20 August 2026

Union Station in downtown Utica, New York is a Beaux-Arts beauty:  15,000 square feet of rusticated granite and buff brick with a 47-foot vaulted ceiling supported by 34 marble columns.  The station’s construction necessitated rerouting the nearby Mohawk River, a grand gesture.  Twelve elegant benches heated by steam pipes and vents incorporated into their structure still serve the public, as does an in-station barber shop:  one of the few left in this country.

When I visited it around 5 pm on an overcast Sunday night, 16 August, I found it nearly deserted; a single Amtrak train called as I walked about, snapping photos on my cell.  I was alone as I left by the south exit:  the empty street and brick buildings looked like a set from The Sting, the scene when the Robert Redford character is targeted by the woman he’d spent the night with.  Creepy.

And creepier still when I was approached by a lone Black man with a tale of just passing through looking for money to feed a grandson who was nowhere in sight.  He was not aggressive or deliberately threatening; I sympathized, told him I was a tourist myself and had no cash on me (a lie), wished him luck, and walked away, hoping someone else would appear.  No one did— except the 30-some passengers on the other side of the tracks separated from me by a fence but visible by the time I got to the north side of the building where I could see my car parked at some distance in the visitor lot.  It crossed my mind to wonder if anyone would see/hear/help me if I were suddenly attacked.  But no one had followed me, and I returned unscathed to my Best Western, got a chicken sandwich from Wendy’s across the street, and ate it while watching a double feature of Jaws 2 followed by the original, magnificent Jaws (poor Roy Scheider looked so miserable roped into that wretched sequel) interrupted by at least 16 Burger King chicken sandwich commercials.  How hath the mighty fallen.

That same morning after my fifth and final breakfast at Harbour House in Niagara-on-the-Lake (an appealingly abundant buffet of treats, though I opted each morning for a poppy seed bagel with lox and a schmear) I had strolled one last time to the charming Queen’s Royal Park with its gazebo, lakeside path, and view of Toronto’s skyline across Lake Ontario.

I had, for the third time in my visit, apologized to a Canadian, a fellow guest at our boutique hotel parked next to me in the garage, regretting my country’s abominable treatment of our good neighbor.  She was gracious enough to reply, “Well, we’ve got our problems, too.”  And then I’d driven one more time along the lovely Niagara Parkway that Churchill once described as the prettiest Sunday drive in the world, passed the Canadian border crossing, and run the no man’s land gauntlet to the U.S. port of entry.  The border guard there was a woman with a showy, snowy white manicure who asked my country of origin as she looked at my passport, asked if I had anything to declare (I didn’t—except that I was ashamed of my country, a sentiment I left unspoken), and waved me through with a “Welcome back, Hon.”  Easy-peasy.  I drove on, westward past legions of metal transmission towers with their high-tension power lines industrializing Niagara Falls, then a huge garbage mountain (monument to excess), followed by the rusty, abandoned amusement park Ferris wheel along I-190.   The rain came as I entered the green Mohawk Valley:  Leatherstocking country under grey skies, a verdant green breast of the New World left largely unsullied save for the considerable traffic and distantly spaced rest stops along the New York Thruway.

Eight days earlier I’d left home, and now relieved of the anxiety I’ve discovered is an aspect of solo senior traveling (Will I be able to find what I’m looking for without relying on gps I can’t use without incurring international roaming charges?  Will I be able to figure out everything I need to about a 2025 still-new-to-me VW GTI setup?  Can I keep track of my passport in a purse with too many compartments?) I had plenty of time to ponder events of the past week, layered atop strata of previous experience.  I’d first driven this route in 2015 en route to Niagara Falls and the almost impossibly twee Niagara-on-the-Lake for the Shaw Festival to celebrate our 20^th anniversary in a campy/classy way.

At the time there was a fresh cement repair of the sidewalk outside Harbour House into which I’d inscribed a small heart.  It was still there when we returned a couple years later, and again when I’d returned alone following my husband’s passing in the early summer of 2019; I’d contributed the theatre tickets he couldn’t use to the Festival.  And this time, when I went to see if that little heart remained, I went directly to where it should be (a kind of muscle memory?), and lo, there it was:  indiscernible to anyone else I’m sure, but present.

And so it was the whole trip:  nearly every new encounter inspired memories of previous experiences, a kind of nostalgic pousse-café.  That layered liqueur drink is in reality pretty  dangerous, violating as it does the “never mix, never worry” rule about alcohol:  up to seven layers of different sweet cordials would spell disaster for me were I to indulge.

But I found I could drink this experiential pousse-café composed of chronological strata and, in the words of Joni Mitchell, “still be on my feet.”  Pleasantly.  Even when unexpected tears arose on crossing back into New Hampshire, recalling the first time I’d driven north from Kentucky to spend my sabbatical with my then still new Love—such delicious anticipation!—and I found myself irrationally hoping that in some Twilight Zone scenario I would find David waiting to greet me again—even then, I was still on my feet.  Or my backside:  it’s a 5-hour schlep from Utica back to Madbury, wearing on the bum however comfortable the seat.

And so worth the trip:  1100+ miles; 24 hours in Buffalo with Martha, my friend of longest duration; architectural monuments to the Gilded Age inviting comparison with what we and the billionaire class are up to now; a chance to made personal amends to the Canadian neighbors we have sore offended; wonderful food and wine from the fecund vineyards around Niagara; plus a for me always tonic reminder of that uniquely theatrical power, purposeful assembly engineered by skilled professionals working in concert to unify and move a group of otherwise unrelated individuals to a common understanding.  Yes, please:  more of that.

Details upcoming, Dear Reader.  It IS good to be home, even if I DID manage to startle the doe surprised to see me back in residence.