Grand Island

Thanks for all the well wishes for the holiday. I spent the first few days with my family at a hotel in Grand Island, which is about 10 miles from Niagara Falls. It was actually really nice. Unfortunately I've eaten enough food to cover my allotted calories until September! (Which is when the next set of major holidays start.) It was seriously non stop eating.

I took a few pictures there. Most of the picture opportunities came over the holiday itself, when I'm not able to take pictures. Seeing a room with a few hundred people having a seder is pretty amazing. To some people this is normal, but it was my first time in a hotel for the holidays, and it was quite interesting.


Just after sunrise from my hotal room


Watermelon art. This was left over from the holday. The watermelon on the right had these flowers carved out of them that made this even more impressive.


This "tea room" was open almost 24 hours. All part of the problem...
(For the record all those cake and cookies are made with potato starch and not flour!)


Another one of my "watch" pictures. Here's everybody stuffing their faces just before 1:00 - in the morning!!!

Just so you don't think I was a total sloth, I did get in some exercise. Saturday night I hit the pool there. It was kind of funny shaped, and the lanes were set up in lenghts of 15 yards. I swam 40 lengths, or 600 yards, but I found it pretty tough. I've been slacking on the swimming lately. The beeper thing is part of it. But the other thing is that it's just plain tough, and I'm not that into it. Anyway, I had wanted to run the next morning, so I thought a swim would be good.

Sunday morning, I got up for the 6:00 prayer services so I could get out for an early run. Total attendance at those services: 1. (Some people showed up around 6:30 or so.) I wanted to go to Niagara Falls later, so I had to head out early. By 7:15 I was on the road.

I ran the first part of the run along the river road, and it was pretty nice. I had mapped out a course to the falls, but decided it was too far, and I wasn't sure I'd get a ride back. So I instead planned for a loop back to the hotel. I didn't measure it, but looking at the little map in my hotel room, it looked about 4 miles. I figured I'd do it twice.

Well at 4 miles I hadn't even got to the turning point yet. I turned at the next road, and headed back to the hotel using the city streets. It's not much of a city, and there were pretty wide shoulders on the road. My achilles were really tight almost the entire time, and I stopped to stretch several times along the way. (On a positive note, my shins bothered me a little in the beginning, but once the achilles started up I totally forgot about them!) Anyway, by the time I got back to the hotel, I had run about 9.3 miles. Wow. It's a good thing I brought that water bottle!

As an aside, I've recently been trying to push myself to be ready for the Broad Street Run in a few weeks. Even though I was able to get in the miles on Sunday, I don't think I'm ready to run a 10 mile race. I took a lot of breaks here, and really went nice and slow. I don't see the point of travelling to Philadelphia for a race, and then to run it like a slow training run. (Sorry, ShoreTurtle.)




That's Niagara Falls in the top left of the big picture.

In the afternoon I went with my brother and my mom to Niagara Falls. I'd seen it before, but not in quite a few years. It's really amazing how powerful the falls are. This was the first time I went on the Maid of the Mist, and it was really amazing. You really get an incredible perspective on the power of the falls.







VIDEO: Niagara Falls from observation deck. American Falls in foreground, Horseshoe Falls in the distance.

VIDEO: At the edge of Horseshoe Falls.

VIDEO: Panoramic view of Horseshoe Falls from the Maid of the Mist.

I got back Sunday night, exhausted. Although I've managed not to starve, I haven't been eating at the same pace. It's possible that has something to do with what my fridge looks like after cleaning it for Passover:


Pretty sad, I know. But I was only home for a couple of days, and as it was, I had too much stuff.

Finally, my pictures from last Sunday's race in Central Park finally made it online. Most of them aren't great, but here's one from the finish line. I cropped it a little so that finishing time isn't in the picture anymore!



That's about it for now. I've got another 2 days of the holiday left, which I'll be spending with some friends in Long Island. I think it will be fun, but I should be ready to get back to normal life after that. (And normal food.)