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“I’m convinced that the Great Lakes region will be at the center of an internally-focused North American economy when the hallucination of oil-powered globalism dissolves. Places like Buffalo, Cleveland, and Detroit will have a new life, but not at the scale of the twentieth century.” – James Howard Kunstler
I’m in the Buffalo area for work this week! We’re up here, in the cold, trying to fly a Gulfstream G-III over Lake Ontario. It hasn’t been all that successful, but its sure been an adventure.
I usually stay through the weekend when we have long events like this, and this week was no different. The rest of my coworkers ditched me (probably because they wanted to see their family, who does that?! Psh… JK, I would if I lived closer to home haha) so in the spirit of fall, I drove around to some sweet places in Western New York and celebrated the Halloween Season all by myself.
Stop #1 was the Great Pumpkin Farm in Clarence, NY. Right off the main street headed east out of the downtown area, it’s hard to miss ( it’s got a LOT of pumpkins). Its set up like a carnival for fall, and if it wasn’t raining, I’m sure it would’ve been a fantastic time. They had a zombie paintball train, a haunted corn maze, a magic show, rides, and vendors from the area. It looked like a great place to spend a Friday or Saturday night with friends and/or family.
These guys took a lot of time to make ilthis a great fall pitstop in Western NY. The artwork was amazing, and they stuck to the theme quite nicely.
The Great Pumpkin Farm bar is named the Witch’s Brew. How cool is that?! There was 2 locations, 1 in the main barn, and 1 in the middle of the vendors staging area.
The best part: all the specialty drinks are cleverly named for Halloween! My personal favorite was the pumpkin ale, since it’s at the Great Pumpkin Farm (was there really any other option? I mean, it’s a PUMPKIN farm!).
I wandered around for a bit, bought some hot apple cider and a pumpkin donut (for obvious reasons) and then headed on my merry way to Black Willow Winery, and Blackbird Cider Works up on Lake Ontario. Both were great, especially the mead at the winery, and the bourbon barrel aged cider at Blackbird. I’m usually not a fan of wines not from California (I’ve been spo9led for the last 3 years) but Black Willow was worth the stop! They have a lovely Cabernet Franc and as previously mentioned, their mead (honey wine) is delicious. Rivalled my favorites from AZ.
Blackbird was a hoot. 3 buses showed up, all yielding 10-20 people in costumes. It was full of the halloween spirit, and the Evil Queen did me proud by offering up “poison apples” to other patrons. (Get it?! Poison apples at a cidery?!?! It was EPIC!!)
So that leads us into Monday, dear readers, where I’m still in Niagara falls, flying G-IIIs and avoiding rain (which isn’t possible, since its predicted through Friday 😭).
Happy Halloween! ☠
Geek Havok 