In Ottawa for work, I found myself free by Friday morning and it was still early springtime. Clearly I was going to stay on the mainland for the weekend and bask in the warm weather.

I wasn't completely free yet, as even after a great night with work colleagues at the Canadian Tire Centre watching one of the rare Bruins playoff victories of 2016-17, we now had a sort of field trip planned at nearby Thousand Islands National Park.

I wasn't despising the thought of meeting up with these coworkers in my own rental car, especially as they know their birds and plants, and I enjoy nature walks with skilled ornithologists and botanists.

Funny thing though, they never responded to my texts and I never saw them at the park. So since I like the idea of walking one trail in every national park, I picked an arbitrary trail and it paid off with this pair of ancient cars set off in the woods. Score! This park's way better than Gros Morne!

With no one joining me, I soon left Thousand Islands National Park for the nearby town of Ganonoque. I could have went to a better skatepark in Kingston, but Ganonoque looked fun, more obscure and was more likely be empty on a school day.

One of the things I really liked was the staircase made out of rounded stone instead of harsh, sharp steps. I know skateboarders need stair sets to measure their skill - "I ollied the 7!" - but especially in small and mid-sized parks, I believe you need to maximize every possibility. Rounded steps allowed me to ride up the stairs and opened a couple of new lines/possibilities.

(N.b.: Session Atlas says that this place enforces a No Bike policy, although I didn't have any trouble during my couple of hours here.)

I continued on to Kingston to go watch a Frontenacs game, but I've already covered a game at the K-Rock Centre previously. The only difference this time was getting some static concerning my bridge-level camera, although I could have easily brought in a group selfie mode Pixel 3, low light performing Fuji X-Pro or the portrait mode iPhone X...but yes, clearly my 7yo bridge camera was going to take food out of Frontenac photographers' mouths.

The actual cool thing about attending tonight's game was that the Frontenacs were down 3-0 in their playoff series and I expected the game to be a snoozefest. While the Frontenacs were eventually defeated, I didn't enjoy their defeat, but actually felt sadness and pity with their season ending and their saluting of the fans one last time. This was interesting to me as I have no ties to the Frontenacs at all.

Following the game, I went back to the same peculiar Fort Henry Inn like the last time I was in Kingston, and they put me in an even stranger room this time.

I suppose the more amenities the better, but it was odd to have coffee filters, a toaster, glass shelves, etc., etc., in my room. It felt like I was an unexpected guest or someone fleeing a natural disaster, being put up wherever the Red Cross could find space.

The next day, the drive from Kingston to Rochester was about 4 hours (including border control), where the highlight was probably Taco Bell outside Central Square, New York.

There were a few lighthouses I would have liked to see in western Lake Ontario - especially since I quite enjoyed the New York lighthouses I've seen in the past - but I had to get down to Rochester to catch afternoon baseball at Frontier Field.

The only other AAA baseball game I'd ever been to was in Toledo and it was night & day difference between these two stadiums. Here I was sitting outside on a fine, sunny day; enjoying my view of Kodak Tower, but this definitely wasn't Fifth Third Field.

Frontier Field was built in 1997 to replace the aging, 1927-built Silver Stadium. It feels like a 1990s building. Even worse, it feels like a low league 1990s building. The concourse was wide, dark and bland, the stadium didn't wrap around, and there wasn't much of a big league ballpark experience. Frontier Field felt like I wandered down to the local baseball stadium in some small town, versus what should be a stadium representative of the league just below the majors.

Frontier Field could be saved if I had some friends here to bullshit with or pass the time, but going out of my way to be here by myself since the Red Wings were playing and it was a chance to see a new ballpark, I was left with a feeling of never needing to return.

Following baseball, I went back downtown to pick up a ticket for tonight's hockey game.

I'd only been to Rochester once before, so it was still plenty exciting to walk and explore, finding the Genesee River flowing mightily towards Lake Ontario. Above the river, I could see the Rochester Subway still there, 11 years after I'd explored it & thought it was going to be sealed off soon after.

