Day three saw us heading west and out of the Adirondack Mountains, but not before passing countless more bodies of water. All good spots to dunk your feet.

And here we have the village bicycle, so to speak. She was making out with one of these three when we arrived, and I think she'd moved on to another as we were leaving again. No doubt a future resident of Albany.

We eventually left the mountains and entered into a completely different terrain. Lush rolling hills with farmland as far as the eye could see. In fact this pretty much sums up much of the scenery we drove through for the rest of the trip.

Later in the day we made it to the village of Skaneateles (pronounce that how you will) within the town of Skaneateles on the northern shore of Skaneateles Lake (phew!). This place blew our minds - it's a beautiful wee spot with more houses with front porches than Kristina could handle ;)

The 16-mile (26km) long Skaneateles Lake is one of the so-called Finger Lakes, a pattern of long and narrow lakes resembling fingers, two of which are among the deepest in America.

That place on the left had Kristina and I talking about buying a lake house somewhere hehe. One day maybe :)

Not a bad place for this.

From there we continued west, roughly following the Erie Canal. This impressive feat of hole digging runs for 363 miles (584km) from Albany on the Hudson River to Buffalo in New York's far west at Lake Erie, completing a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes.

The canal passes through numerous little towns along the way, this one somewhat overdoing the American flag thing.

Day four saw us continuing as far west as we could go to Niagara Falls on the Canadian border! I've walked across the border from the US to Mexico before and, just to say I had, it would have been cool to walk across the Canadian border too. However, due to the temporary nature my current US entry visa, I wouldn't be allowed back into the US if I was to leave hehe.

Niagara Falls is the collective name for three waterfalls that straddle the border: American Falls in the foreground here along with the smaller Bridal Veil Falls (obscured in this shot) are on the US side of the border, with the mammoth Horseshoe Falls in the distance officially on the Canadian side.

Well doesn't that look fun.

The Maid of the Mist here doesn't fair much better, getting drenched as it nears the falls. Just standing on land we were getting drenched by the spray coming off the falls.

This was my second trip to the falls after first coming here in the middle of winter back in 2008 (it was icy).

The combined falls form the highest flow rate of any waterfall in the world, with a vertical drop of more than 165 feet (50m). Horseshoe Falls on the right here has a flow rate of slightly more than one Olympic-sized swimming pool per second, and is the most powerful in North America. Be that as it may, many a dickhead has deliberately gone over the falls, with or without a floatation device of some sort. Some have survived, some haven't. Most recently, some dude in his early 40s survived an unprotected trip over Horseshoe Falls in May last year after witnesses say he deliberately jumped in over the railings hehe. On that note, an estimated 40 people are killed each year when they are swept over the falls, most of which are suicides.

We got a typical crap photo from a passing tourist (a lot of post-production work was needed here), snapped a rainbow, and set off for the long trip back east.

Train! While we were on this trip, the brakes failed on a parked train hauling crude oil in middle-of-nowhere Canada, resulting in a runaway scenario and eventually a big derailment and a spectacular explosion which leveled most of a small town. Also, a Boeing 777 on approach to San Francisco International Airport from South Korea landed short of the runway after it came in too low and too slow, resulting in more spectacular carnage.

While heading west along the north of the state we passed by field after field of what looked to be wheat or something similar, and now heading east along the south of the state it was this green stuff.

We eventually made it to the first of two state parks in the southern Finger Lakes region. This is Letchworth State Park covering around 14,350 acres of land along the Genesee River. At 17 miles (24km) long, you basically drive in one end and head through to the other, with numerous overlooks along the way.

On the left is the so-called Middle Falls, and right is the Upper Falls. There is a Lower Falls too somewhere but I guess we missed it. Above the Upper Falls is an active railroad trestle, which was originally wooden back in the day before a huge fire took care of that.

And that was that for day four. By the way, this is the southern tip of Seneca Lake, one of the longest of the Finger Lakes.

Safe as houses.

Day five was our last, was all about this - the incredible Watkins Glen State Park!

The centerpiece of the park is this deep, narrow gorge, created by glaciers during the last ice age and the flow of the stream. The park contains three trails which are open only during the warmer months. We followed a 1.5-mile trail that follows the stream and its 19 waterfalls by way of stone bridges and more than 800 stone steps.

Seriously jaw-dropping stuff, and perfect fodder for this photographer! :)

From there we started the long drive back to New York City, stopping in the middle of nowhere for a bite to eat and randomly finding this hehe.