Wow! Is that the Grand Canyon? Sure is, the Grand Canyon of the East that is - located in Letchworth State Park in the western part of NYS. Also in the park is this falls, beautiful but slightly smaller than Niagara Falls a few miles to its north.While we did enjoy an afternoon in the park, our real goal was to visit our friend Pat and her family in Buffalo. Other than "just passing through" on the highway, we had never been to Buffalo. Buffalo has GREAT food including Buffalo chicken wings (have they made it to your area yet?). The other local food is "beef on weck" which is thin slices of roast beef served on a kummelweck roll with pan drippings and LOTS of horseradish. Schwabl's has been serving them since time began or almost anyway. Schwabl's also has great German food so it's a really good thing for John's waistband that we live so far away. If it hadn't been for Pat's daughter Fai cooking us a fantastic dinner for later in the day, I'm sure John would have ordered one of everything for take-out.
But there are other things to do in the Buffalo area besides eat... If you saw the blog this spring, we visited Millard Fillmore's birthplace. (Our 13th President & the only one born in NYS.) In East Aurora is the house he & his wife lived in when he first became a lawyer (a starter home). At the end of his life (let's hope anyway) he was buried in the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo. The cemetery also has other notables including Carrier who invented air conditioning and Southwick the dentist who is given credit for the electric chair (yuk!). On the subject of dying... if you're in Buffalo and feel you've expired but aren't sure, perhaps they'll take you to the Amigone Funeral Home or if you're sure you've expired you can be taken to the Bury Funeral Home.
Back with the living, the Basilica in Lackawanna (a suburb) is incredibly beautiful and well worth a visit. According to the brochure there are between 1500 and 2500 angels in the cathedral (can't believe someone hasn't come up with a closer number). Father Baker, whose idea it was to build it in the 20's, wanted you to be able to see an angel no matter where you were in the building.
In downtown Buffalo there are lots of interesting buildings (unfortunately the driving tour given on the city web site sounds good but is absolutely impossible to follow). However, we did manage to find the old post office (the eagle was both quarried & carved on Vinalhaven Island, ME). The last photo is the 1906 Calumet Building. Those smudges on the photo are hail stones (Buffalo is never far from winter!).
So the next time you're in western NY, take time to visit Buffalo. While it's lost half its population with the closing of industry, things now appear to be on the upswing and there are lots of interesting things to see and do plus the food is terrific!
