Day Nineteen

Cabbie arrived promptly before 7am and was waiting for us as we schlepped all our luggage out to the motel lobby.  We loaded up and set off, wondering if there would be any extra scrutiny at the border given what had happened yesterday.  But if there was we didn’t notice it and we were waved on after a few questions about our intentions, (WHY are you going to Dayton ????) and a quick check of the boot to make sure we weren’t doing any human trafficking, which we weren’t.  Nice cab driver, and he told us some interesting stories about taking people across the border, people that had tried to do it without passports, Cubans defecting to America, and his own slip ups where he had mixed up his passport with his wife’s by mistake and didn’t realise until he went to present it at the border.  He also had some interesting local knowledge, said Buffalo had been a city of 400,000 people in the past but had lost a lot of manufacturing jobs many years ago.  It’s now a city of just over 200,000 people, and remained unaffected by the last Global Financial Crisis as the city had already been decimated years previously. 

We were dropped right by the Avis counter and did the necessary paperwork, agreeing to upgade to an SUV for an extra 10 bucks a day.  We were on our way by about 8.30am from Buffalo, in a very nice Ford Escape SUV.  We’re glad we went for the upgrade, it is a very smooth ride, and we have plenty of room for our luggage in the boot.  We’ve already refilled a 7/8^th empty tank for $36, so it seems quite economical.  I had to specify an amount to pre-pay before we can begin filling, so I guessed a hundred bucks, based on NZ prices and the fact that it’s about 3 times the size of the Mini, so was very pleasantly surprised that I got refunded more than I paid !  Just an aside on the petrol pumps while I think of it, most of them are pre-pay but you need to swipe a credit card, which is usually no problem, but then you have to put in a zip code, and we don’t have a valid one, so it always gets declined at this point.  So it’s a complete pain, you have to go into the gas station and swipe and sign.  Most of the pos terminals are signature based here, and most of the mag stripe only, very few are chip capable, and even fewer ask you for your PIN.  We’ve tried putting in a valid US zip code (belonging to a mate who lives here) and that doesn’t work, and we tried our NZ post code in case it was matching the cardholder address with the code we entered, but neither of those options worked.  Sigh.

We had a very pleasant and uneventful drive down to Dayton.  Dora was right on the money in terms of directing us to our address, and we even managed to motorway exits for food and coffee/wee stops without getting horribly lost.  Lots of roadworks though, lanes closed and reduced speed, although that seemed to be ignored by everyone except us.  They consistently drive 10 mph over whatever the limit is, and even if we do the same and follow the speed-limit-plus-10 rule, we are still passed by people going significantly faster than us.  Lots of State Troopers on patrol too, sitting parked in between the two highways (one road of at least two lanes often 4 going one way, plus a separate highway the same size going the opposite direction with a wide median strip in between) and we saw probably half a dozen cars that had been pulled over, flashing lights, the works.  The right hand side of the road driving is pretty easy on the Interstates, it’s when you get off and deal with the smaller roads and laneways that you need to keep your wits about you and remember where you need to be.

We arrived in Dayton earlier than expected at around 3.30pm, and J has walked across to the Museum for a recce, they are open until 5 tonight and at 9am tomorrow.  As we approached the Air Force base, we saw a C-17 doing circuits, and since J’s been over at the museum I’ve heard a couple of noisy things taking off.  I’m sure he will be a happy camper J