Hey We’re In New York – Buffalo, Buffalo, Buffalo

Although it wasn’t technically our first stop in New York, we really enjoyed visiting Buffalo. This city is very similar to Grand Rapids, where Tharon and I are from. It has multiple breweries, delicious food all over, and plenty of entertainment. We stayed at Erie Basin Marina for a week while Tharon traveled back to work for a couple days and for us to plan for our travels down the historic Erie Canal.

First things first, Tharon had to travel back to Grand Rapids but I stayed back to take care of the dogs and manage the boat. It was fun to have a couple days to myself and quickly got responsibilities done so that I could start exploring the city. I went to quite a few places by myself which is always a little weird. Here was my lineup of stops that I enjoyed while Tharon was away –

1. Pearl Street Brewing Company – Great food, crap beer.
2. Liberty Hound – Delicious food, decent beer selection. They also have an amazing view of the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park.
3. Canalside – A historical redeveloped area with parks, gardens, beautiful views of the inner and outer harbors, and art installations.
4. William K’s – Close to the Marina I stopped here for a nightcap and ended up enjoying a shot with the entire staff. A newer place with signature cocktails and a decent beer lineup.
5. Lockhouse Distillery and Bar – By far my favorite spot in Buffalo due to their amazing service and delicious housemade gin.

That’s about all I could fit in while Tharon was away and basically took him to every place again (minus Pearl Street Brewing). We might spend too much money on going out but beats cooking every day!?

We continued to enjoy our stay in Buffalo and because we had a car for the week again, we made sure to run any errands before returning it back. We won’t have a car often but it was incredibly convenient to have for our Cleveland and Buffalo visits. Something we agreed upon our stops would also be to bike ride every day we had time to. It’s helped us to add in exercise and allowed us to make more reasonable stops around the town.

As I mentioned before, one of my stops was to Lockhouse Distillery. This place was very hospitable and gave us a try at all their housemade liquors. They make a regular gin which is florally and a bourbon barrel aged gin that highlighted the gin but gave a bourbon after taste. They also make a vodka (which I normally dislike) but was actually very delicious. We went there before and after our date night to Helium Comedy Club. The comedy was decent with multiple locals sharing their ‘Back to School’ stories in a segment called Horrible People. All stories were enjoyable and definitely funny. We weren’t sure if we should go back to the distillery after having the two drink minimum at the club but made sure to drink light beer so that we’d be able to enjoy more fantastic gin beverages. We also hauled a bottle of each flavored gins back to the boat. ‘Twas another great date night in the books.

There are so many great spots in Buffalo and enjoyed multiple breweries along the way too. Here are our favorites in order of greatness!

1. Resurgence Brewing – Giant Connect 4 board, amazing beer, great atmosphere, & pretty outside area. We got very excited about the oversized games, especially Connect 4 from our continuous battles against each other at Flying Bison. Only tried a few here as they have so many flavors!
2. Big Ditch Brewing – VERY busy when we went on Saturday alongside all the pub crawler bike things. We tried all the beer and it’s all very good.
3. Hamburg Brewing – All their Beer is delicious. A bit outside of the Buffalo area but oh so good! This brewery is similar to a nice country club and had an amazing outdoor area.
4. Flying Bison – Very casual place with a cornhole tournament going on. We instead played Connect 4 endlessly and tried all the beers!

It might seem like we drink too much. All in moderation but it’s not called the Tipsy Gypsy for nothing! If you’re interested in seeing all the places we stopped at, check out our Interactive Travel Map!

While in Buffalo, we needed to start planning our travels down the Erie Canal. We met a few other cruisers doing a similar trip and got tips from their plans. We also built a rack for our mast/boom so that would easily fit under low bridges on the canal. We had the help of RCR Yachts to take the mast/boom down and secure to our boat safely. We weren’t excited about taking our mast down but would have to be done in order for us to get through the canal system. Most bridges have a height of 17 feet and our height would now be right around 12 feet instead of the normal 65 feet. Tipsy looks pretty funny when she’s naked like that.

It was time to leave Buffalo. We met incredible people who complimented our boat each day going by the sidewalk directly next to us. Cruisers were impressed to hear of our travels and the upcoming journey we’d be making too. It’s an exciting place to visit and absolutely love everything about it!

Cheers and thanks for reading!