Day 2 (Sat June 12) to Day 7 (Thurs June 17)

Number of conversations with bikers re Duke and his vintage: 5 (and about 10 other chats with men at petrol stations, car parking lots etc etc)
Number of mighty duck V formations (performed by geese) witnessed: 1
Number of hours the Duke was driven by Stacey: 2.5
Number of snake sightings: 1

Saratoga Springs, NY to Burlington, VT:
- woke-up to a very rainy day, which helped us assess the effectiveness of the Duke's weather seals. Happy to report, 98.5% of water stayed out of the car, which is very satisfactory.
- took advantage of our Roadfood book for our lunch stop in Glens Falls, NY, where we tried out New Way Lunch, who are famous for their mini hot dog served with mustard, onion and beef sauce, and for only $1.35 a dog, it was very reasonable and tasty to boot!

Burlington, VT:
- beautiful, lush, green, college town on Lake Champlain.
- went for a 20 mile bike ride on the edge of the lake (you can look it up if you're interested, it's called the Waterway Bike Tour or something like that), then we recovered with a beer and some lunch while watching the Aus vs Germany World Cup game.... We sneaked out at half time (thankfully - it was a tough game to watch) and headed for the Ben and Jerry's factory. We paid our $3ea and went on the tour (pretty lame really, but didn't break the bank) and then had a couple small ice creams for our trouble. We visited the Flavour Graveyard which was deeply emotional, then pulled ourselves together to head back to our motel.
- shared a bowl of noodle soup for dinner from this fabulous little Vietnamese place we found around the corner from our motel - full of veggies and super tasty, we actually ate there on both nights we were in Burlington!

Burlington, VT to Seneca Falls, NY:
- to get to our next destination, we thought we'd try out Duke's sea legs, so we caught the ferry from Charlotte, VT across Lake Champlain to Essex, NY. Tim photographically captured some great moments in ornithological history while on the ferry (see flying v mention, above).
- stopped for lunch in chestertown and shared our first road trip pie! It was caramel apple and pecan pie served a la mode (that means with ice cream) and it was delicious! I would love to know how to make pastry like that... (if only I was patient enough).
- stayed at fairly crappy Microtel lodging in Seneca, and we got a Smoking Room which wasn't too bad at the time (kinda smelled like "nanna's house" or old school family vacations), but it was pretty awful a couple days later when we realized our clothes stank from it.
- had dinner at a crappy Chinese buffet on the other side of the highway (which happened to be one of those strip mall Chinese restaurants), but it filled the hole for not a whole lotta money. All part of the "experience".

Seneca Falls, NY:
- did a short hike to start wearing in our new boots, and took along a picnic which we enjoyed on a small patch of grass next to an old mill and a waterfall - how civilized of us.
- went for a drive around Seneca Lake and admired the beautiful views across some wineries out onto the lake; stopped off in a lakeside park for a rest and a read; picked up a quart of strawberries from a roadside farmer's stall ($4 = bargain!) then headed back to the microtel.
- on our last night in Seneca Falls we lived it up old school style and went to the drive-in movies (it was just like out of Grease, minus Danny and Sandy). We saw Robin Hood (the new one with Cate Blanchett and Russell Crowe - critics say "not bad"). We attempted to watch the movie topless (i.e., with the roof off) but were overrun by bugs, and after the sun went down, the spectacle the fireflies put on was rather distracting! While there was a Refreshment stand there, we packed our own BBQ chicken and some wraps for our pre-movie dinner, and shared a 24oz can of beer using our paper Microtel cups (classy). For dessert we finished off our strawberries and cleaned up the remains of a small bag of Haigh's speckles that we were smart enough to bring on the road!

Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada:
- took advantage of our first Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives recommendation on our way from Seneca Falls to Niagara Falls - it was called Grover's (just outside Buffalo), and it was sensational. We shared a burger (spiced with Cajun seasoning) with blue cheese and all the trimmings (tomato, lettuce etc) and a small serve of buffalo wings (medium was spicy enough for us!) and then rolled out of there to be on our way to Niagara. Note for non-american readers: Buffalo (the city where we were at this time) is the home of "buffalo wings", meaning they were super-authentic!
- arrived Niagara around 3pm to beautiful weather, so we took advantage of this by heading straight down to check out the view - whoa! We headed for the Maid in the Mist tour which was the definite highlight as it was incredible to see the Falls so close, and we even got a freshwater bath when the boat took us up close into the Niagara Falls (the ponchos do nothing!)
- not much else to do in Niagara (unless you're into Ripley's or Guinness World Records or Haunted Houses) so we ended-up at Hard Rock for a few Captain Morgan's Spiced and Beers, washed down with some pizza at Boston Pizza, then a DQ Blizzard back at the room.
- went to see the Falls at night, which was nothing spectacular, definitely not necessary to do while there.
- only stayed one night in Niagara, so pre-checkout we had an administrative morning of booking accommodation for the next town (Puxsatawney, PA - on our way to Hersheyville!), and worked out in the fitness centre, which had a view of the Falls (how inspirational, except that the soccer was on and kind of distracting) followed by a quick dip in the pool.

Now, a note to you - our dedicated reader - is there anything else you guys want to hear about from us? And a more specific question we would like help with as we prepare for a few weeks of driving across middle America... Does anyone know what we should do in the event of seeing a tornado as we're driving across the middle of nowhere?