JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

Syracuse, NY -Newark, NJ - 510.0 km The clouds rolled in to stay as I left Syracuse, rocketing my way down I-81 towards Binghamton. Scenic for a freeway, not like the torture test 401 can be in SW Ontario. The surroundings grew nicer as I hopped onto NY 17 to first follow the Delaware River, then hug the southern end of the Catskills. Towns like Hancock and Liberty had seen better days, but were good for a quick diversion. Spent a grand total of two minutes in Pennsylvania - it would have five to snap a picture to prove I'd set foot in the Keystone State, but the sky chose that moment to open up. Didn't hop out of the car until I grabbed lunch at an old-school diner in Roscoe. Had a hearty meal of pastitsio with salad and soup. Kicked butt on an old Ms. Pac-Man game. The outside of the Roscoe Diner, Roscoe, NY No borscht or borscht-belt comedians in sight. Review from Roadfood.com . Driving down to Newark proved hassle-free, due to a knack for dodging traffic jams that ...

Toronto-Niagara Falls-Syracuse - 474.7 km Lesson: if bringing a suitcase with you across the Canadian-U.S. border, such as checkpoints along the Niagara River, make sure you cut off all tags from your last trip, as the Amtrak tag from last year's visit to New York raised the guard's ire. Several questions were repeated, likely to try to catch me off guard. She also seemed ultra-curious about how much money I was bringing into the US. No sign of humanity whatsoever, furthering my theory that all guards along the Niagara border are partially cybernetic. What border guards along the Niagara River look like underneath. Limited myself to a quick stop at the outlet mall in Niagara Falls, where the trip's book blitz began. Walked out with a couple of cookbooks and a history of Our Gang/Little Rascals (yeah, I grew up with endless Sunday morning reruns of Mush and Milk and Our Gang Follies of 1938 on channel 4). Headed east on the NY Thruway, breezing along while burning ...