The Maple Leaf

So we left New York City behind after a fantastic five days. Will need to visit again sometime as we only managed a small percentage of the things we wanted to do.

Shortly after 7am we boarded the Amtrak service 63 for Buffalo near Niagara Falls. The train was affectionately nicknamed the Maple Leaf because it's ultimate destination is Toronto in Canada, although we were leaving it just before the Canadian border.

Photographed is the Maple Leaf while we were stopped for a 15 minute rest at Albany station, a couple of hours into the trip. A whole heap of people needing a cigarette break got off, along with me who got off for a photo.

9 hours we were on the train. Somehow, somewhere, the train picked up a 2 hour delay. Originally we were going to disembark at Niagara station, however after a quick check on Google Maps we realised if we disembarked 2 stops earlier at Depew we'd be closer to the car hire depot at the airport and kill a bit of the 2 hour delay.

Picking up the car, our transport for the next 5 weeks, was stress free and painless. Due to them running short of cars, we were upgraded to the next model up. We'll be driving a Ford Focus across the States (photo to follow in the coming days).

Here's where the adventure properly begins!