Business Travel

This past week I had to travel to the Buffalo area for business. I’ve never traveled for work before, so it was a new experience.

It was a 6 1/2 hour drive from the Albany area, and myself and the AAG I was traveling with were assigned a Dodge Durango for the trip.

The thing is a beast.

Photo from autospectator.com

I honestly can’t believe there are people out there that drive this car.  What do you need a car this big for? I think this is the biggest car I’ve ever ridden in in my adult life (a Chevy Surburban my best friend’s family had in middle school, might have been the biggest of all time).  We were so high up over the road, it was difficult to see the smaller cars below when we were switching lanes.

I felt really bad just driving in the car (though I admit it was comfortable, since I was stuck sitting in it for 12+ hours over the two days).  We put about 50 gallons of gas in it over that time.  At about $3.00/gallon, that came out to around $150!! Who wants to spend $75 per fill up? I shudder to think about how much it must have cost owners during the era of $4.00+ gas a few years ago.

The drive out west is mostly flat and long…and boring.  I always like heading into Seneca nation territory though.

 

Photo from catwomanfan.com

The billboard signs are right up on the road, since the usual state laws (obviously) don’t apply, and it makes for more interesting reading. :)

The Seneca were the largest of all the tribes that made of the Five Nations of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) League, which also includes the Oneida, Mohawk, Onondaga, and Cayuga tribes.  A sixth tribe, the Tuscarora, became the 6th Nation later on.  Today, thousands of Seneca live in the Cattargaurus, Allegany, and Tonawanda reservations in Western New York, though historically, they had territory from the Genessee River to Canandaigua Lake.

That night, we ended up in the town of Mayville, a tiny little place with a population of less than 2000 people. It has some cool history though.  I loved the vault that was in front of the court house.

Photo from http://www.hlc.wny.org/

Today, there’s no vines covering the vault, and it stands alone in the open area in front of the town buildings. There’s a plaque on it that reads:

Photo taken by Randall Burt (rootsweb.ancestry.com)

That’s pretty cool.

Mayville is also home to the Chautauqua Institution, which I found out is not an old mental hospital, but a center of arts that brings thousands of tourists to the area for 9 weeks every summer.  Of course, it was closed while we were there.

On the way out of town, heading back towards Albany,we stopped by Webb’s Candies to try their Goat Milk fudge.

It was really good! The goat milk gave it a creamier, slightly tangy flavor that I really enjoyed. And I loved finding something local to the area to enjoy once we had left.

I may have try making some myself sometime!