Niagara Falls to Rome.

Saturday, 5 October

Another delicious sesame bagel for breakfast at the bakery down the road and then we were on our way back to the Avis people at the airport. They couldn’t have been nicer and now we have a very blue Hyundai Elantra which is much more suitable for two people and actually has a bigger boot than the Dodge.

Waiting for the bakery to open

We put Rochester into Tom Tom and arrived there around lunchtime. Stopped at a very nice cafe which is over the road from a memorial to Susan B Anthony, who was an early campaigner for women’s suffrage.

We like this one!

Then it was on to Rome, through forest, farmland and a lot of tiny towns. We were travelling along beside a large lake, Lake Oneida, and at one stage caught a distant glimpse of Lake Ontario. I think we might have crossed the Erie Canal too.There is a lot of swampy country around here and we are told that it is humid and mosquito infested in summer. Glad we chose autumn. At one stage, Anne drove us down a little track to the edge of the lake so we could have a look. There was a less than friendly warning on a sign so we hot-tailed it out of there before the war party could come after us.

Lake Oneida

Welcome to the lake

Our motel here seems really spacious compared to the previous ones. They all have something odd about them - weird taps, water pressure that blasts you across the room, sheets and blankets that barely reach above your waist ... So far the only weird thing here is the music coming out of the exhaust fan in the bathroom, but I dare say there’ll be something else to discover.