Let's Go (Back to) Places (and Meet People!): Buffalo, New York

 

I had a good time last weekend.

In March of 2023 I had the pleasure of spending a weekend in Buffalo, NY, and it was on my list of places that I wouldn't mind going back to.  My interest was renewed last month when Wayward went there.

In the meantime, I've been chatting with Kyria, who is currently biking her little heart out all around the US and Canada.  She was in Ontario, and suggested a meetup somewhere in the vicinity of Ottawa, Toronto, or Buffalo.  Getting to Ottawa or Toronto would have been tough with my work schedule, but Buffalo is just three hours away.  However, I didn't want to drive three hours to say hi and drive back...I wanted to stay a few days to make the drive worth while and see more of Buffalo.  That's how the blogger meetup went from being a few hours to a mini vacation for both of us.  Good times were had, incredible food was eaten, and postcards were sent.

They say that a stranger is a friend that you haven't met yet, and that is definitely true for Kyria.  We were strangers on the internet, but we have a lot of common interests, we've had in person meetings with the same people (hey Lisa, hey Engie!).  So what I am saying is that it was totally natural for our first meeting to be a four day vacation.

It also felt natural and very nice to have Kyria pick our lodging.  She found an Airbnb that was the main floor of an old house.  The property had been condemned but someone was able to swoop in at the last minute and poured a lot of labor and love into it to restore it.

The house was divided into two units - a two bedroom Airbnb on the first floor and a long term tenant on the second floor.  The house was lovely, and I felt good about sending my money to someone who saves old houses instead of to a hotel.
 

Here was the plan: 

• Well actually there was no plan.  I had an idea in my head about stuff to do in Buffalo and Kyria also had a list.  When we got there we compared notes and had a loose idea of what we were going to do without having anything set in stone.
  
• Wednesday: Kyria and Bob (her bike) arrived in Buffalo around check in time.  I cut out of work a little early and loaded up the car with my work stuff and Bikey McBikerson and arrived that night.
  
• Thursday: I worked (though as little as possible), we did fun stuff.
• Friday: a full day of fun stuff.
  
• Saturday: Kyria and Bob headed back to Canada, I continued to do fun stuff.
• Sunday: I continued to do fun stuff and went home.

And here is how it went down.

Wednesday - get there

This was a tough trip to pack for!  Although it was only a few days, the weather was all over the place, so I had to bring shorts, jeans, a couple of jackets, and a range of athletic gear to accommodate whatever adventures that Kyria and I might get up to.  It was a given that Bikey would come along to meet Bob.  For my work stuff, I decided to live on the edge and only bring one monitor instead of two.  In contrast Kyria's luggage is what she can fit on the bike.

BTW although I'm happy that I changed jobs, I did kinda shoot myself in the foot for travel.  The old job was stressful and required two monitors, but it did have unlimited PTO, I'd been there long enough that I could pretty much do it in my sleep, and the rest of my team was overseas so I usually had the afternoons to myself.  I started the new job by taking a seven day vacation, so I have a negative PTO balance - no one has said anything but I'm being stingy with my days off just in case - I haven't been there long enough to do the job in my sleep and I'm still trying to make a good impression, and the team is all in the US working US hours so...that's why I worked on Thursday and took Friday off instead of just taking both days off.

I snuck out of work a little early and shuffled off to Buffalo.  It's a little over three hours away, so it was an easy matter of listening to three podcast episodes and I was there.  Kyria was on the porch to greet me, and Bob was tucked into the hallway.  Bikey stayed in the car.

Now look, I want you to know that IRL 99.9% of conversations that I have are like this:

"Hi"

"Hi"

"How's it going?"

"Good.  And you?"

"Good.  Nice weather we're having."

"Yep.  Great talking to you."

99.9% of my conversations with Cool Bloggers are not like that.  I got to the house around 7:30 and we finally called it a night around 10.  We talked so much that my voice was hoarse.

Thursday - the adventure begins

Kyria and I both woke up around six, brewed up coffee, and continued the conversation.  Around 7 we went out for some exercise.  I've been kinda/sorta toying around with running so she joined me for a two mile run/walk.  How did we know where to go in a new to both of us neighborhood?  Easy - Kyria planned the route!  Getting outdoors was our first glimpse of the neighborhood and it was clear that we had scored.  The houses were older and offered some serious eye candy.  After our two miles were up we continued to walk for a bit.

Next up was breakfast - a frozen breakfast burrito from home for me, oatmeal for her.  At nine I started my work computer so that my Slack light was on and we continued talking until work got serious enough that I actually needed to do stuff.  I set up my home-office-away-from-home in the front room.

