Happy Birthday to Love

Our third wedding anniversary went by last week without a lot of fanfare. This time we decided to see the new Harry Potter movie which I think is very appropriate, because I fell in love with Dave while he read Harry Potter books to me.

A heartfelt and reciprocated love brings a certain power of transformation, which is pretty much unique in the world. Dave has the unique ability to inspire me to try to be my best self, and not just when he’s nearby. He encourages me in my more constructive passions and brings out my better qualities. He makes my weaknesses apparent, so that I can learn and grow, but doesn’t reflect them back at me. Our relationship is passionate in just the right places and calm in others. It’s not perfect, but it has all the right ingredients. This is what I believe true love is.

Attack of the Killer Tomato Plants

They're almost as tall as I am now.

A LOT of growing happened while we were away on vacation.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

We spent the past week roaming from Erie, PA, to Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON, Canada. We meant to get up to Toronto but the Niagara area was so nice we just couldn't leave. Pictures here.

Erie, PA was a big letdown. Our hotel was very nice (possibly the best hotel on lake Erie), but the city itself (the third largest in the state) appeared to be economically depressed, and downtown Erie was not the quaint place I was expecting. In fact I felt rather unsafe there even in broad daylight. Also, our visit coincided with the annual Roar on the Shore motorcycle rally, making downtown non-navigable. However we found Presque Isle State Park very pleasant and spent a lot of time there.

Niagara Falls impressed me more than I expected. We started on the US side, parking on Goat Island in the Niagara Falls State Park, and walking from the wet and windy Horseshoe(Canadian) Falls side of the island to the calmer American Falls.

After checking in to our hotel on the Canadian side to dry off, we walked down to the falls viewing area, only to get drenched again as we approached Horseshoe Falls. At first I was impressed by how ridiculous everyone looked in their brightly colored ankle length plastic ponchos, but after fighting the mist/rain and wind I saw the wisdom in this fashion.

The second day in Niagara Falls we took the Maid of the Mist tour boat that gets you as close to the bottom of the Horseshoe Falls as you can go without drowning, and where you are surrounded by the semicircular wall of roaring water. I wish I had some pics of the view down there, but the mist cloud was raining heavily down on us and I was afraid to get the camera wet.

We decided to spend our last couple of vacation days in Niagara-on-the-Lake, which is a quaint early 19th century town on the shores of Lake Ontario at the mouth of the Niagara River. We booked a fairly decent B&B, which while comfortable (and featuring jetted tubs), wanted to charge us an extra $20 for the second B upon our arrival. The town's main street had several ice cream parlors, and we dined well there too.

Dining on this trip was varied...

On the road:
Aunt Bee's - truck stop diner on I-79 exit 141, featuring friendly service and hunting/country clutter/bee decor. Cheap but decent, except for the lousy coleslaw.

Erie, PA:
Pufferbelly Restaurant - plain but good food, this restaurant is in an old brick firehouse that still has the fireman's pole and lot of other neat old fire station stuff around.
Perkin's - not as good as Denny's and that's not sayin' much.
Ruby Tuesday - located in the Millcreek Mall (one of Erie, PA's top 5 attractions according to the hotel visitor's guide), this is a decent bar/restaurant similar to TGI Friday's.
Joe Root's - family friendly steak and seafood. good, plain, friendly.
Bob Evan's - The best breakfast the entire trip. You just can't beat biscuits and gravy.

Niagara Falls:
Food court at the US side parking garage - A chaotic, disorganized, "multi-cultural" fast food garbage, but we found a coffee counter that served decent grilled sandwiches.
Buchanan's Chophouse - The Doubletree hotel restaurant. This was the best meal the whole week. Really impressive soup course and satisfying portion of foie gras.
Tim Horton's - these fast food/cafe places are EVERYWHERE. fast and cheap breakfast option.
Passage to India - bland, expensive buffet.
My Cousin Vinny's - friendly but too expensive for what is basically the Olive Garden. Food was rushed so that we were served our main course before we finished the salad.

Niagara-on-the-Lake:
Bistro Six-One - Excellent food, great atmosphere.
Churchill Lounge - Prince of Wales hotel casual dining option. We enjoyed the weather and people watching on the corner patio.
Tim Horton's - cheap, fast, EVERYWHERE
Cows - Rich creamy ice cream. The smell of baking waffle cones outside practically forces you in the door.
Epicurean - Fresh ingredients make the plain offerings satisfying. Nice large patio.
Stagecoach Restaurant - local greasy spoon. nothing special.
Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory - the gorgeous chocolate candy displays draw you in, the Turkish coffee mocha chip ice cream makes you want to come back again and again.

Tiny Tomatoes

Cute little vegetables are finally showing up on my plants! We have tiny (and not so tiny) tomatoes, peppers and carrots. Still no squash or pumpkins though.



Sunday I went on a walk in Boyce-Mayview Park in Upper St. Clair. This is probably the nicest park in the surrounding area I've been to yet. It reminded me a lot of Rancho San Antonio in the Bay Area. The trip leaders from Venture Outdoors provided some yummy gazpacho and corn bread after the walk. Click here for some pics of the park.

Seldom Seen Blogger Returns

After all of the traveling about in June, we decided to make the holiday weekend a quiet one. We went to see the July 4th fireworks on the river in downtown Pgh, but didn't have any idea how many other thousands of people would be down there too. So after sitting in traffic for almost an hour, and being directed into the parking garage next to PNC Park, we decided it might be smart to just watch from the top of the garage so we could get out of there fast. Turns out a lot of people had the same idea, and some looked like they'd been tailgating there for most of the day. It turns out to be a great viewing spot, and getting out of the area was relatively painless.

Dave's been busy teaching a workshop for high school science and math teachers this weekend so I've lined up some entertainment for myself.

Friday night I was invited to join my friends down at Sushi Kim, located between downtown and the strip, where we ate Korean BBQ buffet. How that works is there's a buffet of raw sliced and seasoned meats and condiments, and you cook them at the grill on your table. It was delicious and I can't wait to take Dave there.



Afterward we went over to Klavons, a relic of the 1920s, which none of the others had seen before, and enjoyed some old fashioned sodas and ice cream sundaes.



This morning I went on a Venture Outdoors walk through a well hidden greenspace in the community of Beechview. Before the walk an area resident gave a talk about the history of the area and the efforts to preserve this wooded hillside in a fairly densely populated town. The area we were walking in was once called Seldom Seen, and it was a secluded village of German immigrants until the 1960s, when the city took over the property with plans for development.

The trails (if you can call them that) were faint and overgrown. There was so much poison ivy that I spent most of the walk watching where I stepped (why did I wear shorts!). Also, it's not maintained by the city so there are a lot of felled trees blocking the path.

We stopped along the way to hear about interesting features of the park which I've detailed with pics here. When I got home I immediately scrubbed my arms and legs down and washed my hiking clothes in case there was any poison ivy oil on them.