The Defibrillator

I feel like I was on a Food TV show yesterday.  You know, one of those shows that features an overweight guy trying to jam a thousand pound sausage or three foot wide pizza or gallon-ice cream sundae into his gut in ten minutes.  My episode happened at my cousin's restaurant in the Finger Lakes Region of New York State.  Dugan's Country Grill is a diner/greasy spoon type place with above average food and personality and this was my first time visiting it.  I wasn't there when they were serving their famous fish fry or prime rib dinner but I couldn't resist ordering something from the menu called the "Defibrillator".  To call it a  "burger" is one of the biggest understatements there is.

The "sandwich" is two beef patties, four slices of cheese, bacon and eggs served on grilled sourdough bread.  You can get it with a side of fries or macaroni salad.  I got the macaroni salad but only ate a few spoon-fulls.  It wasn't that it didn't taste good but after finishing the awesome burger, there just wasn't any room.  The defibrillator was awesome and spending time with my cousin Michael was an added bonus.  I strongly recommend the place to anyone that is in the area and has a taste for home-cooking on  a grand scale.  I can't wait to get back when they introduce their heart-stopping milkshake, "the Stint". 

You can have your European vacation, I'll take Wheeling

For the past few days, we've been on a reunion/vacation trip to Wheeling, West Virginia. All joking aside, Wheeling is a pretty remarkable place. If you are an architecture and nature buff like myself, you could do much worse for vacation spots. We stayed at a place called Oglebay Resort. It's an old mansion and estate that is now a public park and conference center. The property is very large and is dotted with buildings that have been built over the past 150 years. We stayed in Wilson Lodge, an architectural cross between an Adirondack Lodge and cheesy 70's porn set. Aesthetic challenges aside, it was pretty nice. The property used to be a gentleman's farm and has some pretty nice Classical Revival architecture as well as beautifully configured landscape areas. Jogging each morning, with this kind of view, is really a tough life.There is just enough wildlife to make you feel like you are VERY far from civilization.The resort is about a mile from downtown Wheeling. It has enough industrial heritage, old buildings, and great views to have kept me busy for over a week. Unfortunately, our visit was pretty limited and most of the time was spent catching up with old friends. Luckily we did get a chance to get into downtown and to walk across their suspension bridge. It was really cool but might be considered a little harrowing to some, with its open-deck and slight swaying as traffic passes over it. It's a remarkable structure and pretty unique for any part of the country.I had to snap a pic of one of the Pabst halls as well as the great Richardsonian church near the resort. I could spend hours looking at this kind of crap. Any trip, for me, would not be complete without gaping at the local arts & crafts architecture. A small neighborhood of fantastic bungalows was just blocks from the resort. Wonder if these folks ever do tours.

Vacation Part 1

Niagara Falls was the first major stop on our trip. We lived in Western New York for a while and things have changed quite a bit since we left the area ten years ago. There are now 3 casinos, several new immense hotels, and more tourist traps than I thought imaginable. Being on Clifton Hill has never been the highlight of a trip to the falls for us. Unfortunately, this is pretty much the only thing that most people know about the falls.
We took our ritual drive north to Niagara on the Lake, a quaint town at the mouth of the Niagara River. We would typically stop for a hike down the gorge but having a 3 year old in tow made this ideas less than appealing. Niagara on the Lake is still as cute as we remember. On our way there, we did stop at a new souvenir shop. Being a fan of all things roadside, we could not resist the over-sized bear and moose carvings, the totem poles, and log cabin appearance of the place. Question: why did the moose sculpture need to be anatomically correct?
No trip to the falls is complete without a stop by Love Canal. I have had a morbid sense of curiosity about this place for some time. It is not on any map but if you follow the river towards Buffalo, just before leaving Niagara Falls proper and entering the town of Wheatfield, north of the LaSalle Expressway at 102nd St., you will find a somewhat barren landscape where a neighborhood used to be. The canal proper, where the toxic waste is stored, is surrounded by a chain link fence with intermittent landscaping.
The area north of the canal and some areas west of the canal have been redeveloped with new housing - a scary thought it you ask me. The history of the canal is tied intrinsically to what our collective attitude seems to have has been towards the falls and perhaps to our environment in general. I think that my attitude towards everything plastic is somehow related to my thoughts about Love Canal but I haven't quite figured that all out yet.

The place is truly sublime. Hopefully one day they will put a marker that identifies this place or maybe they’ll even begin giving tours. I doubt either of these things will ever occur within my lifetime.

Back after a short vacation

We are back in the OP after a short vacation in NY. We went away for a week and the rain seemed to follow us everywhere we went. It was a nice trip but a wet one. We shouldn't complain because it sounds like things were rough in Chicago while we were away. Thank God we came back to a dry basement and relatively little damage.

Storms pummelled the area for a few days straight last week. Our neighborhood is littered with tree branches and our garden is a mess. The storms flattened the vegetables and broke most of the flowers in half. Though I mowed the day before I left, it also looks like I haven't mowed in months. We had to re-set all the clocks and the cable as the power also must have gone out. I can plant new flowers next year so given the looks of things, I think that we can consider ourselves lucky.
While in upstate NY, we visited Niagara Falls, a great Tiffany-designed chapel, and the new Stickley Museum. I will try and update with pictures of our trip over the next few days. We always love visiting in NY but it is nice being back home. Stay tuned for updates.