I had hoped to save visiting upstate NY for snow season so we could check out a new ski mountain in conjunction with a college trip but an open house opportunity presented itself so we took advantage of it. It was going to be a busy 30 hours with a lot of driving but we made the best of it and took off on a Friday afternoon, destination Syracuse NY.
Checked a few options on Google Maps but elected to take a route i'd known from years ago, we headed west on 84 and north on 17. I hate it when i want to take a different route than the GPS, the damn thing yells at me to turn around or take a different exit.
On the way up we stopped at the famous Rosco Dinner. It surely is famous, says so right on the sign.
We ended getting to Syracuse around 9:00 PM. Meg was happy, the hotel pool was still open so she and Amy headed down for dip while Jake and I hung out in the hotel room. Our hotel was about 10 minutes from Syracuse University which meant we could plan on sleeping late and grabbing breakfast at the hotel before heading over.
Alarm clock goes off as planned but that was the end of our plans going as expected. Amy and Jake took showers and just as I was about to step in myself the hotel fire alarm went off. We waited a minute or two hoping it would turn off but it didn't. We grabbed coats and headed down to the parking lot. We ended up waiting outside for about 20 minutes before they let us back in. So now our schedule was off a bit. Amy, Meg and Jake went directly to breakfast while I ran back up stairs to shower. I joined them just as they finished up so i grabbed a quick bite (the food sucked by the way, free buffet breakfast isn't all it's cracked up to be) and we headed back to the room to grab our stuff and check out.
We loaded the stuff in the car and took off for the school. I noticed a tire pressure light was on for the left front tire so i pulled over and checked it. Seemed fine so we drove a bit more and stopped at a gas station where i put some air in. Light stayed on but everything seemed fine so we kept going.
We arrived at the school with time to spare so we parked and headed to the adminssions building where we waited for the tour to start. We walked around the campus but didn't go in many buildings. Of the few tours we've done the guides at Syracuse were a little below average, at least the ones we had. Nice kids but I don't think they sold the school well.
I'd been to Syracuse once before, many years ago, to see a Van Halen concert. I vaguely remember the concert but had no recollection of the school itself. The campus was nice but a little too close to the city for my liking. One of our guides, a guy in is junior year, told the story of walking back to his dorm from the library and clutching 2 pencils in his hands just in case he got jumped.. Not really a good story to tell prospective students and their parents. I applaud his honesty and the point he was trying to make was how they had good campus security in that anybody who wanted an escort could get one but still odd story to tell. The bench above was a landmark pointed out on the tour, called the kissing bench. something about kissing the one you love and getting married or something like that. One parent freaked when they mentioned all the snow Syracuse gets (got to love lake effect snow!). As we walked up a hill they told us during the height of winter that the snow banks would be 9 feet tall. I liked that.. nobody else in our group did though.
We wrapped up the tour and headed off to our next destination, Ithaca College. Back in the car i figured the tire pressure light would be off after having time to reset but that was not the case. The indicator said left front tire pressure was low, 23 psi (30 is norm) so i got out and looked at it again, seemed fine so we did the hour-ish drive down Ithaca. It was a beautiful ride, as we came in through Cornell, you could see Ithaca across the way on the other hill. Amy really liked the town, said it reminded her of Fairfield CT (it didn't for me).
The Ithaca campus was gorgeous (there is a saying, Ithaca is Gorges, a play on the beauty and quantity of gorges in the area).
It was an open house and the school did a great job, very organized and well presented. We took the tour of the communications school where Jake's current interest in media lies. We got to see a lot of behind the scenes stuff. All the campus TV and radio productions are student run, giving the kids great opportunity to get hands on experience.
After the luncheon Jake and I did one final campus guided tour while Amy and Meg took a break. We got to walk through a bunch of the school buildings. This picture grabbed Meg's attention, she was really impressed with the gymnastics setup.
We all agreed that Ithaca was a great campus and the school + kids we met were fantastic. I wouldn't be surprised if Ithaca was one of the finalists on Jake's list.
We wrapped up around 3:00 and headed home. Again the tire pressure light was warning of a problem with the left front tire but it seemed fine. We drove out of Ithaca and i decided to check the pressure myself so we stopped at a gas station and purchased a pressure gauge. Checked left front - 35 psi! over inflated (slightly) from putting air in earlier that day.. i scratched my head, couldn't figure out why the light was signaling a problem. So for the fun of it i checked right front, 32 psi. right rear - 32 psi and finally left rear - 21 psi! Oh great. the indicator light was telling me the wrong info.. i pulled up to the air pump and filled the tire. as i did that i took a quick look and what did i see? i nail in the tread, right along the sidewall. :-(
I was not liking the idea of a long lonely ride back down rt17 in the dark with a potential tire problem and the spare wasn't going to last the 200 miles we needed to go so we started looking for a tire repair shop. We round one outside Binghamton NY. We dropped off the car at a Firestone and ran to Dunkin Donuts while they did the repair job. When we got back the manager informed me they couldn't fix the tire due to the location of the nail. Shockingly he didn't even have a tire to sell me, he just sent me on my way. We found another shop down the road, they were closing but took pity on me and check it out. the mechanic said he could fix it and we were back on the road 30 minutes later. The manager at the 2nd shop told me that when tires are rotated they often forget to reset the location on the car's computer which is why it was telling me the wrong tire location.
We stopped at the Roscoe Diner again for dinner and then made our way home. It was a long day, especially the last part with the tire crap but it was a fun trip.
Now we just need to start looking at less expensive schools!
No comments:
Post a Comment