Writing off my Jeep a few months earlier, I purchased another car over the holidays as I found a better deal down in Windsor. Unfortunately this meant my parents were on me about taking ownership and my 10-day license plate, saying that things would expire and that I needed to get going on my drive back to where I live.

My mom said she'd like to come along, even as I reiterated that I was dead set on taking the American way. My father is the type to not do things if they involve a hassle and couldn't believe I'd try and go thru the border with a 10-day plate, but really, what were the Americans going to do? Turn me around? Oh no! That would add all of an hour to my 27.5-hour drive!

(Hilariously enough, the drive would actually be 2.5-hours shorter if they turned me around - although I probably would haven given it another try in Buffalo.)

Anyway, the Americans let me in with laughable ease. I was then further pleased with heading west, while - quick geography lesson here - Newfoundland is east.

Except I was currently free to do whatever and if I wanted to go 30 minutes west of Toledo to ride the skatepark in Sylvania, well finally I wasn't fucking hemmed in by the godforsaken ocean.

The skakepark in Sylvania was excellent with the highlight being the mellow, long, round downrail. My Mom was doing laps around the parking lot for exercise and wondered what the metal on metal racket was, then realized it was me hitting the uprail, haha.

I was pretty adamant that this trip back was going to be like that famous life advice, with me skidding sideways into Newfoundland right at day 9.99, screaming wow! What a use of my 10-day license!

Inexplicably that wouldn't happen in Ohio. Seeing that Binghamton New York had a random weekday hockey game this night and remembering that my friend Yaz had written a great post about Binghamton's arena, I raced across Ohio and past intriguing places like Corning New York, in order to arrive by game time.

Dropping my mom off at the Binghamton North Red Roof Inn, I sped towards the arena and managed to drive over one of those oversized, foot-high American curbs in the process, scraping the shit out of some part of my car's undercarriage. Whoops! A

Whatever though, any car is lucky to have me in terms of the amount of the continent it sees, although sure, it is a tough physical assignment.

The Binghamton Devils play in the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena, which opened in 1973 and unsurprisingly reminded me of the Cornwall Civic Complex, built in 1976.

There might be three years between them, but I think someone was copying off the other architect when taking the 1970s arena exam.

The Broome Dusters were the first hockey tenant as part of the North American Hockey League. It was only just over a year before Binghamton started to shine as a hockey city, drawing many sellouts and having The Hockey News declare Binghamton Hockey Town USA.

I'll be damned, I thought that was Detroit? Ha!

Anyway, the Broome Dusters would join the American Hockey League (AHL) as the Binghamton Dusters in 1977. The Dusters would become the Binghamton Whalers in 1980, then the Binghamton Rangers in 1990. The Rangers would leave in 1997 to take up residence in the old Hartford Whalers arena, but the AHL would return to Binghamton in 2002 with Ottawa's farm club, the Binghamton Senators.

The Senators would last 15 years in Binghamton - including hosting the All-Star Game in 2008 - but were eventually replaced by the Binghamton Devils, New Jersey's affiliate, in 2017.

The Binghamton Devils have since (2021-22) departed for Utica and Binghamton is left with only a Federal Hockey League team.

With the Binghamton Devils taking on the Cleveland Monsters, I was mostly excited to watch Yegor Sharangovich of the Devils.

Other players like Nick Merkley and Nathan Bastian might've showed up on the scoresheet, but I still think Sharangovich shined.

Our Red Roof Inn was about an hour's walk from the arena, so unfortunately I couldn't really go out after the game, even as I gawked at promising bars in dated brick buildings.

Instead I was up early, getting exterior shots of the arena that I couldn't get in the winter's darkness last night.

Wikipedia says that the original plans for this area had the arena (municipal auditorium) and a performing arts centre across Washington Street.

As best as I can tell, the performing arts centre was never built, while Wikipedia says that part of the elevated walkway was constructed, which would have connected the two buildings.

While Cornwall's arena is similar on the inside, it doesn't have any of this frontal add-on.

Finding it quite cool, I should admit that maybe my inner BMXer was showing too.

As someone who finds New York State underrated, I'd be easily convinced to check out any of the top 25 biggest cities. Meanwhile, the ones I've heard of like Binghamton, are already on the to-do list.

