PART ONE continues...In which our intrepid travelers oversleep, liquor up for free, and embrace the true beauty of freedom without suffering the embarrassment of cavity searches.

Day Two/Sunday, September 22...

We retired early last night after beanies and weinies cooked on the portable stove (just a single burner...we'll need a full stove next time, at least two burners...I hate cooking in shifts). The fire stayed strong through the evening, thanks to a constant supply of nearby twigs, leaves, and cut wood. Our only miscue involved trying to Jiffy Pop^® over the flames. A few kernels and some oil made a valiant effort, but we ended up tossing the whole damn thing into the fire.

Plans were to rise around 5:30 and head to Niagara Falls after breakfast on the stove. Unfortunately, the rains rolled in around 3 am. A relatively dry spot made it possible for instant coffee (never again!) while Kak wet her hair. Me? I'm into peeing in the woods and brushing my teeth siteside. Hey, when I rough it, I ROUGH IT!

Packed up and headed for Niagara Falls, stopping for a brief photo-op at the Grand View Drive-In in Angola, NY. Looks like a great place to catch a double-feature, and we make a note to come back some time next summer. We grab a Sunday paper at the local food market while the woman in front of us bellows "A dozen donuts!" at the minimum wage checkout girl.

God Rest The Human Beat Box

Seeing an operational, supported drive-in gets me a little misty-eyed and homesick for one of the greatest times in my life. When Lou and I started ER in the summer of 1986, the Super-130 Drive-In in Edgewater Park, NJ was our home away from home. Back in those days (I'm sounding way old before my time here), a triple feature of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, Ruggero Deodato's CUT & RUN, and THE BURNING was not unusual...and it brought the gorehounds out in droves. Many a Friday and Saturday were spent parked in our lawn chairs, chowing on dinner specials from Hunan Garden, trying desperately to hide the empties from the "security guard/projectionist" who wandered the grounds with his badge and billy club. We got tossed on more than one occasion for violating the strict "no booze" policy they installed in an attempt to lure a more upscale, family-oriented crowd. Of course, there was also the time we got the boot 'cause I was standing on top of the Qualude extolling the virtues of horn-beeping during the dismal FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 6, but that's another story.

It's been about five years since I visited a drive-in, and I think the last flick I caught under the stars was the anemic Chuck Norris vehicle DELTA FORCE 2. It may have been on a double-bill with DROP DEAD FRED, but I could be confusing any one of the ultra-odd pairings we saw in the later stages of the Super-130. They eventually started showing the same flicks that were in the multiplexes, and the family audience they so coveted stayed away in droves. However, as long as I live and breathe I'll never forget the Super-130's ultimate drive-in pairing...Gonster and I actually took in Stanley Kubrick's FULL METAL JACKET (depressing, semi-brilliant tale of life during 'Nam) and DISORDERLIES, starring Ralph Bellamy and the Fat Boys! Disjointed at best, psychotic at worst -- we haven't been the same since.

The best part of DISORDERLIES? The fact that they made the thin Fat Boy the "romantic interest" simply because he was "the thin Fat Boy." May the Human Beat Box rest in peace. Final depressing drive-in note: New Jersey, birthplace of yours truly and the drive-in, currently has zero operational drive-ins. Sad.

Got slightly off kilter -- sorta like this travelogue-- when we thought we'd taken a wrong turn on the way to the Falls. My sense of direction leaves something to be desired, and I'm having a dandy of a time just handling the Action Van (it does not have the low-to-the-ground cornering ability of my Probe or the dear, departed Qualude). Kak is my co-pilot, what with God having the week off, and she's doing a fine job. A quick look at the map convinces us that we're in the right, and we finally truck into dreary, rainy Niagara Falls.

Because of the conditions, breakfast campside was impossible. Alright, certainly not impossible, but far more difficult than I was up for, and we decided to eat when we reach the Falls. (We sorta made a pre-trip pact that we wouldn't eat any meals at fast-food joints, which makes roadside eating more difficult than we imagined.) Once into Niagara we opt for Mom's Diner, an inconspicuous establishment fronted in a mini-strip mall. From the outside I pictured a tiny country kitchen. WRONG! Mom's sports a bowling-alley-sized row of diner booths plus a 15-seat counter where we sat out of need, not choice. Ham, cheese, eggs, toast, coffee, etc. stoked the flames for a day of touristy duties.

