Buffalo and beyond

Welcome back, Campers!

BUFFALO! 

That word probably means something different to each of you. To Mrs. C' and me it's the place we met, married and eventually moved away from to seek better economic opportunity. It's been over 32 yeas since we left Western New York. The fact that we were drawn back says that the place and its people have some sort of pull on us... a magnetism that brings us back now and again.

So, what is that magnetism? Mostly it's the people and to some extent the mood of the place. Buffalo is a city with roots and connections. Those bonds are between people and between individuals and the place. I've seen that a few places in my travels but only a few. St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands was one. It seemed that there were two types of people there... natives and visitors. The really wasn't another category. No "in-between", no "been here a while". Buffalo is that way. That isn't to imply that being a "Buffalonian" is a status determined at birth. Quite the contrary. One can become a Buffalonian at any time. It's a status that is self-declared and confirmed by other Buffalonians who are open and welcoming of people who flip over the "just visiting" sign.. Mrs. C' and I both felt like Buffalonians when we lived there. We felt like that again this weekend. If you remember the TV series "Cheers", anytime a member of the cast entered the bar everyone called out their name. Buffalo is like that. We felt the city call our name.

But I'm getting ahead of myself... a little rusty perhaps after taking the weekend off. We started out on Friday morning at Shenango Recreation Area on the Shenango River Reservoir between Pittsburgh and Erie. I posted pics of the campsite and the sunset we saw there Thurday night. I have not talked about the sunrise on Friday. It was foggy. Very foggy. So foggy that if our Airstream had been a boat we would have been confined to port, unable to navigate. Here's what it looked like from the trailer as the sun tried (and failed) to burn through the mist that had accumulated overnight:

Genuinely beautiful!

We could at least see the road so we packed up and headed north toward Buffalo!

The day and the drive were spectacular. Clear, warm but not hot, and dry. The backroads of western Pennsylvania were hilly, curvy and presented us with a moving picture of rural beauty. We saw fields, farms and an idyllic country lifestyle.

The backroads led to interstates including the granddaddy of them all... The New York State Thruway! I think New York State has been collecting tolls from motorists since my pappy was knee high to a grasshopper. And still they are not done building them... there was construction everywhere and no sign of the tolls letting up.

The views between Erie and Buffalo include panoramas of Lake Erie. When the earliest Europeans saw the Great Lakes they must have thought they reached the sea. It's a sight that never fails to impress me. Along the route vineyards lined the highway and slowly gave way to suburban sights then the sprawl of the city as we entered Buffalo.

We parked the rig in the driveway of our dear friends who had invited us back to the city that so shaped our lives as young adults. At this point I need to make clear something you may have already concluded is a part of the "Silver Cliche' Style Guide". I don't use real names, nor include pics of people (other than strangers who play the part of "extras" by getting in the frame from time to time) in the blog. So we needed to come up with a "nom de blog" for our friends. Let's call them "Buff" and "Mrs. Buff". I think they'd accept that since both have been born, raised and still live in "the Nickle City" (so called because of the buffalo pic on the 5 cent piece of old). We see them as inseparable from the city and vice versa. In contrast to our nomadic lifestyle (not just the Airstream portion... even before retirement and traveling Mrs. C' and I moved from here to there and yon) the Buffs have stayed close to their roots.

So... Buff and Mrs. Buff welcomed us to their home at mid day Friday. We broke bread and got right to the serious business of seeing what's happened to Buffalo since our last visit. Mrs. C' and Mrs. B went to inspect the retail sector of the economy while Buff and I went to see the recently opened Darwin Martin House complex a few blocks from their home.

