We drove miles and miles over the New York Thruway. The unending fields and rows of corn were interspersed with golf courses, glimpes of deer in fields, and peeks into broken down upstate towns. When we finally exited the Thruway, after 270 miles, we drove toward Niagara Falls. The sides of the road, Robert Moses Expressway, were lined with chemical plants like Olin and Dupont, and overhead, rows and rows of high tension wires added a sinister look. There was a grain elevator, owned by Nabisco, and shuttered factories, with old crumbling smokestacks.

We are here to meet about tourism, but this had been a ghastly introduction to this region. You would think that they would want to route the road to avoid where toxic chemicals and the remains of superfund clean-up sites are visible, but we had to pass all of this to get here. Ugh.

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