Friday would be our day at the falls. Even though I’d spent most of my life here on the east coast, somehow we’d never seen Niagara. There were two ways to see the place – drive in and around the various spots at the falls which are spread around over about a four or five square mile area, or pay for a guided bus tour that takes you around. I had no intention of driving the RV into the city of Niagara Falls proper and trying to maneuver around, so I bought us three tickets for an 8-hour bus tour. They were not cheap, I think the whole package, which included a ‘picnic lunch’, sliced about $150.00 off of my bank balance. The jalopy taking us around was scheduled to arrive around 9 am Friday morning. There were a few other couples from the park also on the same expedition, so we waited around in the warm, slightly overcast morning. I hoped the weather would hold. The bus arrived, and our tour guide herded us all in, and explained the rules and regulations. He was a school-teacher picking up some extra bucks in the off-season. The bus was barely a quarter full, but Dan said that we had three more stops in town to get the full load.
First, we headed back over the big blue bridge onto the mainland, and went into the city of Niagara Falls, where we’d pickup up the rest of our load. The road we took paralleled the river upstream from the falls, and I was interested to see how rough and turbulent the water was here, still a half-mile or so away from the tumult. I could see how you would probably not want to go swimming in the current, at least not without a large barrel to cushion you from the rocks. The falls could be identified by the huge clouds of mist rising up from their cataracts. In town, we saw some interesting buildings as we swept up the other passengers. At the first stop, we loaded on about 15 young Amish/Mennonite folk, out for a tour of the outside world. They all seemed nice and friendly, and we chatted real neighborly-like. Then it was a couple of more pick-ups in town, and then we headed for our first stop, a few miles downriver from the actual falls, at a location called the Niagara Gorge.
Quick Primer : Niagara Falls, it almost goes without saying, is a spot where water from Lake Erie (the more-southerly of the two lakes involved) drops about 300 feet overall, before leaking into Lake Ontario a dozen or so miles north. The narrow waterway is known as the Niagara River. The flow of the current is more or less south-to-north though, so our typical view of Niagara Falls is one looking SOUTH, as the north-flowing water travels towards Lake Erie north to Lake Ontario. The US side of the falls is not as photogenic as the Canadian side, where the famous Horseshoe Falls section is. In other words, you can see the falls BETTER from the northern, Canadian side. We didn’t have the necessary papers to cross over so we had to settle for the US side. Anyway, after the falls themselves, the river or channel or whatever you want to call it, runs between two semi-tall canyons for a couple of miles or so until it empties into Lake Ontario. Goat Island in the middle of the river has views of both the American and Canadian falls, but you can’t see much of the Canadian side from that angle. Geologically speaking of course, the falls are gradually eroding the rock backwards, so in a couple dozen million years, there’ll be just one big shelf across the whole channel. We decided not to wait.
The Gorge was interesting, and we were told that it’s a big white-water rafting spot for the local enthusiasts. They even showed us where the emergency helicopter from the hospital touches down on a big flat rock to evacuate the participants who’ve fallen victim to the rather ominous looking white water spots. As we got there, Dan gave us the rules – wander around all you want, but the bus leaves in 15 minutes, and if you’re not there, too bad. That became the mantro for every stop – he’d tell us that we had 15 or 20 or even 30 minutes to absorb everything there was to see/smell/taste/take pictures of, but after that, the bus was back on the road. We did have a schedule to follow, so I guess you can see why they have to make watching the time important. But it was always a pain thinking, “Uh oh, we’ve got to be back at the bus in a minute and a half…”
Niagara River Gorge
Once we finished looking at the Gorge, and friendly old Canada across the canyon, we headed back up (down? over?) the river towards the falls again. Prospect Point, very close to one edge of the American falls was our next stop. We followed the crowd down a little path and open area to the viewing spots. Across the way, we could see Canada, and some of the old electric generating junk left over from when Tesla and Edison came up here and had their bright idea. The red plastic rainjackets of the hardy souls on the Canadian Maid of the Mist boat stood out pretty well. We could get pretty darn close to the edge here, and the fog and mist rising made it necessary to make sure I kept the ol’ Instamatic high and dry. I looked over the edge in spots. Not sure I’d wanna do that in a barrel.
Prospect Point
After Prospect Point, we headed across to Goat Island, and down to the Cave of the Winds. This was a big, rickety-looking timber framework down around the rocks at the base of the falls where you can stand there and get soaked by American water before it becomes Canadian. There was a fairly long line, winding down a long hallway before you came out into the deck and walked down. I covered the camera with a bag to try to keep it dry, as it was extremely misty down there. And the hallway smelled of tourists. As we slowly walked our way down, I kidded with the cute little Amish kids that were with us.
“How you guys like it so far?”
“Oh, it’s very nice. Very pretty. We are from Ohio, by the way.”
“Ah. Nothing like this in Dayton, eh?”
“No sir, nothing at all.”
Cave of the Winds
Once back up, we checked out the big statue of Nikola Tesla and read all about his plan to electrify New York State by sticking a bunch of turbines down at the base of the falls, and generating enough Alternating Current to light up Broadway. Of course, ol’ Tom Edison planted a spy in his workshop, all the while expounding on how A/C would never work, how it’d kill everybody in the house, and how his battery-powered DC was much more reliable and safe and powerful. Then when Tesla proved it would work, Edison sued him by claiming he’d stolen the ideas of the spy he sent over, and then began monopolizing the A/C power business.
By now, it was time for lunch – Dan drove the bus around in a circle for a minute and we finally stopped at a small parking lot, where we were told to follow a walkway up to the picnic area, and a bag lunch was provided. After lunch, it was time for the boat ride – the famous “Maid of the Mist”. We all trundled into an elevator that bumped us down to water level, 6 at a time, until we were all down, and then we walked through the cattle-chute waiting line for about 20 minutes, until it was time to board. We got the requisite blue ponchos (Canada got red on their boat, remember?) and after the old tub was loaded to the gunwales, we slid away from shore and headed to the base of the falls, It was fun, actually, the boat got pretty close up to the actual rocks and all, and every body got sprayed, we all had a good old time. It was funny watching the Amish girls giggle and cavort around in the mist, they all acted like they were about 12 years old and were getting sprayed by a garden hose for the first time ever. It was cute… 🙂
Maid of the Mist
Back on shore, I kidded one Amish guy at the base of the 200-foot elevator. “Sorry, you’ll have to take the steps – Electricity and all, you know… ” He sort of winked at me and said “Some of us have generators. For the heavy stuff.” and we both chuckled. So we all rode up again, and I got some shots from the very top of the elevator shaft building of the surrounding area. After that, we were pretty well done. Back to the bus, back in to town, and dropping off in reverse order from how we picked them up. We rolled back into the KOA at about four, and I had Dan pose with Kamryn for her book of memories. All in all, a pretty good day, the weather held and we was one of the scenic wonders of the world, at last. Next time though, we’ll bring the necessary paperwork to slide over into Canada and see it all from the better vantage point.
After the O/T, we all trundled back to the tour bus and Don “It is customary to tip your driver 15%” got us all home safely. Tomorrow would be another day at the KOA.