. Segars Stories: Thank You, Priceline!

Last weekend John and I took a trip to my old hometown of Penfield, NY (suburb of Rochester). This all came about quite serendipitously about 2 weeks ago. As usual, I was lying in bed awake next to my peacefully slumbering husband. There’s really no rhyme or reason to my thoughts at this time of night and I got to thinking about Rochester and things we used to do there. I lived there from the middle of 5^th grade through the end of 10^th grade before moving to Long Island for my junior and senior year of high school. One of my memories is centered on a photo of me, my sister, and my grandmother when she was visiting us for a week in May. Lindsey and I are standing in a lilac tree behind our grandma (I have a God-awful haircut and am wearing those black Adidas Samba sneakers that were so popular at the time with the 3 white stripes… yikes). This picture was taken at the annual Lilac Festival in Rochester where literally hundreds of lilac trees and other flowering vegetation bloom – it’s really something to see (and smell). There are also artist booths, local restaurants selling food, and a big bandstand for entertainment. This train of thought led me to think, “Gee, I wonder when the Lilac Festival is? I bet it’s coming up soon.” The next day at work I remembered that I had recalled the Lilac Festival and did a Google search for it. Sure enough, it was beginning in 8 days. Crazy, right? Next I did a quick search to see how far Rochester was from Detroit – about a 5 and a half hour drive through Canada. This may sound like a lot but I was assuming it was much further than that. I did mention to John the unusual coincidence of thinking about the festival and then discovering that it was only a week away. That night I did some research on Rochester hotels to get some prices, still just entertaining myself and truly not actually thinking we’d go. Most of the hotels were way more expensive than I had expected – nothing for less than $99/night! I put the whole notion out of my head and supposed that was the end of it. Two days later at work a random thought occurred to me – when we planned the trip to Chicago back in September, we used the “Name your own price” on Priceline where you make a bid for a hotel room to see if anyone accepts. I thought, maybe if I can make a really low bid for Rochester we might be able to go! I decided to try it that night – I figured I’d go with only 4-star hotel choices and entered “$55/night” as my bid because I never thought it would get accepted. (On Priceline if you make a bid and it’s accepted it’s non-refundable.) Well sure enough it was accepted by the swanky downtown Hyatt in Rochester. Thus the trip to Rochester began! I overcame my initial shock and excitement soon took its place. I had always thought I’d one day go back and have a chance to show John around my old stomping ground but didn’t known when that day would come. I started to think of all my favorite places and what we could do while we were there – so many things to choose from! One that immediately came to mind was my favorite teacher, Mr. Boardway. To make a long story short, Mr. Boardway became friends with my mom because they taught together at my middle school and our families then became close. I babysat for his son Kaden when he was still just a toddler and when my dad won a trip to France through his work Lindsey and I stayed with the Boardways for the week. My mom has kept in touch with them, mostly through graduation invitations, Christmas cards, and more recently my wedding invitation, but we hadn’t spoken directly in years. I looked up his email address off of the school district website and sent a “blast from the past” email his way telling him that, surprise!, John and I were coming to visit Penfield that weekend and would they be in town for a quick visit? Thankfully they were be there and we arranged to meet them at their house for breakfast on Saturday. I was now really looking forward to this trip!

Mom got us the best gift ever for our first anniversary – a Flip video camera – and I LOVE it! I’ve been mostly recording Charlie but this trip I used it constantly to document everything for my family. John and I left after work on Friday (our neighbors downstairs graciously offered to take Charlie in for the weekend because their black lab Lily and Charlie are bff). We had a 45 minute drive north to the border of Canada and John experienced his first border crossing. I wish I could say it went smoothly. I had prepped him on what to expect and we had sat in a line of cars watching as each one went through, so you might assume John knew how to proceed. Well our turn came and he pulled up to the booth way too fast and completely overshot it – I was mortified. He had to back up so that the car was aligned correctly and things were off to a splendid start. He hands over the passports and was so obviously nervous. The customs agent had to remind him to take off his sunglasses and proceeded to ask the usual questions “where are you coming from”, “where are you headed”, “whats the purpose of your visit”. If you were just looking at John you’d think he was being interrogated as a drug smuggler with a trunk load of crack. I really did feel bad for him but thought it was just so funny at the same time. After we were cleared to go I started laughing and John started practicing his labor breathing techniques. The drive across Canada was uneventful and our entry into the U.S. went much more smoothly. We were pretty tired by the time we got to the Hyatt – about 11:45 that night.