Today's weather -- cool, windy, rainy, overcast -- is, to put it politely, "dreary." In other words, the perfect day to visit Niagara Falls! Route 62 takes us right into the heart of the Falls, and "let the tourist-gouging commence!" -- it's $4 just to park the Action Van. We pass on the 'Maid of the Mist' boat ride ($7.75 to get wet and wind-whipped under the Falls!) and decide to walk.

The Falls are weird...oddly unimpressive when first encountered. We hit the initial observation deck, which is some distance away, and I remarked "So that's it? That's the big deal?" Once you get to the decks at the site of the American Falls, the sheer massiveness of this giant, cold, throbbing natural bathtub hits you right in the face (literally and figuratively).

I'll be the first to confess that I am NOT a fan of heights, and the combination of a huge drop (180 ft.), furiously rushing waters, bone-crushing rocks, and tourists with video cameras makes me really insecure. Ask my Mom, hell ask Kak...I STILL detest the down escalator, due to some deep-seated, highly-irrational fear. As a kid, I would refuse to down escalate, scouring multi-story department stores for stairs, elevators, a dumb waiter...anything!

By the Many Arms of Vishnu, Just Sell Me a Damn Camera Battery!

Why the hell are all these foreign tourists here? (I'm guessing that "Amerkan" would be the third- or fourth-most popular language on this landing.) We've made this visit because it's a convenient stop on our road trip. What draws someone from another country to this spectacle of water and rock that grows tiresome after a few minutes? Other than seeing the Falls and walking to Canada (more to follow), there ain't much here. Great Adventure offers more bang for your buck, though you're unlikely to get capped by bored street thugs at the Falls. Franky, everything here can be done in a matter of...an hour. Then again, I'm always bemused by the sight of camera-toting tourists in Philly. Sure, it's the "Birthplace of the Nation," but now it's a tourist-trap wanna-be populated by winos, hippies, faux punks, and drunk college students. Go figure.

The pedestrian walkways are great, and lead from the Amerkan side of the Falls to the Canadian. Of course, it costs 25¢ to cross the Rainbow Bride (ugh...images of Michael Jackson dance in my head), and 25¢ to get back. Kak's camera is dead (needs a new battery) and mine has done the ol' 'Pentax K1000 Sprocket-Tear' again. When we get back to the motel I need to turn our bathroom into a mini darkroom in order to save yesterday's photos.

The second gift shop we enter has camera batteries, but Kak ends up butting heads with the Indian clerk who has remarkable customer service skills...

KAK: Do you have 3-volt camera batteries?
CLERK: Yes we do, but you must tell me what kind you want!
KAK: What kinds do you have?
CLERK: I have ALL kinds! You must show me what you need! Is it lithium?!

I amuse myself by looking at the over-priced trinkets, doo-dads, gizmos, and flat-out CRAP that lines the shelves. Salt & pepper shakers, ashtrays, trivets, towels, shot glasses, little ceramic toilets (?!), praying hands...you name it. Kak finally gets her battery at a pricey $11.99. Because of the exchange rate (27%), the shifty-eyed clerk pulls some fast money shuffling that fails to convince either of us. Who cares? We now have a working camera to document the fascinating Canadian sites ahead.

I realize how wrong-headed this idea is when we turn the corner onto Clifton Street. It's like a neon factory exploded on every square inch of this hellish 'burgh. Museums are a dime a dozen (forget the exchange rate) and range from wax (Louis Tussaud's, Famous Criminals) to kitsch (Ripley's, Guinness...unfortunately it's the World Records, not the beer). Further up the street are more haunted houses than an Ocean City boardwalk. Imagine if they extracted every cheesy arcade, crap gift shop, "restaurant," and tourist trap from the Jersey Shore and grafted it onto a north of the border hell hole. It's an overwhelming and horrifying experience...and I'm not exaggerating.

