Since my parents were visiting from Spain, we decided to drive with them to Buffalo to spend Thanksgiving all together with my in-law family.

Wednesday, November 26 we drove over 400 miles (650 Km) through the snow storm from New York City to Niagara Falls. Well, my wife drove. I don’t think anyone else in the car could have managed all that snow and ice on the road, but fortunately she has a lot of experience with it, so while it took us four more hours than expected (and forced us to stop at a diner in the middle of the road for lunch, instead of making it to Ithaca as it was our plan), we made it across the Canadian border at Niagara Falls safe and sound. It was cold. -21°C (-6°F) to be exact.

The view of the falls from the hotel room was absolutely stunning. I can’t get over that view.

Before going to sleep, and to relax after such a long drive, we headed to R5, a nice lounge where they have “The Ultimate Cosmopolitan” (a $2,390 cocktail) and the “Martini-On-The-Rock” (a Martini starting at $10,000) in their menu. We settled for a more reasonable bottle of Malbec.

The next day we had a wonderful Thanksgiving at my cousin-in-law’s. Almost everybody was there, and we had an archetypal Thanksgiving early dinner, with humanely-treated-non-gmo-organic-fed-cage-free-happy-til-he-died-turkey, stuffing, six cakes (one of them a Jorge-approved new pumpkin-cheesecake recipe), games and fun, including playing turkey-trivia and cuddling two ferrets and two cats.

The following day we toured the Falls, and had a delightful lunch at the charming Prince Of Wales Hotel with my in-laws. On the way to lunch we stopped at Dufferin Islands, a secluded 10 acre park with several small islands connected by small bridges and footpaths. There we met a big flock of geese, seagulls and ducks. We also saw two beautiful cardinals staring from a safe distance. And as we left we spotted three wild red foxes. Amazing.

After lunch we walked around Niagara On The Lake, where we bought classic hats (quite convenient for a bald head like mine), and headed back to have dinner at Windows by Jamie Kennedy from where we watched the fireworks.

On Saturday, November 29, after a delicious breakfast at my in-laws, we drove back. My wife, knowing the area as well as she does, insisted on stopping at Taughannock Falls. While the path to the falls was all ice and quite slippery, it was totally worth it. So gorgeous! Impressively spectacular.

Once in Ithaca, after seeing a deer, a quick visit to Cornell University, and stopping at the Autumn Leaves bookstore, we had a yummy vegetarian dinner at the coop Moosewood Restaurant.

A wonderful Thanksgiving trip, full of precious memories.