Saturday morning we got ready and headed over to the Boardway’s. It ended up being the highlight of the trip for me because it was so great to see them again – it was like no time had gone by and we were all joking around immediately. We brought wedding pictures to show them and just caught up. After the breakfast John and I left and headed to the Lilac Festival. Unfortunately most of the lilacs were a little past their prime so it wasn’t as lush as I remember but there were still several beautiful spots that were in bloom. It was also much busier than I remembered – there were undoubtedly thousands of people there, probably because it was the opening weekend, but it’s true what they say about it never being the same as you remember. We made the best of it but it was hard to fight the crowds.

After that we headed to my hometown, Penfield, and revisited some of my favorites, such as Wegmans. Now this was just as good, if not better, than I remembered and John loved it too. I really can’t do it justice by trying to explain it here but it’s a grocery store (and more) that is always in the top 10 of Fortune Magazine’s Best 100 Places to Work, and for good reason. It’s incredible. We had a snack at the Market Café (fresh sushi made by a sushi chef right there) and then took a quick detour to the liquor store next door because they were having a crazy crazy deal on wine - 3 bottles for $10!! They even were having tasting so we were able to taste it before we bought it because I was afraid it would taste like $3 wine, which it doesn't! Next I showed him some of the old haunts (The Duchess, Harris Hill, my high school) and we drove by our old house. One place we had to go was the infamous “spud” rock that was on the corner of our property.

John enjoying sushi at Wegmans

The "spud"!!

After our Penfield excursion we returned to the hotel to freshen up before we headed back out. We planned to get dinner at a place called Dinosaur BBQ and then go to a Red Wings game (Minor League Baseball) all right downtown by the hotel but the restaurant was PACKED because there was an Alan Jackson concert that night so our plans were disrupted. I did have a backup though – Bennucci’s in Pittsford. It’s an Italian restaurant and I always chose it when I got to pick where we went to eat for my birthday. We drove down there and there was a long wait too but we decided to wait it out – there were a ton of proms going on and we saw quite a few highschoolers all dressed up. John decided to splurge for an early anniversary dinner and we got a bottle of wine, bruschetta, margherita pizza, and an AMAZING cannoli with chocolate and caramel sauce topped with pistachios. It was such a delicious meal and we had a great time. Due to the wait and the time it took for dinner, the Red Wings game was about 3/4 of the way over by the time we got back downtown but we did drive past it :) Instead, we headed over to High Falls Park, a waterfall similar to Greenville but much bigger and truthfully not as cool because there’s no park to enjoy the water really, just a bridge over it. Still cool though because the waterfall’s pretty impressive. We were the only people there so we got our own private show – the perfect end to one of the best days.

On Sunday we checked out and head over to Pittsford to show John around another of our favorite places as a family – Schoen Place on the Erie Canal. My family went to church in Pittsford so I saw my old church and the cute local coffee place we’d frequent for our after-church snack.

Pittsford - Main Street

Downtown Pittsford

We went over to Schoen Place for lunch at Aladdin’s, a Greek place with really fresh and healthy food, right on the canal. I could remember when my family and our dog Carlie would take the fishing boat down the canal from Fairport to Pittsford and it was where she first learned how to swim when she jumped off the boat! I also remember when I was in 8^th grade and my mom took me to Aladdin’s after a day of shopping, which was rare, and we sat at a table by the water. It’s the first time I remember really feeling like a “grown-up” and mom probably had more awareness and understanding than I did at the time and had the waiter take our picture – I’ll have to find that.

We enjoyed the beautiful day and food and then made one last stop at Mostly Clay, another favorite, and John bought me a gorgeous coffee mug!

This trip wouldn’t have been the same with anyone else. John was excited at just the right times, attentive and thoughtful when I was explaining sentimental memories, and interested in what I was showing him (genuinely or not – I’ll never know! ;) ) I’m so grateful that he was there to share it with me and allow me the opportunity to revisit my past in such a positive light.

On our way back home we took a slight detour so that we crossed the border into Canada from New York at Niagara Falls because John had never seen them. We literally parked, bought two tickets for the Maid of the Mist, and were on the next boat! We felt like Jim and Pam from the Office :) I had the Flip and John had the camera and we had a really beautiful and sunny day to enjoy the falls. He thought they were very impressive (as did I – it’s easy to forget just how big they are) and we got a bit wet but not too bad.