on further toward Wisconsin. We stopped in nearby Lackawanna to see the Our Lady of Victory Basilica that Onaxthiel and I had visited a couple months earlier. The second time I saw it, it was
about as spectacular as the first. It's such an overwhelming place that I think you can't really take it all in at once. After a while there, we drove on, arriving in Erie, Pennsylvania in the mid afternoon. We stopped for a bit at the Erie Maritime Museum, and took a tour of the U.S. Brig Niagara. About nine years ago, I sailed on the Niagara with Onaxthiel and our dad, so I wanted to share that with D. Unfortunately, since the ship was buttoned up for the winter, it didn't really look as elegant or interesting as it normally does. Also, in the intervening time, they've updated the ship somewhat, and added in water-tight bulkheads and heavy doors with spinning wheels to make the compartments water tight. While I can understand that they did this to meet the Coast Guard requirements for certain classes of vessels, it destroys a lot of the authenticity of the vessel, and it aesthetically awful.
We stayed that night in Dayton, Ohio and drove on to Illinois the following day, where we stayed with my Aunt. On Saturday, Onaxthiel and our mom, and other relatives joined us, for Christmas Part II. We returned
to Madison that night, and stayed there until Wednesday morning. On New Years Eve and Day, we hosted a fine party at D's place, which allowed us to see lots of friends from Madison, Boston, Manitowoc, and elsewhere.
From Wednesday morning until Friday morning, I was in Oshkosh with Onaxthiel, spending time with the parents and repacking the car. On Friday, we returned to Madison to go on an overnight expedition to Eagle Cave in southwestern Wisconsin. In the end, things got complicated, and our trip was shortened to just Saturday. That was ok, since we instead scrounged up some local nerds for role playing on Friday and Saturday night. Our expedition to Eagle Cave proved to be quite awesome. While Eagle Cave doesn't have as many large, intact formations as many of the caves we've been in, it did allow us to crawl around a ton of little passages, which rocked. I think we were all a bit more sore by the next day, but it was still really fun. We also got to sled down an awesome trail they have at the cave.
All in all, it was a great break from the trip, with only
a few relatively minor annoyances. It's good to be moving again, and seeing things though too.
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Michelle
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funny squiggly pilars
Wow! are those solomonic columns? I am impressed.