Back from Upstate

One foot in the USA, one in Canada.

As my friend Tom says, "...and by upstate, I MEAN upstate...you were pretty far up there!"

The post marks the border.

I was traveling on business last week and went to a couple of small towns on the NY/Canada border.  The business purpose of the trip was to visit a couple of small facilities in my client's portfolio so we could get to work on planning for the management of these and others.  The field work is a favorite part of my job - it's what took me to Yosemite and Japan during the last few years, so this was right up there in the category of fun work.


I've got two posts in store, counting this morning's, and then I will be offline a few days, since I am traveling again this week - back to Dallas, but I won't be in the neighborhood of the "dead Whataburger" this time - a shame.


One of the highlights this trip was the fact that I was literally on the border during the facility visits.  I've got a couple of photos here at one of the markers.  I think it's obligatory to take the one of your feet straddling the line, and then, I realize now I may technically be in Canada in the other photo there next to the marker.

Country view from the hotel.

We flew into Syracuse - there were two teams that went up to visit a total of five facilities, so we convened there.  That also meant my colleague and I would need to drive about four hours to get to our destination near Malone, NY.


It's beautiful farm country up there - here's a view from my hotel room the first day.  That's a shorn feed corn field in the foreground, and you may just be able to see Canada in the distance, I think about 6 miles away from this point.


This is also the countryside near Lake Placid.   Winter was long gone by last week, although the overnight temperatures were still getting down to the low 30's.


Along the way we found that we were getting pretty deep into some Amish farming communities.  We passed horsedrawn carts along the highway, where an extra lane has been provided for them.  Then we also passed a couple of fields being worked by plow horse teams.  I would have liked to have stopped for a photo of those, but our schedule didn't permit.

"Welcome to New York" - but also by the way,
Welcome to the USA.

Final shot here - the places I visited all were at border crossing points, so it was pretty cool to check the signage out.  Here's a "Welcome to New York" sign - one thing I found ironic was that there was no "Welcome to the USA" sign up here.  


It may be obvious that's where you've arrived, but there on the other side, there were welcome signs and flags flying high, so I have to wonder why we don't have something like that.


I mean, we are all proud of our country, aren't we?