And I was impressed with Binghamton. There were some rundown spots, but there was also a remarkable building stock left standing.

Just up the street from the arena was the handsome Broome County Courthouse, built 1897-1898.

The old Binghamton City Hall added to the European feel of this narrow road, even if you guys think I'm too loose with declaring when American cities feel European, lol.

Binghamton also has modern marvels of architecture like 20 Hawley Street.

Emporis says that the middle, three-story bridge was originally supposed to connect to the arena, but said plan never materialized. Boy did Binghamton ever have space-age, Jetsons-style plans back in the 1970s.

It was getting to the point where I was risking making no progress east from Binghamton this morning, which was especially concerning with afternoon snow showers coming.

So after taking only a few more pictures we hit the road towards Boston.

Not initially planning on visiting Binghamton, I was now faced with trying to think of things to ride in Albany or Troy, New York, since I didn't really want to stop and find WiFi to Google it. All I had to base anything off was the highway signs as I kept driving. Meanwhile, I-88 saw the odd snowflakes at higher elevation.

I wanted to take the time to detour to places like Elmira or Utica, but now I was outrunning a storm. I recalled that I knew about the Pittsfield Skatepark in western Massachusetts, which if Pittsfield was close to the Mass Pike, seemed like a solid place to point my GPS towards.

Winding through curvy roads and along random streets, my mom asked how on God's green earth I knew the location of the Pittsfield Massachusetts skatepark - a place unbeknownst to her and most people prior to 30 minutes ago. I had to smile here, as I'm just special like that, y'know?

Rolling up to Pittsfield, I regretted not nabbing one of my parents shovels that they clearly don't need in Essex County.

That is, until winter returned in extremely short order. Like, you wouldn't have got your Dunks in the time it took to start snowing as I stood atop the far ramp.

Also, if you're wondering how I know about this skatepark? I follow pro-BMXer Jake Seeley, who is from Pittsfield, on the 'gram. He often posts clips from here.

Leaving Seeley's Skatepark, I was back on the Mass Pike in no time. No tolls for me on the Mass Pike though, as they had zapped the toll booths and it's not as if my 10-day plate taped to the window was going to register on their cameras. Score one for the luddites!

After my Mom was roused with a hectic drive through Boston, we popped out along route 1A and Route 129 thru places like Swampscott and Reveahh dood, until eventually I plowed over the causeway and onto Marblehead Neck.

Exiting the car into hurricane force winds, it was now time for Massachusetts lighthouse numbah foah, like Bobby Oah.

The current Marblehead Lighthouse replaced a painted white stone tower, which at its low height, was quickly obscured by nearby cottages.

This Marblehead Lighthouse was built in 1895 in a style similar to Sanibel Island in Florida. In fact, there are many of these skeletal-style lighthouses throughout the south and mid-Atlantic, but Marblehead is the only lighthouse of this kind in New England.

The wind was so intense at Marblehead that my Mom stayed in the car, while I tried to take pictures by accepting that the camera would be pressed against my face. Just a few feet up the road, I figured I should get a quick picture of the surrounding neighbourhood, as I've had no time to explore these areas of the fantastic Massachusetts coast previously.

I know some of the best times I've had in states was exploring buildings with friends, but I'm still left with a wanting to check out the typical sights of places like Massachusetts and Pennsylvania too.

Following Marblehead, I raced to I-95 to get up to Rye New Hampshire where there's the legendary indoor skatepark known as Rye Airfield.

Even though it was snowy, icy and frigid outside; here I was enjoying a giant, warm park in the midst of January. I could hardly believe my happiness as I rode around landing refreshing things, instead of shovelling the park every day and hoping that maybe one day I'll see the sun before April. This is only southern New Hampshire, which is a notably hard place to live, and I was still left wide-eyed, dreaming of how nice life could be.

On the other hand, I know what it takes to live here and I don't go forward with it. Bitching about it, complaining to friends until they avoid you, and slacking instead of trying to better your life; it'll all leave you in Corner Brook instead of southern New Hampshire.

Anyway, I had the best time here at Rye Airfield. There was a hockey game in Moncton tomorrow evening, but at the same time, would I ride my bike any time over the next five months of Corner Brook winter hell? Maybe I should stay here?

We'll see.

Continue to Part 2...