Day 18: Back on the east coast

I left San Luis Obispo Tuesday evening, changed planes at LAX and arrived at Boston's Logan Airport around 6:30am. It was difficult to sleep on the plane but I managed to at least close my eyes and I think I slept a bit.
Dwyne and Mr Ripley picked me up at the airport and we immediately headed out for Saratoga Springs NY. The weather was much chillier today than what we've had on the trip so far. We even saw a few flakes of snow on the drive. The drive was reasonably pretty but not as beautiful as some of the drives we've taken.
We arrived in Saratoga Springs around 11:15am. The downtown area is very attractive with lots of nice shops and restaurants. We just had a casual lunch at a place called Bailey's. There is a very beautiful park on the edge of town and I commented to Dwyne that it looked very much like an Olmstead design and when I read the history of the park indeed Frederick Law Olmstead had done a renovation of the park (John P. I hope you're impressed). They have horse statues scattered around downtown that have been painted by artists similar to the cows in Chicago and the trout in SLO but these seem to be permanent installations. After wandering around on foot we got back in the car to explore a few other places in the area. We drove past some major homes which I imagine were once (and perhaps still are) second homes for some very wealthy people, then we drove around the campus of Skidmore College which has a lovely setting. Of course, Saratoga Springs is famous for horse racing and we drove out to see the racetrack. The harness races start tomorrow and we were sorry we'll miss that but we've got reservations in Niagara Falls. There's an up and coming arts district in the city that we also checked out as well as the Revolutionary War Battlefield about 16 miles from town. The battle there was one that turned things around for the Americans.
We are staying at the Comfort Inn. It's about 3 miles from downtown and is in an area that could be anywhere--lots of chain restaurants and big box stores around, but it's about $40 cheaper than the places right downtown and is new and pretty nice.
I checked on Zagat.com about places to eat here and the most popular place seems to be one called Hattie's. Oddly enough it serves southern-style food and has been around since the 1930's. We were intrigued and somewhat skeptical but we gave it a try. It was great! First of all, the place is charming-very old building that is simply furnished-just a delightful setting. The staff are all friendly which is always a plus. But best of all, the food was outstanding. We both agreed that the fried chicken was the best restaurant fried chicken we'd ever had. And my fried okra and mashed potatoes were also mighty fine. They also brought us hot biscuits and cornbread. I sure couldn't eat like that everyday but it was fun to do it tonight!
I'm very sleepy since I flew all night last night and I hope this all makes sense. I'm off to bed and then up tomorrow to head to Niagara Falls. I'll try to resist the barrel thing.