Niagara Falls via drive-by shooting. I opted not to pay $15 to park..... 

The falls have a great pedestrian promenade..... 

View of Niagara Falls from the Rainbow Bridge to the U.S. 

Leaving Canada via the Rainbow Bridge. 

I stopped for the night at a basic Best Western off the main hotel strip. Even though it was a basic hotel, my room had a gas fireplace..... 

....and heart-shaped, mirror-walled jacuzzi tub. 

This is holiday valley, western New York. It's a really neat little town and a family winter ski area. I wonder if they manufacture their own snow? Since it's been in the 60s and 70s up here recently, I find it hard to believe that snow from the last real snowfall (December?) would be left on the slopes..... 

Pennsylvania country barnside advertising...... 

This was the most fun event of my rapid-road-trip weekend: I found the optimal window configuaration that would result in my hair being sucked out of the sunroof! I'm posting this even at the risk of it being an otherwise really bad self-portrait. 

Spring is bringing forth a few more surprises in the yard, as it does. One of them is patches of mushrooms in the back yard. I'll have to look these up to see if they're edible. 

In a back corner of the yard, I noticed a familiar herb. It's spearmint! 

This is the patch of ground behind the neighbor's garage that backs up against the east side of my back yard. It's about 4 feet by 20 feet. I hoed it all up a few weeks ago, and noticed some baby potato and carrot plants. Maybe this was a vegetable patch in the past, but with all the rabbit activity in the yard, I'm not sure how much it really yeilded. So, when I hoed it up, I sprinkled three bagfulls of wildflower seeds in and watered them down. Right now I'm calling this my experimental patch, and will wait to see what comes up. There are a few sprouts here and there, but today has been super windy, so there is a lot of debris over the area. Regarding the bags of wildflower seeds - each was rated for NW Ohio, so they should be suited to grow here. And each bag contained approximately 10,000 seeds. We'll wait to see what the experimental patch of 30,000 wildflower seeds yields, if anything. I have low expectations. 

This is the Weeping Cherry tree. It was just buds yesterday - they exploded open today. 

...and a detail shot of the Weeping Cherry tree. 

These are some of the most interesting little wildflowers - they're actually a mint-green color. I've only seen green flowers during St. Patrick's day, after being dyed.