Niagara Falls Day 2 Part 2 - Maid of the Mist, and Golden Hour at the Falls

A few more pictures from Niagara Falls. Fewer than I remembered, in fact - our next activity, since we were hitting all the standard Niagara Falls tourist fun on the US side, was a ride on the Maid of the Mist, and while there may not have been any cave at the Cave of the Winds, there was definitely mist on the Maid of the Mist, the boat takes a pretty close pass by the American Falls and then snuggles right uo to the thundering Horseshoe Falls. That's the one people shoot for when they get it into their heads to go over the falls in a barrel or a kayak or an inner tube or whatever, the American Falls have this barricade of boulders at the bottom so there's just no way, but the Horseshoe Falls fall straight down into the roiling pool at the bottom so there's a marginally better chance of living to tell the tale. Odds are still lousy though. Much better to just go into the mist and the roaring at the bottom, on a nice solid passenger boat with a good strong engine. Anyways, the reason there are not many pictures is because the mist starts at the American Falls, and I kept trying to take pictures for a little too long before I wrapped up the camera in the plastic bag I'd brought, and when I took it out and tried to take a picture afterwards, it just said "Nope".

That was  too bad because we stumbled across the very lovely Niagara Gorge trail afterwards, we were walking in the park downstream from the Falls and as we were approaching a building perched on the cliff's edge, we saw people coming out. We investigated and discovered that it was the elevator down to the service area for vessels in the area and also the public access to the trail. We had a great short hike down there, continuing downstream until we got to a switchback trail that led back up to the top of the cliff, getting back to the falls just as the sun was getting that late afternoon gold color to it, illuminating the falls in a way that I thought was far more breathtaking than the colored floodlights at night. I took a chance and turned the camera back on and was very happy when it worked - must've given it just enough time to dry out. So glad since my hands-down favorite pictures from Niagara Falls ended up being that set.

It's funny, I ended up really kind of glad I hadn't brought my passport - if I had, there were 2 more tourist attractions on the Canadian side that we would've tried to hit (Journey Behind the Falls, which is actually tunnels that take you to look out from behind Horseshoe Falls, and then the cable car over the Whirlpool, which TQ remembered as being pretty neat from visiting there in the past), and we would've missed the hike, which I enjoyed so much. Funny how things work out sometime. As it was, I felt like it was just about a perfect first visit to Niagara Falls.

And here are those last pictures.

Erie Canal Day 8 (or really, Niagara Falls Day 2) Part 1 - Cave of the Winds!

Well, oof, the usual March march at work marches on, all work and no play makes Bonnie a boring blogger, but recently overhearing someone complaining about how Niagara Falls wasn't as amazing as they expected did remind me that I had promised more Niagara back in a January post and never done that. So here we go, on with Day 2!

We were in total tourist mode here on my first ever visit to Niagara Falls, so of course we had to visit the Cave of the Winds, which is not actually a cave anymore. Once upon a time, there WAS a cave, and tours were offered, but it was closed after a rockfall in 1920 and then "obliterated in a massive 1954 rockfall and subsequent dynamiting of a dangerous overhang" (thanks Wikipedia). The tour had reopened in 1924 using boardwalks and stairs and today the Cave of the Winds is really the Boardwalk of the Winds. Interesting notes about the construction - there's no foundation, the support poles are just shoved down into spaces in the boulders at the base of the falls, and they take off the decking and store it in the wintertime when the ice buildup would take it apart. That must be quite the job, and the initial construction must have been hair-raising. Great attraction though, so amazing to get right up to the falls like that.

The photo above was taken on our first day in Niagara Falls, and I was loving that people were getting right under the falls the way they were. The next day it was our turn, and we had a blast! Once again, the fall visit worked out great, we were able to get our ponchos and slippers and get right onto the elevator without waiting at all, and then of course for this we were very lucky to have almost summery weather. Photos below, although after a certain point I had to pack up my camera because there was just too much water for it, next time I'll have to bring the waterproof one! That's it for the writeup, click on the first photo below for a slideshow view.

Erie Canal Day 7 - My First Visit EVER To Niagara Falls!

Oof. Violators will be prosecuted, that is if they're ever heard from again. Vies with this one for title of Most Seemingly Unnecessary (But I Suppose It Had To Be Said) Trail Sign I've Ever Seen. 

Rough day on teh interwebz today, with yesterday's moving farewell speech from Obama and then that (ugh) press conference today (sorry, I really meant for this to be a completely apolitical post, but...ugh...that's all) - I have nothing to add to what I've already seen out there, so I thought I would take refuge in the unfinished business of reporting on our October vacation. The main course was of course 6 days of cruising the Erie Canal in a sweet little trawler with no name, and then to top things off, we decided to go spend a couple of days at Niagara Falls. I can't remember where exactly in the planning this got added in, but I do know that there was a day I was hanging out over at TQ's and we were talking about places we'd been and wanted to go and I said "Do you know, I have lived in New York State for over two decades and I have never been to Niagara Falls?" and TQ said, "REALLY? We have to get you there. It's really worth seeing at least once".

Now by the time you're at Cayuga Lake, you're already on the proper end of the state for seeing the falls, so at some point we decided to finish our trip that way. TQ had made all of the boat arrangements, so I took care of the hotel; we were limited to the NY side because of documentation requirements, and it seemed like a lot of the chain hotels were reviewed as being kind of old and tired; I looked at splurging on the Red Coach Inn, which dates back to the 1920's, but the decor there looked a little, no, a lot more froufrou than I thought TQ would've liked, so we ended up at a new Fairfield Inn & Suites hotel that had gotten good reviews and was reasonable and very pleasant indeed. We left Hibiscus Harbor around ten in the morning after finishing up with the boat cleaning and it's about a two and a half hour drive to Niagara, so we got to the hotel in the midafternoon, with plenty of daylight left for a walk to see the falls.

The hotel was located a little ways upriver from the falls, and the first bit of our walk was straight to the shore, which turned out to be the perfect way to do it - it was so much fun starting  where you just see that the water was moving along pretty fast, and then walking along watching the river get more and more agitated as you went along, and then - WOW. What a thing to see!

Here are some pictures from that walk. The boardwalk structure is the "Cave of the Winds" attraction. No more writing, click on the first picture for a slideshow view. More to come. Enjoy!