Let's talk about Darwin Martin. You've probably never heard of him. He was a self made man who rose from soap salesman to become a senior exec in the Larkin Soap Company of Buffalo over 100 years ago. That achievement might have been a short mention in a lost history of a forgotten company if not for the fact that Mr. Martin was among the strongest benefactors of an amazingly talented man who you probably have heard of. Frank Lloyd Wright. Their relationship around the turn of the last century produced the Larkin Company Administration Building in Buffalo (since demolished), a home called Graycliff which was built for Mr. Martin's wife as a summer cottage on Lake Erie outside of Buffalo and which still stands and the work known as the Darwin Martin House Complex comprising two homes, a barn/carriage house and an adjacent gardeners house. Several years ago a project was commenced to restore the portions of the complex that still stood and recreate those that had been demolished back to the way they appeared when the Martins occupied the home in 1907. That restoration is nearly complete now (to the tune of nearly 50 Million dollars) and shows for the first time in 75 years why the Martin House Complex was revered among the top handful of Wright's works and perhaps the best example of his prairie style residences. It is spectacular. Let me share a few pics Buff and I took (note that the owners of the property do not allow pictures indoors, although you can find some authorized pics through Google if you search for them).

 

Buff took this wide view with the panorama feature of his iPhone. Nice tool... great detail in the sky and building!  Note the visitors center to the left of this frame. An impressive work in its own right since it's job is to not detract from the master's work next door. It's functional and nearly invisible.

I took this similar shot of just the house:

and this one from a different angle with the home of Mr. Martin's sister (part of the complex) on the far right in the background

and this one through the portico of the main home showing the carriage house/barn and the portico connecting it to the house. Those elements had been demolished and were reconstructed as part of the renovation. Brilliant work! Note the brown FLW clothes line poles in the courtyard!

A great afternoon!

We reconvened at our urban campsite, went out for dinner, toured the city and enjoyed catching up. Buffalo is a compact city. A place with 100 year old lovingly cared for homes, easy access to shopping and dining, excellent restaurants covering the culinary traditions of the waves of immigrants who have landed there from the late 1800's to the present. Because the city hit its last economic peak in the first half of the 20th century, it does not have some of the crowding, traffic and urban design issues of cities that boomed in the post WW II era. That's a benefit of the sluggish Buffalo economy over the past 50 years (a minor offset given the cost a city pays for economic stagnation). In recent years, Buffalo has started to find its stride economically. The combination of old money, community pride and resurgent industries - including education and medicine - has set Buffalo up for its next run for a championship. The city has the feeling of the opening day of the 2004 baseball season in Boston. For those Red Sox it had been 86 years since their last World Series title but the ingredients were in place and maybe this was going to be their year.

 

Here we are on that Friday night ready to camp...

 

The rest of the weekend was fun, relaxing, filling and WET. It rained. Then rained. Then rained some more. Saturday set a record for rain in Buffalo. It didn't slow down Buffalonians (who would not have slowed down much even if that amount of falling H2O had arrived as snow). Since we self-identify as Buffalonians again, it didn't slow us either. We found time to fit in all the activities we had planned despite (and sometimes between) the raindrops.

By the time this morning arrived we had two last goals before packing, hitching up and moving on. The first was a trip to the Towne Restaurant in a section of Allentown... a happenin' neighborhood and home of the annual Allentown Arts Festival. The Towne Restaurant is Greek and didn't get any stars from the Michelin guide, nor do I suspect it is mentioned in Fodors Guide to Buffalo. It is, however 1/2 block from the apartment that I occupied when Mrs. C' and I met. It was the scene of many meals for the two of us in our earliest days together. Our staple was the souvlaki breakfast: 2 eggs, a skewer of souvlaki, pita bread toast and hash browns. It was just the same this morning as it was 35 years ago! The second was a stop at Wegmans to reprovision. While Wegmans may have reached the neighborhood far from Western New York where you are reading this blog post (or may soon reach you), they started in nearby Rochester, so stopping at Wegman's here is like eating NY Style Cheesecake in... well... New York.

Those tasks done and we were off. A 4 hour jaunt straight south from Buffalo down US 219. We made a stop at a picturesque small town, Ellicottville, NY, for lunch (a ski town that reminded me of Steamboat Springs, CO but just with smaller mountains and a much shorter main street) and on into western PA where we settled for the night near State COllege at Bald Eagle State Park. So far, no eagles, but plenty of bald in the mirror, so we're covered.

Tomorrow it's on to Maryland and part of our Mr. and Mrs. C' history tour. We lived there for 18 years and are ready to see more sites from our past including our oldest daughter and 3 of our grandchildren!

Later,

SC'