Let's see...Michigan...Ohio...and Niagara Falls

I think I can safely nominate Michigan and Ohio as worthless states. Now, the fact that it poured all the way through both states definitely colored my opinion. And the fact that both states really, really need to repave all their roads. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland was the one exception. That was cool. Damn cool. If it weren't in Cleveland, I may actually want to go back there someday. Maybe to a concert there.

I skipped part of the original route, which was Detroit to Toronto. I've been hassled by the border cops both times for having too much crap in my car, and I didn't want the four cases of wine in the trunk confiscated. Plus, my phone and GPS don't work in Canada. So I went to Ann Arbor, MI, instead (I feel pretty secure in betting I didn't really miss anything by not going to Detroit) and cut around to Niagara Falls through Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Niagara Falls was just as you'd imagine: a lot of water, a LOT of tourists, a lot of schlocky touristy crap. I've noticed that the more a tourist attraction advertises itself as "family-friendly," the more worthless it usually is for a single adult. I have no use for yet another Hard Rock Cafe, gift shop featuring bobbleheads, or IMAX movie featuring whatever it is I'm seeing in real life. Nor do I have any use for slow-moving hordes of screaming kids and old people trying to take pictures of the screaming kids. Why do families still insist on vacationing together? It seems a unique and painful sort of torture to me. Let the adults go to Cancun and leave the kids at home until they're old enough to behave, I say. I know I'm weird, but I never understood the compunction people have to do things in big groups. I think traveling is much more enjoyable in groups of one or two. More than that just gums up the works, and is an exercise in frustration (high school field trips a case in point).

So I stopped into a pub in beautiful downtown Buffalo, and enjoyed some cheap beer and a burger with a huge stuffed banana pepper on top. Tomorrow I head across New York toward Burlington, VT. I would like to be able to include Woodstock in this trip, but it's a bit out of the way. I may have to console myself with some wineries in the Finger Lakes region instead.