Tonight's game was at the impressive Blue Cross Arena, once known as the Rochester Community War Memorial Arena, where the Rochester Americans (farm team to the Buffalo Sabres) would engage in battle with the Albany Devils (farm team to the New Jersey Devils).

I immediately grew concerned as I entered Blue Cross Arena, where large overhead signs screamed that no cameras were allowed in the arena bowl. Thankfully, knowing my buddy Yaz had been here already, I was able to text him and learn that he didn't have any problems.

Leaving my car back at my hotel out near the airport and taking the bus into town, I sure hoped I wasn't going to have any problems myself, since I didn't have anywhere to go stash my camera.

The ticket lady didn't seem to care at all about my camera bag. She was much more excited with the fact that tonight was fan appreciation night and that I was from out of town looking for a single ticket. For just $12 - the price of the cheapest ticket you can get to a Rochester Americans game - I could sit anywhere in the rink. Apparently all seats were $12 for fan appreciation!

She was really excited to sell me a seat on the glass for $12.

This gave me a pretty good view of some fringe NHLers in Yohann Auvitu & Alex Nylander. I didn't find Auvitu very impressive & I couldn't believe the extent to which Nylander wanted to pass the puck.

Professional hockey began in Rochester at Edgerton Park Arena in 1935. Originally built as the drill hall of a training school campus for delinquent boys, the hall was transferred to the City of Rochester after the training school closed. Rochester would use it as an exhibition space and sports arena, adding the ability for ice hockey in 1935 with the installation of an ice making machine.

The Rochester Cardinals hosted their expansion season at the arena in 1935-36, but folded after just one year in the International Hockey League. The American Hockey League (AHL) was then created in the summer of 1936, but there were no owners who wanted to purchase the Rochester franchise and also, the City of Rochester wouldn't expand the 3500-seat Edgerton Park Arena into a 5000-seat arena like the AHL desired.

The Edgerton Park Arena also played host to the NBA Rochester Royals, but at this time in Rochester, basketball was much more small time than hockey.

Basketball seemed to be a funnier thing to play in a small arena too, as ballers at Edgerton Park could run into a hot dog cart if they ran past the basket on one end; while on the other end, the double doors were kept unlocked so players could run through them and have space to stop once outside (which must've been fun during Rochester winters).

Another fun fact is that there was a Rochester Subway Edgerton Park stop. Basketball fans would've rode the subway from downtown and points east, up to northwest Rochester and Edgerton Park.

The Blue Cross Memorial Arena site was once a plot of land where the Kimbal Tobacco Factory was built in 1880. The factory would be taken over by a shirt manufacturer in 1905, before being purchased by Kodak-founder George Eastman in 1924. Eastman later left the building to the University of Rochester, who later left the building to the City of Rochester, who hosted ancillary city hall and public library offices in the old factory.

(How cool would it be to work for the City of Rochester in an old tobacco factory and ride the subway up to watch ball at the Edgerton Park arena? Man o' man!)

The old Kimbal Tobacco Factory was finally demolished in 1951 to make way for the Rochester War Memorial Arena to open on October 18, 1955. This would replace the Edgerton Park Arena for both the basketball Rochester Royals and provide a place for an AHL hockey franchise to come to town. (Edgerton would be torn down in the late 1950s.) The Rochester Royals, despite winning the NBA title in 1951, would leave Rochester after just two years at the War Memorial, due to poor attendance and pressure from the league to move to a bigger city. (They went on to Cincinnati, then Kansas City, then eventually became the Sacramento Kings.)

The Rochester Americans saw much more success here and are the second-longest lasting AHL franchise in its original location, behind only the Hershey Bears. The Americans have won 6 Calder Cups in their 61 years as a franchise.

The Rochester Americans and the War Memorial Arena have an interesting Newfoundland tie-in, in that of Alex Faulkner.

Born in Bishop's Falls and educated in hockey on the frozen Exploits River, Faulkner grabbed the attention of former Toronto Maple Leaf Howie Meeker, during an exhibition game in St. John's. Meeker recommended Faulkner to King Clancy, then general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, who signed Faulkner and assigned him to their farm club, who at the time were the Rochester Americans.

