Well, it’s Thanksgiving week here in good ol’ 2020 and we’re finding new and unusual things to be thankful for.
For example, we recently took a road trip to that fabled destination that lights up the eyes of teenagers across America: Western Pennsylvania.
Hey, it was new to us and, therefore, exciting. We planned a college visit for the eldest (didn’t I just write about her first day of preschool?) and a swing by Niagara Falls. We were, quite frankly, giddy. New views! New roads! Not, Route 128 or Route 1. Instead we traversed the lovely and scenic, ok, actually the old and crumbling, Route 80.
They don’t believe in three-lane interstates down there, or wide shoulders, so we really got to experience all that Route 80 has to offer, (I think it offers exactly one Starbucks). Sure we mostly saw cornfields, but they were new to us. Plus, our college tour was beautiful (if perhaps a little larger than our daughter’s preschool).
For the return trip we took a different route into western New York, past Lake Erie, which I thought was fantastic.
“Look girls! Lake Erie!”
“We see it.”
“But now look!! It’s one of the Great Lakes! Let’s sing about the Erie Canal!”
“We’re not singing.”
“There it is again! I’m singing. I ‘gotta mule her name is Sal . . .’”
And so on, until, from miles away, we saw a rising mist that indicated, “something very big involving water is here.” We immediately knew that the something was Niagara Falls and we were dazzled from a distance. The reviews I’d read warned about the heavy traffic, tough parking and crowds. And while I expected it to be a bit lighter given it was cold and mid-week, in fact, we were utterly alone. The roads, the town, the whole place was shuttered and empty.
But when morning came, and the mist of the falls and roaring rapids were visible from our hotel room, we didn’t care how apocalyptic the town was. In fact, we were thrilled. We waltzed into the Niagara Falls State Park with nary a line or crowd. The falls were gigantic and wild and loud and… all ours. Chalk one up for the pandemic!
But it also meant there was no real way to ascertain the dangers. We came to a spot where the trail led us to a tiny island perched right at the top of the falls as the water plunged over on either side. To be clear the only thing keeping us from certain death was a fence. Fine, it was an industrial steel fence that was chest high, but still!! What if I spontaneously started leaping like so many lords!? The girls took pictures while I crab-walked around hissing at them to step back.
After not dying by the American Falls, we wandered over to an area called Terrapin Point to view the Canadian side, Horseshoe Falls. It turned out, Terrapin Point was not just on the edge of the waterfall, it was also squarely where those giant plumes of mist came down. And to clarify, it’s less a mist and more buckets of water that suddenly began falling out of the sky in randomized, fully drenching splashes.
“Girls, get together for . .” SPLASH, “a photo, ok everyone smile and,” SPLASH! “Open your eyes and SMILE!” I yelled. SPLASH.
No park rangers thought some sort of signage was in order? A pamphlet on bringing ponchos? This brought our visit to a relatively fast and natural end. We’d seen and experienced, fully, the falls.
Once we were back in our car we proceeded with that traditional family road trip step: the Saliva PCR COVID test. I had pre-ordered three in compliance with our school and state requirements.
“You just need to spit in the vial.” I explained calmly as the eldest quickly filled her tube with no effort, closed it up, and stared out the window like the world-weary teenager she was.
But the youngest struggled.
“Don’t look at me!” She said as she tried to spit out of sight from the watching world, (I’ll just refer you back to the point about being the only living humans around), but she could only blow bubbles. “I can’t! It’s so gross, I can’t look at this, I’m going to throw up!”
“For heaven’s sake!” I snapped. “Just spit in the vial!”
“If you throw up in the car, I’m not going home!” Yelled the eldest from the back.
My daughter handed me her vial, it was mostly bubbles, I sighed. “Try again, just swish and spit!”
She spit and missed, the blob ran down the vial. Really? Finally we managed to bag her sticky vial.
“Hand sanitizer anyone?” I offered.
And so wet, and low on saliva, we started home, back to our routines but reinvigorated by our time spent in the corn fields of states other than Massachusetts and our private Niagara Falls visit. Perhaps in a word, the road trip—going, visiting, and returning—made us feel . . . thankful.