The only across-the-border positive is the inflated sense of self-worth that comes from every buck being valued at $1.27. I'm tempted to find an appliance store and pick up a laser disc player. Unfortunately, I don't know how I'd get it back across the Rainbow Bridge. I know, maybe I could skip and sing Grateful Dead songs and put flowers in the hair of the Customs Officials! Instead, I buy three postcards and I'm pretty sure I get back more money than I give the cashier. She's clearly exasperated at having to explain the exchange rate to bewildered tourists. Luckily, I'm not alone, as Kak is also thrown into a boggle by the ass-kicking power of the dollar. I break into a chant of "USA! USA! USA!" and scare a Japanese businessman unimpressed with my patriotism.

This purchasing power makes me feel like I'm back at Spider Kelly's, the West Philadelphia bar that was co-opted by drunks and punks from my college radio station and punk scene back in 1988-89. I'm not exactly sure who first stumbled upon Spider's, but it quickly became a nightly hangout for some of the more hardened vets at the radio station...mostly Pauly and me. It was basically a joint frequented by a working-class black clientele, featured 25¢ Braü drafts and was manned by a bartender who smoked dope and drank heavily as the evening wore on. This was, how do I say, not good for the club's profits.

Despite the fact that we were "college boys," the folks at Spider's quickly warmed to us. Why not? We brought a brand new group of regulars in and frequently hung out till all hours of the morning talking about Eddie Murphy, plotting to beat Princeton in a chess tournament (too long a story to go into at this time), and doing "Da Butt" with various female patrons. At Spider's the doors may have closed at 2 am, but that didn't mean you had to leave. In fact, leaving after last call was a bit of an insult, and you'd surely miss out on the free drinks and freer drugs that flowed once the doors were locked. Sure, it was a fire hazard. Sure, it was doomed to explode into unsavory violence. But, it sure was fun. Inevitably, much to our collective dismay, Spider Kelly's closed its doors on Bastille Day 1989.

Meanwhile, back in Canada...we thought about the various tourist traps that we could indulge ourselves in. Hell, I dig wax museums, Kak digs wax museums, so Louis Tussaud's Waxworks seemed like a natural fit on the Canadian side of the world. The bastard cousin of the world famous Mdm. Tussaud, Louis' museum is small, unattractive, and dull...like most Canadians!

The quality of the figures also leaves something to be desired, and we're saddled with a smooching couple that continually hovers within our personal space. We walk ahead, they catch up. We hang back, they hover over the exhibit like it's a work of genius. Worst of all, he's reading every damn placard to her. "Hey sweetie, if you took your tongue out of his ear maybe you could read the friggin' sign!"

Tussaud's is L-A-M-E, "lame." Only the exhibit on torture holds any real interest, though the electric chair doesn't work when I flip the switch. It works later, but I don't recall any execution devices that have little skulls mounted on them. I'm beginning to question the realism of the exhibit.

Welcome to the Bio-Rhythm Section...

Sadly, the highlight of the museum comes when we find a working Bio-Rhythm machine in a secluded hallway. 11/29/98 (my thirty-second birthday) looks like a good day, though the "Sex" indicator is disturbingly down. Then again, "Wealth" is pretty erect, so I just might not care.

On the way out, some "Hollywood Stars" are tossed in like an afterthought. Boy George (?!) looks about seven feet tall, Michael Jackson's gloved hand appears to have elephantitis, and Charles Bronson -- to quote Kaki -- "looks like a dirty, old drunk."

We emerge from the museum...you know what, I HATE using that term in reference to what I've just witnessed. The Smithsonian is a museum. The Guggenheim is a museum. Tussaud's is a money-sucking (at 127%, I might add!) time-waster that doesn't feature a single pro hockey player. And they call this Canada.

Frankly, I've never been so happy to return to the United States of America. 25¢ is a very small price to pay for the freedoms we enjoy, though I've never been out of the country before...so this statement rings sort of hollow.

We're off to Mom's for dinner -- the menu looked good, breakfast was excellent, so why not?

As Our Story Continues: Our travelers can't find an open restaurant; is beer sold in NY state on Sunday; outlet malls, thrift stores, and a Bit o' Paris; can you spot the state park in Watkins Glen?