Up in the middle of the night with too much road head. We went into CNY for some Labour Day weekend treat gathering, flipping back and forth between sports radio and crisis news until the Prairie Home Companion took us around eastern Lake Ontario, through sunset and dusk, north along beautiful highway #3 from Oswego to Watertown.
Through our travels we got to give to the Sally Ann as well as the American Red Cross through folk making it easy to give while going about doing their job. Rudy’s in Owsego had big jugs on the counter on a very busy Saturday night pouring all tips and whatever else customers wanted, all to be given to the ARC. Good to see. Good also to see that they were happy to take Canadian as well both for the tip jar and their wonderful fish sandwiches and little crab cakes. $2.09 USD for a Genny Cream to go with that…except they let me pay in CND at par. What was that about – a tribute to Bangour Maine circa 1975? The tip jar got the difference and more.
Gas prices were everywhere from $3.15 USD in Clay, a suburb NW of Syracuse, to around $3.60 USD in the Watertown area another hour north. The same US gallon cost around $4.11 in USD in Canada – that’s at $1.30 CND a litre. portland reported $3.00 USD in southern Maine Friday. I took my own over out of some personal plan to micro-manage gas supply. Crossing back we got to witness four early twenties lassies make the error of trying to sneak a shopping spree past customs. Oh dear.
Best line of the day? NPR’s Car Guys:
Brother #1: what happened to all the drive-in movie places anyway?
Brother #2: global. warming.
[Brother #1 then has coffee come out his nose and laughs for the next five minutes.]
In a day almost entirely based on going to place already known and liked, we even got to have lunch at Ann’s in Cape Vincent, home of the nicest waitresses on the planet, right after being allowed to enter by the nicest US customs guard who, when we said we may go to the State Fair, looked right into the back seat at the kids and said with a big smile “you let get them to buy you lots of candy, lots of candy, you hear?”