New England Road Trip 2016: Days 5 & 6 – The Journey Home

(Dates: April 25 and 26, 2016)

As I left Saranac Lake, NY, I knew that my road trip was about to reach its conclusion. However, I had about an 11-hour journey back home. As I did not want to drive all the way home in one day, I planned to stop at a hotel in the Buffalo metropolitan area which is about halfway between the Adirondacks and Michigan. The first part of the journey back was very beautiful with many pine trees lined up along the highway with even some mountains in the distance. As I got closer to Watertown, the landscape transitioned to small, rolling hills as I was approaching Lake Ontario. Thankfully, driving through Watertown, New York was pretty nice as it had a lot of historic buildings. Unfortunately, the traffic was a little heavy.

I eventually got onto I-81 to head down to the New York State Thruway (I-90) near Syracuse. As the skies were cloudy, the drive was nothing too exciting. When I was getting onto the thruway, it felt cool that I was near Syracuse where my maternal grandfather was born. If I had more time, I would have loved to drive through Syracuse. As it was getting late in the day, I continued west on I-90 toward the eastern suburbs of Buffalo. The drive from Syracuse to Buffalo was not very exciting. If it was not for my SiriusXM radio, the drive would have been a little worse. Through the power of music, I made it over to my hotel, a Holiday Inn Express, located in Cheektowaga, NY. Located near the airport for Buffalo, the hotel is very new, and the room was quite new. The bed was really comfortable, and the breakfast was quite good. For a very new hotel, it is a good hotel to stay at.

That night, I wanted to get something quick to eat, so I went to a Chipotle nearby for a chicken burrito. Although the wait took a little while, the burrito was well worth the wait. However, as I was leaving Chipotle, it started to pour. I had to run to my car to avoid getting too wet by the rain. Luckily, when I got back to the hotel, I had my umbrella in the car, so I could go inside without getting too wet.

After eating breakfast the next morning, I checked out, and I got back on I-90. It rained all the way into Pennsylvania and Ohio including when I had to fill up the gas tank near the New York/Pennsylvania border. Once I got to Cleveland, the rest of the drive to Michigan was smooth sailing although the skies remained cloudy. For a quick lunch, I did stop at one of the service plazas on the Ohio Turnpike to get some quick Chinese food. Although it was not the best Chinese food I have tasted, it was still good.

And with that, I had made it back into Michigan safe and sound. As I got home, it felt great to get back in my own bed and have a good night sleep before going back to work the next morning. As a whole the road trip was very memorable as I got to see a lot of cool sights from the different mountain ranges such as the Adirondacks, the Poconos, and the White Mountains to the different cities such as New London, Boston, Portland, and Montpelier. It was a great way to see the beauty of nature, the historic sights dating back to colonial times, the hype of video game conventions, and the delicious food I ate along the way. The best part of it all was seeing my friend Mike in New Jersey the first night as well as seeing Eric and Tom at PAX East in Boston. If any of you guys are reading this blog post right now, thank you very much for helping to make this road trip unforgettable!

If you have not visited New England before, I would certainly check it out sometime in your life. As New York City and Boston are easily accessible cities via airplane, it is easy to get over to New England. Although I had only seen parts of New England on this road trip, I will definitely want to come back to explore new places there. Thank you for reading this blog post as well as my posts on my New England road trip, and I will see you for the next series of blog posts of my travels!