Saturday, July 12, 2014

July 12th 2014: Cycling the Erie Canal: Spending the Night in Buffalo NY

My friend and I set off early this morning to Rensselaer NY in order to catch the shuttle to Buffalo NY from the Albany-Renssalaer Amtrak Station.

Nearing our destination after a 2 hour drive, I managed capture a view of the Albany skyline.

From the parking lot of the train station,
while waiting to load our bikes, which had to have their handlebars turned inwards to ease packing them onto trucks, I managed to take more pictures of the skyline as well.
Finally, we loaded our luggage onto the shuttle, and off we went on the long drive to Buffalo NY.

I managed to take a few more pictures as we passed into Albany over the Dunn Memorial Bridge, which had some interesting graffiti on its walls.
Other pictures I took on our ride to the rest stop, , follow.

At the rest stop, the Warners Travel Plaza in Van Buren NY
we decided to get food from Original Pizza of Boston, getting a Cheese Pizza, a Hawaiian Pizza

and a Meat Lovers Stromboli.
Everything was pretty salty. Guess that's what you get when there's a high volume of traffic.

I slept most of the rest of the way to our destination for the day, the Nichols School in Buffalo NY.

This is where we set up our tent,

and waited for our bikes to arrive, which did not take very long. The school itself is pretty nice, as you can see from the pictures I took,
with a "Herd About Buffalo" Statue as well.

The dining hall where we were to have our first dinner of the event was pretty impressive too.
After dinner, I decided that the day was still not over, so I hopped onto my bike and started my exploration of Buffalo NY.

I wanted to check out the Buffalo Zoo, but it was already closed.
I rode through Delaware Park,
then explored Canisius College a little.
A few other places along the way,
Upper Room Church of God in Christ
Lincoln Memorial United Methodist Church,
641 Masten Avenue
Bethel AME Church
Packard Motor Car Service Showroom Building,
1325 Main Street
Old Our Lady of Lourdes Church,
1115 Main Street
Holy Trinity Lutheran Church
before I chanced upon Anchor Bar, purportedly the bar restaurant where Buffalo Wings originated.
There were several interesting installations inside the bar itself,
all taken while waiting for the original Buffalo Wings I ordered to come out, occasionally stepping outside to check on my bike in this seedy area of town.

When it finally arrived, I realized that it was way too big for me to lug around on my bike,
so I was forced to eat all of them at the bus station outside without being able to bring any back to my friend.

From here, I headed into downtown Buffalo,
passing by several interesting places
NFTA train
Lafayette Square

St. Louis RC Church
Fountain Plaza Station
Electric Tower
Fountain Plaza
Buffalo Savings Bank
Rand Building
on my way to the Buffalo City Hall,
where the Taste of Buffalo event happened to be going on at Niagara Square.

Unfortunately, I was already too full to even try any of the food, but I still walked around for a little bit anyway.
After leaving the area, it was on to more sightseeing in the downtown area.
Erie County Hall
Edward Rath Office Building
St. Joseph Cathedral
Fountain, Franklin Street and West Swan Street
St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral
General Casimir Pulaski Monument,
Main Street and South Division Street
Liberty Building
Bison, Five Flags Park
One M&T Plaza
Erie Community College City Campus
Coca Cola Field
Finally, I decided it was time to head back, as it was getting dark, and I did not want to stay out too long in this seedy environment.

Pictures of the places I passed by on the way back to the school are shown below.
St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church
St. Mary's School for the Deaf
Aloma Johnson Charter School
People's Park
St. Mark's Church
With that, I turned in for the night, excited about the start of the bike ride tomorrow.

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