In Faulkner's second year with the Rochester Americans, he would be called up to the Toronto Maple Leafs for one regular season game - becoming the first Newfoundlander to ever play in the NHL.

(Faulkner would go on to play an additional 100 games with the Detroit Red Wings.)

While the Blue Cross Arena looked shiny & modern from the outside, I loved the 1950s bones found inside. It was much more square than the modern-day, cookie-cut ovals, with staircases going up and down in the corners, as well as walls of seating on each end of the rink.

The outside of Blue Cross didn't have me that excited, but I should have focused on the year this rink was built. While it wasn't the shape that would get me excited in a big barrel dome or an art deco exterior, the inside was interesting and intimate enough to give you that feeling of old time hockey, or at least actual hockey instead of attending a game at a mall.

While I would probably take my time and check out Lake Ontario lighthouses instead of Frontier Field if I were to do this trip again, I would certainly return to Blue Cross Arena.

And thanks to a $41 million dollar renovation/expansion in 1996, it seems like this arena should be plenty good enough to house AHL hockey for the near future. The expansion and renovation fixed the fact of missing luxury boxes and limited washrooms, two of the main reasons that we so often replace old arenas.

Following the hockey game and in a pleasant mood, I'd screenshotted how to take the bus back to my Radisson Hotel, 10km (6mi) away. Rochester is a surprisingly expensive place when it comes to accommodations and I couldn't reasonably spend $250 to stay downtown.

The budget would take a hit as I stood near the bus stop, admiring a very nice ledge off of some nearby stairs. In a matter of minutes, a bus driver on another route pulled up confused, letting me know that the bus doesn't run anywhere near this late at night & wouldn't be coming. It was time for an expensive cab ride out to the area near the airport!

As one of my favourite things in life is being screwed out of money when I'm making the extra effort to live frugally, I decided to grab a drink near my hotel even though the only bars were in one of those recently-built, faux townhouse/plaza wastelands. Save for the one bar that I immediately left because it was salsa night, the place I ended up (Schramrocks Irish Pub) was forgettable.

Of late I've sometimes spent the extra money to stay downtown instead of out by airports and in suburbs. I believe Rochester certainly contributed to this change in policy.

The Radisson was still a good deal for $70 taxes in though.

At least the morning brought a stop at Golden Corral, since I needed to get moving and didn't have time to wait for something to open downtown. I've always seen the commercials & it's fun to try a new chain, plus it was decent. In a dying strip mall with a limited number of customers, the Golden Corral's buffet was pretty fresh and gave me an option to finally pick up some fruit & salad instead of yet another fried food item.

Following that, I rolled downtown and found the infamous Rochester city park that's been in a thousand bmx road trip videos, Kink BMX videos and even Road Fools 4. I thought I remembered someone dropping in on this structure or icepicking it or something, so it was funny to drop into the downhill runway and smash into the steep bank and go nowhere.

I also went into broken record mode trying something in the area with nice ledges and low wheelchair handrails. I wished I had someone there to fire out the doable 15-stair ledge, but as it was, I stuck to the wheelchair rail to out ledge.

After a bunch of tries and not getting very far, a homeless guy came over and told me I was too big and too (indicating belly fat heft with open hands) to be doing what I was trying. He then walked away guzzling his 6% malt liquor can, while I laughed that it was 10am and a man of his ilk was correct. I still kept at it though, long enough to topple over and really fail at what I was trying.

I didn't stick to just Genesee Crossroads Park, opting to also cruise around and gain more of a feel for Rochester. I found a few more biking spots, along with this gorgeous building on West Main.

At the time I thought it was a vacant building, soon to become just another vacant lot near the ubiquitous Valero gas station, but this is actually Nick Tahou's Red Hots, a Rochester-famous place to get the local delicacy, a "garbage plate".

If only I had known.

Oh well, it was finally time for some lighthouses (and more hockey!)

More to come.