Day 23:Back in the USA. Beamsville, ON to Geneva, NY-145 miles

We started out from Beamsville, Ontario Canada where we spent the night. Our destination was Geneva, NY to see our buddy, Jonathan Foster play his tunes at the Twisted Rail Brewing venue. 

Our Newark Brewing camping spot was nice, but some traffic. We got going after breakfast. On the way I like to catch up on news, but in Canada, they restrict the news on Facebook. Even our home town news, the News Review or Eugene TV station, KVAL. But why PBS? I don't know if I like that. I just had to go to google to find the news that way. 

One thing those of us from Oregon rarely deal with is toll roads. Paying for the use of roads is new to us. The signs pop up quickly and the information on the signs is full of acronyms and jargon for the specific area. When we went through Indiana and Michigan, and now New York, we went on toll roads but were confused as to what we were supposed to do. I am sure that after you have done it a few times, it is seamless. But for those of us just visiting the lovely area, it is a bit confusing. 

I remember paying tolls at bridges in the SF Bay Area and having to stop and actually give money to a real person so I can understand that this toll booth free system of photographing license plates is a lot less time consuming. I think it also benefits wealthier people because poorer people will opt to find other routes. On the other hand, it does force wealthier people to pay for the service and contribute more toward the construction and maintenance of the roads. With the increase in the number of electric vehicles, the alternative forms of paying for roads such as gas tax, are less effective at recouping the costs. Owning a vehicle is expensive. From the time you buy it, there are fees and taxes. Yearly registration and licensing are a regular cost and then there is gas taxes that contribute to the variation in regional gas prices. It is still one of the most amazing ways to travel. If someone has made something amazing, they should get paid if we use it as long as we haven't already paid. I went to Indiana's toll payment website and had trouble from the get go. I had no idea what the toll road name was, they list them by street exits. So I called the number and gave our license number and was told we owe nothing. So toll roads must be free for Oregonians. How special.

Travelling from Canada to New York requires crossing a bridge. We missed a couple of bridges and ended up crossing at Buffalo, NY. There was a wait at the border crossing and slowly we moved up. Apparently, Kasey moved too far up and missed the sign that said to "wait here." As a consequence, the automatic scanning for radiation had to be conducted manually by a nice young man from Walla Walla, WA. He asked a lot of questions. I suppose that if we had mispronounced Oregon to Orygone, we would have been detained longer. Anyway, we were approved for re-entry to the US.  

We arrived at our Harvest Host, Sweet Acres Creamery, at about 2pm, set up, took the boys out for a walk, fed them and relaxed a while. We went to town to find a place to cool them off in Seneca Lake. We found a nice place for them to swim and they were happy. The weather was perfect.

We then went to brewery where Jonathan was going to play. It is a converted theater and they retained some of the original interior.

Jonathon is from New York so there were other groupies there to listen to his music. His college friend Lacy and her husband, Scott and Tom and sis, family friends from before Jonathan was born. We had a great time, even though there was a boisterous group there celebrating an engagement. It was difficult to hear Jonathon at times and I don't know how he stays focused, but he kept on singing through the multitude of conversations. It was fun making new friends through our connection with Jonathon. See you on the west coast Jonathan!