no room at the inn

Wrapping up the Finger Lakes trip


Donna Carla Barb and me at the George Eastman Mansion

Donna Carla and I checked out of our hotel on Saturday morning and went to Barb's beautiful house in Webster. Stepping into Barb's house is like stepping into the pages of House Beautiful magazine. The lady has a knack for decorating. Barb offered to drive us around to give me a break from driving and because she knows Rochester better than I do so I took her up on it.

First we toured the George Eastman Mansion. I've toured a number of mansions and I have to say that this is one of the most impressive. George, you know, invented the Kodak camera so everyone (not just professionals) could take photographs. He was an extremely wealthy and generous man. There was also a Norman Rockwell exhibit at the mansion. It was fascinating to see how Norman took tons of photographs of his neighbors and friends and then used bits and pieces (a face here, a hand there) to paint and illustrate his pictures.



sisters Donna and Carla at lunch

We had lunch at a sidewalk cafe.


my grilled shrimp salad

Then we toured the Susan B Anthony house. Susan was quite a lady and I really appreciate all the hard work she did to ensure equal rights for everyone. One of the interesting things about this tour was the passion displayed by our tour guide. She could go on and on about Susan and she did. But it was all interesting and at the end of the tour when she told us about Susan's death, she got all choked up and her eyes teared.

Then Barb drove us up to Lake Ontario and we got out and walked onto the pier. We watched about a dozen swans swimming and listened to the calm lap of the waves.
We drove back to Barb's house after. Thank you Barb for driving. It was such a fun day.

Next I drove Donna and Carla to my son Jay's house. We took a little tour of the house and were entertained by the antics of Tess, his girl cat. Brody, his boy cat, did not make an appearance. We all went to Ruby Tuesday for dinner.

Then Donna, Carla and I drove back to Buffalo. I had made reservations at a Quality Inn by the airport. It was late when we checked in....around 10:30. These rooms were small and not so very nice. Carla called Donna and I into her room and asked us to check out the shower nozzle. It didn't have a spray thing on it. She went to the desk to inquire about getting it fixed or to change rooms. While she was gone Donna picked up the remote to turn on our TV. It didn't come on. Soon some young kid came in to fix the shower and brought us a new remote. It didn't work either. He set to work on the shower while we sat around waiting. We were tired and wanted to go to bed. Finally he was finished. Carla went into her bathroom and heard a loud noise. The whole shower head had popped about a foot out of the wall.

We marched to the desk and said we didn't want to stay there so convincingly that they didn't charge us for the rooms and we walked out.

Now to get a room. Three hotels by the airport were completely booked due to flights being cancelled due to bad weather in the Midwest. They told us that we probably wouldn't find anything in the area. So we went into my village to find that two hotels there were full also. I drove over to the group of hotels by UB.
Donna ran in to check on rooms. I saw her smile at the desk clerk. Success!! The desk clerk was taking a room cancellation over the phone while Donna was waiting to be waited on. The desk clerk told her it was her lucky day and she should buy a lottery ticket.

This room was spacious and nice. I was going to go home to sleep but after a bottle of wine the girls convinced me to stay the night.

Sunday we had breakfast at Milos by my house and drove around the village a bit. Then I drove the girls to the airport. I had a wonderful time with all my friends....Donna, Carla and Barb.