A trip down memory lane (aka Interstate 81)

In July 1983 I travelled to the United States of America to spend a year as an exchange student. For almost 12 months I lived with a regular middle-class family in the city of Syracuse. It's a small regional city located in upstate New York, about 6.5 hours north of New York City itself. The experience was life-changing.  My mother has often said I left New Zealand as a boy and returned home as a young man.

Since 1984 I've returned just once to see my teenage hometown.  I made a weekend excursion to Syracuse in early 2001 courtesy of the then-recently launched budget airline, JetBlue. Today I returned for a second visit, this time my parents came along for the ride. It seemed the obvious thing to do while we were staying in Gananoque, Ontario. Syracuse lies only 110 miles south of the border, an easy drive straight down Interstate 81.

We began our day with a brief stop at the Skydeck on Hill Island, one of the 1800 islands that give the Thousand Island region its name.  The Skydeck is an observation tower, a mere 500 metres from the Canadian border, that offers spectacular views of this incredibly scenic location. My parents loved the vista, as did I. The tour guide that escorted us was even able to help Mum spot a distant freighter traveling through the St Lawrence Seaway towards Lake Ontario.

We then crossed the border into the USA. The crossing was quick and easy with only a few cursory questions about our intentions before we were on our way.  Two hours later we found ourselves wrestling with a confusing maze of freeways that encircle Syracuse. As my navigator, Mum's had to learn how to use software maps on a tablet computer in real-time.

I made our first stop the Fairmont Mall, one of my favourite teenage haunts, before heading across the parking lot to Wegmans Supermarket to buy lunch. The supermarket was just as I remembered it.  For a young man from a small country town in New Zealand, its mind-blogging array of groceries and fresh food was an awe-inspiring testament to the power of American capitalism.

It was then on to the quiet, leafy suburbs of Westvale where my host family once lived. They've long since relocated but remarkably their house is still there, looking just as it did almost thirty years ago. As we sat looking at the home I surprised my parents with an album of photos depicting the exact same view. My mother was delighted as you can see from the photo that opens this post.

Perhaps the most memorable incident of the day occurred when I inadvertently missed a stop sign in Westvale. Within seconds of gliding through the empty intersection, I had blue and red lights flashing in my rear vision mirror. The local sheriff pulled me over and we had a brief road safety discussion before the conversation turned to my life as an exchange student. He sent us on our way with a quiet warning.  Mum later wished she'd had the forethought to ask the sheriff for a quick photo opportunity.

As you can see, we stopped outside my old home for a quick photo shoot. I'm sure that had the neighbours scratching their heads.  We then continued on to my old high school before venturing across town to see the Carrier Dome.  The dome is an indoor stadium that seats 55,000 people. I'd once watched a thrilling college basketball game here and our high school played a regional football championship in its empty confines.

Dad was keen to see downtown.  So our last excursion for the day was a brief tour through the city's civic centre. Unlike cities in Europe and Australia, Syracuse lacks a cohesive central business district and so the heart of downtown is rather soulless.  However, I did my best to show Dad some highlights I recalled from my teenage years. A final stop outside Founder's Park for a few quick photos completed our trip down memory lane.

Today was also our last full day in Canada (and the USA). Tomorrow we drive 300 km to Toronto to catch our respective flights back to New Zealand and Australia. It's been an incredible vacation, one that's exceeded my parent's wildest dreams. We'll return home with more wonderful memories and my father's bucket list is all but complete.