For lunch, we looked at the neighborhood offerings and settled on Bengal Grill, which was the Indian place around the corner.  The food was i-n-c-r-e-d-i-b-l-e.

By four I was ready to call it a day on the work stuff and we headed out.  Our agenda was: hike, Trader Joe's run, dinner.

Hike: Whirlpool State Park in Niagara Falls.

3.5 miles, and lotsa stairs.

We did a quick drive by on Horseshoe Falls and then took care of our Trader Joe's business.

Next up: dinner!  I was today years old when I learned that Buffalo wings originated in...wait for it...Buffalo.  There is a fierce debate about where to go for the best wings in Buffalo, so this was not a decision that we took lightly.  Duff's Wings gets some trash talk because it is [gasp!] a chain, but location wise it made the most sense for dinner that night, so we decided to slum it.

[Hold that thought...lemme tell you about the wings we had the next night and then I'll give you our review]

We headed back to our house for tea and more conversation.  Except we needed a lil' somethin' somethin' so we headed around the corner for an ice cream run.  Look, if you get nothing else out of this post, if you are ever in Buffalo, please go to King Condrell's for ice cream.  This is not a "chose one thing" kind of place, and I thought we both did really good with only getting two scoops each.   Kyria had chocolate chip and pumpkin, and I had pistachio and toffee crunch.  We both had a favorite - hers was the pumpkin and mine was the toffee crunch.

Friday - the adventure continues

We were both up early again and didn't feel like running, so we had a nice long walk to check out the neighborhood house eye candy.  Mid morning we got ourselves in the car and headed for Delaware Park.

Our plan was to walk around the park and then go to Forest Lawn Cemetery.  I had been to the cemetery on my previous trip, because it has the FLW designed Blue Sky Mausoleum.  The only problem with our plan is that the park isn't a good way to get to the cemetery by foot.  In theory it's right across the street, but there's a big fence and limited sidewalks for...a very long time.  When I went there last year by car I was on the other side of the cemetery, where there are one billion entry points.  In the end we decided that we were too pressed for time, so we consoled ourselves with the sights of the neighborhood.  BIG HOUSES.  McMansions but 1800's style...if you think you know what a big house looks like you are wrong.  This is a small house by the neighborhood's standards and the big houses were so big that I could not have fit one into one picture.

 Our next port of call was City Hall.  I learned from Wayward that it has an observation deck, and the internet told me that Explore Buffalo does free tours.

When you think about Buffalo, chances are that you're not thinking about the most glamorous place.  But 100 years ago Buffalo was a Big Frickin' Deal.  In addition to other industries and access to the Great Lakes, Buffalo was known as the City of Light because of early hydropower from Niagara Falls.  You want to know why the houses in the Delaware Park neighborhood were so huge?  Because Buffalo was soaking in money.  Sooooo much money.

In the late 20's a new city hall was built, and the budget was based on what the town could afford.

I did not do a great job with the pictures, but you might be able to see that there is an Art Deco theme.  What you can't see is that there is also a Native American theme in the decor, which is a tribute to the original people of Buffalo - Big City Fat Cats with deep pockets in 1929 had their moments of being woke.  

Our tour started downstairs and they talked us through all of the artwork.

We headed upstairs to the counsel chamber, which is notable for two reasons.

Reason 1: the skylight may or may not be Tiffany.  It's a big deal.

Reason 2: the 1920's seats have built in 1920's hat racks (there was a pause to text Engie).

 

The tour finished and I was excited because I knew that the next stop was the observation deck!  And then the fire alarm went off.

Yeah.  So the next stop ended up being the stairs.  Let me tell you that when you're on the 13th floor of Buffalo City Hall and there is an evacuation that you have a lot of people on the stairs.  It was tight.

Outside there were fire trucks and firemen (and ladies commenting favorably on the firemen) so we figured that the tour was over.  We decided that we would go back later if we wanted to, but it didn't happen due to the epic rainstorm that started moments later and lasted for most of the afternoon.  City Hall is closed on weekends, so getting to the observation deck ended up being a dream deferred.

We had just gotten back to the car when the rain started, but it didn't slow us down since it was time for lunch.  As you may recall, the only restaurant that I visited on my previous trip to Buffalo was Strong Hearts, which is a vegan restaurant.

I tore into the Sweet Sassy Molassey and oh my gawd it was soooooooooooo good.

After the rain finally cleared up we headed for the waterfront and took in some lighthouse eye candy.

And then we splurged and paid a dollar each to ride a merry go round.

Then it was dinner and time for round two of the Buffalo Wing Wars.  You know, Duff's is just a lousy chain but Gabriel's Gate is rumored to be one of the best of all the best Buffalo wing spots.

