Recent PostsOver the River CXIII
August 26, 2026
Highlights and lowlights from my 113th two-wheeled trek to the Great State of New York:
1. While waiting for the first of two regional buses downtown, a guy standing underneath one of the big, lighted displays giving the time asked if I had the time. I just pointed him to the sign right above his head. He seemed a little peeved, then he quickly moseyed off.
2. Soon after boarding, so many seagulls were feasting on this abandoned half-eaten piece of pizza that I thought I was in the middle of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
3. I nearly choked when I heard the automated announcement on the #45B asking us to keep the volume low on our electronic devices so other passengers weren’t disturbed. Given how I practically had to scream at them to get their drivers to stop blasting music, the irony is so thick that you could cut with a knife.
4. I found these overhead luggage racks on the #45A bus rather odd. Seriously, tourists with luggage aren’t taking the regional routes, they’re on the GO bus.
5. Speeding by the Holiday Inn on Grand Island, I couldn’t help but be struck by their rooftop bistro. What, pray tell, is the attraction to eating outside within a stone’s throw of a busy freeway?
6. Entering Buffalo, the inbound #77 bus was following a guy with a bumper sticker that read, “My driving scares me too.”
7. If it was only that easy to cross the state . . .
8. Greetings from the Empire “Statre” . . .
9. Scenes at the new and improved Buffalo Harbor State Park:
10. Help!
11. Seated next to me at the Wonder Coffeehouse was a guy with his son who was wearing a white T-shirt with “Healy Connor” written on it with what looked to be a red permanent marker. As they ate their pricey breakfast waffles, Healy was bragging that he got to skip school on October 15.
12. Another new and inventive way to bilk tourists out of their money in the gift shop at Niagara Falls State Park . . .
13. Brought to you by Captain Obvious . . .
14. The DWAM™, like this one in the Niagara Falls (Canada) Bus Terminal, is once again proving to be a resilient species.
15. Ahead of me in line waiting to board the #12 GO bus were three Asian girls, one of whom asked the driver of a bus with a big, lighted “DUNDAS & HWY 407 CARPOOL” sign out front if he was going to Niagara Falls.
“We’re in Niagara Falls,” he said.
“Are you going to Niagara?”
“Niagara-on-the-Lake?”
“Table Rock Center.”
He then explained that they needed to go across the street to take the sucker bus WEGO.
Sigh.
16. Soon after I boarded, a guy from New Zealand asked the same driver if he was going to Dundas and Highway 407.
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