New York Minute

Last month, during the first week of August, I traveled again to Ohio to meet up with Jordan Myszka, and from there, the two of us drove to my other roommate Jorden's dad's wedding in new York. I flew up on the first, and stayed in the house Jordan was babysitting a dog at that night.

Lily, the dog being babysat. Couldn't close her mouth all the way and snored worse than anyone I've ever met!

The next day we started our nine hour drive to Watertown, New York, early in the morning. Our trip was fairly uneventful; we made good time, at least until about two in the afternoon, when there was a steady, seemingly unending downpour of rain for the next two hours and traffic slowed to about forty miles an hour (if we were lucky). About forty minutes from the campsite where the wedding and reception were being held (right next to Lake Ontario!), the sky suddenly cleared and Jordan and I were treated to some lovely views of the countryside of upstate New York

Anyway, once we got there we went to the rehearsal dinner and enjoyed hanging out with Jorden and her boyfriend playing games.The next day was the wedding, which was held outdoors, and then of course, the reception! It was pretty nice.

Jordan told me to make a "dramatic" pose...I am a little ashamed that this is all I came up with.

The next day, we drove to Jorden and her boyfriend's apartment, and mostly did a lot of hanging out and watching movies, with Jorden promising that the next day would be way more exciting.

On the fifth of August, we drove to Alexandria Bay and the 1000 Islands. There we did a little window shopping, but the main attraction was the 'Two Nations Boat Tour' that took us around the 1000 Islands and talked about the mansions there. 

As the name suggested, this boat tour did take us to another nation...Canada!

Looks a lot like America.

After briefly boating through Canadian waters, we returned to one of the larger islands. Heart Island is home to Boldt Castle, and the three of us disembarked there to tour the rooms. 

According to our tour guide, Boldt was a wealthy hotel entrepreneur who bought this island and began building this mansion for his beloved wife. She died unexpectedly, a few weeks before he was to give her the castle, and Boldt immediately ordered all production efforts to be stopped immediately. To this day, the castle remains unfinished in tribute to Boldt's wife.

When we heard that story, I imagined that maybe just a couple of the rooms would be unfinished, but it most of the rooms were not even close to being completed. I think maybe a total of 5 of the 120 rooms were furnished/finished. There was even a half-filled pool in the basement, surrounded by bare brick columns and half-plastered walls. It was pretty cool to see, but kind of depressing as well, as every single one of the unfinished rooms were covered in graffiti. There were many signs throughout the castle prohibiting graffiti, but years of tourists had clearly ignored the warning. A few of the writings were spray-painted, but mostly the walls (and even ceiling in some places) were clumsily scribbled on with any writing tool tourists happened to have; some had even painstakingly carved pairs of initials with a heart between them in the concrete. Jorden expressed that she thought those who wrote romantic things or expressions of love to their significant other were cute, considering the story of the castle. I sort of agree, but I have to wonder what the person who scrawled 'Lady Gaga' repeatedly on one wall was thinking.  What was the point?

Afterwards, we headed back to Jorden's apartment and had dinner with her mom. On our last day in New York, the three of us (plus Jorden's mom) decided to hike Salmon River Falls.

Don't worry...I was definitely sitting down when I took this picture. I'm not THAT brave.

Pretty cool! I had never been to the top of a waterfall like that...there wasn't a lot of water, but it was still awesome to see. A little scary as well, as the bottom was so shallow we could see the rocks underneath the water. After that, Jordan and I parted ways from Jorden and her mom, and started to drive back to Buffalo (where we would be staying for the night with Jordan's grandmother).

The weather was beautiful up there, and although I didn't get to visit Palmyra (though we passed signs on the way up) like Dad kept bugging me to (;P), I had an awesome time! I'm definitely blessed to fly free so I can see my roommates so often!