Kyria and I decided to pace ourselves and just get 10 wings to start and we split a taco salad for "real" food.

We each tried a wing and the jury didn't need to leave the box to deliver the verdict.  There was a clear winner.

You have to understand that I don't really like chicken so I'm in it for the Buffalo sauce.  With that point of reference, I can tell you that I sucked every piece of meat off every bone that we had at Duff's.  Every iota of that meal was exquisite.

Our review of Gabriel's Gate for wings is that the taco salad was really good.  Wing wise, the sauce was fine but not as good as Duff's, and the chicken was exactly what I expect out of chicken...not my favorite food.

So that's just the group opinion, your mileage may vary. 

We went back to the house and had a post card writing party to close out the night.

Saturday - goodbye for now

Sadly it was wheels up time for Kyria.  Remember how I brought my bike and so far there was no bike riding in our trip?  We did a quick ride through the neighborhood together and then she headed for the border.

I headed back downtown for a walking tour with Explore Buffalo.  I guess that you can add visits to Soldiers and Sailors Monuments to the things that I collect on my travels (other collections include but are not limited to lighthouses, FLW sites, State Capitols, and submarines...spoiler three of those four things happened on this trip).  Previously I've been to the S&S Monument in Cleveland and Indianapolis.

 After the tour it was time for lunch, so I headed right back to Strong Hearts.  This time I had the Reuben.

It was very good, but my eyes were bigger than my stomach, so I took half of it home with me.

My next stop was for an FLW hit at the Buffalo Transportation Piece Arrow Museum.  Because when you think Frank Lloyd Wright, you think gas stations.  The museum was too crowded to get a good picture, but here is a better one.

The story is that back in the day it took quite a long time to fill up a gas tank, so people needed a place to hang out while they were gassing up.  The gas station had restrooms and a lounge.  The way that FLW came to design this project was that he had gotten himself into some trouble in the transition from wife #2 to wife #3.  Back in the day if your husband was running around on you, there were a couple of legal strings you could pull, and Mrs FLW #2 got the Feds after her husband for the crime of crossing state lines with an unmarried woman for immoral purposes.  FLW hid out in Buffalo and got a friend to bail him out.  In return he designed the gas station for his friend.  Back in the day it was not built due to cost, so the plans sat around until 2014 when they were built for the museum exhibit.

In the end my favorite takeaway from the museum was some trivia.  In the late 1940s there was a new car called the Playboy.  The company didn't last long, but it did make it on to Hugh Hefner's radar and that's where he got the name.

My next stop was the waterfront and the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park.  They have two ships and a sub, so I got to add to my submarine tour collection.

Back above ground, I had ambitions to take on Niagara Falls, so I headed for Maid of the Mist, along with everyone else on the planet.  It was too crowded to park, so I gave it up and went back home.  I ordered a pizza from Franco's nearby, and treated myself to another neightborhood walk/postcard mailing on the way to get it.

Sunday - time to go home!

All good things must come to an end.  I had a leisurely breakfast of the other half of my Reuben and fries from lunch.  Do you know how good the fries are at Strong Hearts?  So good that if you eat them a day later warmed up in the microwave they still rock. 

I packed up the car and headed to my last destination of the trip.  My lighthouse game is really slipping, because The Dunkirk Lighthouse is my first, and so far my only lighthouse visit of 2024.  The tour includes the (attached)  Lighthouse Keeper's House.

Buffalo Recap

• Going on a mini vacation for a first meetup with a Cool Blogger: 1000000000000000000/10
• Having a travel buddy to share in the planning and itinerary: 10/10 
• Bringing my bike on a trip and only riding around the block: 10/10.  A tiny folding bike is easy to toss into the car.  If it hadn't rained on Friday we might very well have done more biking.
  
• Buffalo as a vacation destination: 10/10.  
• Buffalo's food scene: 10/10.  Strong Hearts continues to have a strong place in my heart, King Condrell's rules for ice cream, Duff's rules (so far) for wings, and I'd go back to Bengal's Grill anytime.  If I come back, I'd hit more of the places on Wayward's food recap.  When Kyria and I meet again (no plans but c'mon it has to happen), there will be more wings.
  
• If....let's make that when....I come back the observation deck at City Hall will be the top priority.  I would also do more walking tours with Explore Buffalo, since they have them all over the city.
• Also on the list for the next trip is more time at Niagara Falls, however lesson learned that the weekend is not the time to go.

Kyria's recap is here (private IG account).

That's a wrap on Buffalo!  Thanks for hanging out with us!