Niagara Falls
Natural Beauty on the Border
We got a timely start on Tuesday morning. I rode an hour on Zwift in the dark, then took my shower. All had been packed the day prior. We creatively packed the suitcases for our travel post-airplane so as to minimize the need to tamper with them. This allowed us to travel for a week without dirtying the clothes we would need in Europe, postponing the need to do laundry at least a few days. Tuesday was not a pleasant travel day, but this was by design. We drove from home all the way to the far side of Indianapolis. We stopped only to clean the windshield once in Quanah, Texas, and to get fuel somewhere in Oklahoma. We ate dinner at a Cracker Barrel in Illinois, and never even set foot in Missouri. In all, we traveled about fifteen hours the first day, leaving only about a third of the distance to Niagara for Wednesday.
As such, Wednesday was a much more pleasant day of travel. I had thrown a bike in the pickup which I used to put in about 22 miles before the others were up and ready for breakfast. We ate the motel breakfast, which honestly wasn’t very good, and then set out toward Canada. We stopped near Erie, PA at about mid afternoon where we visited the Erie Maritime Museum, in Erie, Pennsylvania. They had some nice displays on the Great Lakes naval battles from the War of 1812. They even have a very nice reproduction of the U.S. Brig Niagara that you can board and explore. Unfortunately, this was closed the day we arrived. We stretched our legs as we wandered the exhibits that were open, which also included a large section on NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They apparently previously were involved heavily in mapping and charting. Their primary role now has to do with generating navigational weather forecasts, which I often use in my aviation planning.
I also learned something entirely new at the Maritime Museum. I had never heard of the Fenian Raids. A group of Irish sympathizers on a couple of different occasions during the Civil War era led invasions into Canada to try to force the British government to free Ireland. In one case, this 19th century version of the I.R.A. got an American boat pilot too drunk to navigate the Niagara River, preventing the U.S. Navy from impeding an Irish crossing into Canada. The Navy was not so fooled when the Irish sought to return to the United States at which time the raiders were captured. The ship used by the navy for this operation was the Michigan, the prow of which is on display in the museum. The Michigan was the first metal bowed ship in the U.S. navy.
All of this was a nice diversion and break from driving. Had the Niagara been open, the stop would have merited a bit longer stay. As it was, we needed to continue our journey. We had business to take care of in Buffalo. The Cotopaxi backpack we ordered for Stephanie got lost in the mail and did not arrive before we left, so I also still had a back burner agenda item to see if I could find her a travel pack before we got on the plane for Scotland. I had been searching for one in either Lubbock or Fresno the last few weeks. Since we were now on the road, I searched up travel packs in the cities along our route. I found where a fellow in Buffalo had one, so I contacted him and arranged to meet him that evening before we crossed into Canada. We acquired a nice used Osprey Farpoint 55 for just $60, and then crossed into Canada where we drew extra attention and several questions about firearms apparently due to our Texas drivers licenses. In the end, all was good. We checked into the Niagara Lodge and found a local Chinese restaurant where we had a fine, inexpensive meal. (Continued)
Thursday, I got up and rode 35 miles, all the way to Niagara-on-the-Lake and back. We ate downstairs and then I drove the family up the same trail I had just been on, except that in the car we passed Niagara-on-the-Lake by a few miles. Tried to find Fort Missasauga, but could not because it is enclosed by a golf course. We did go to Fort George, which was supposedly built because the Brits intended to cede Fort Niagara (on the New York bank of the Niagara River) to the U.S., which they were supposed to have done after the American Revolution. Fort George had some fun living historians who shared some travel tips in addition to their knowledge of the local history. One guy even memorized a bunch of correspondence attributed to William Worth as part of his reenactment. The only original building at Ft George is the powder magazine, but they tried to restore the other buildings as best they could. The strangest thing about Ft. George is their account of the reasons for the war. They claim America just saw that Britain had her hands full with Napoleon and tried to use the situation to grab Canada. That’s what all the background placards read. This obviously was the opinion of some in Britain 200 years ago, but any even handed modern portrayal of the war ought to at least mention impressment of sailors, British assaults on U.S. ships in violation of free trade, or their incitement of Indians on the frontier. None of that was even considered at Fort George.
From there, we went to the Sky Car, a tram over the Whirlpool area. As is often the case at National Parks and other major North American tourist areas, there were a lot of Indian and Middle Eastern folks, as well as some East Asian tourists. One diva couple was so busy taking selfies, they couldn’t be bothered to switch sides and let the rest of the group see the better side of the river. The parking was expensive, and the ride only lasted 10 minutes, which as a tad disappointing, considering it cost about $75CDN for the four of us to go.
We tried to go to the “walk behind the falls” tour, but couldn’t find a place to park. We went back to see the Queenston Heights battlefield instead. The park’s centerpiece is the huge monument to Isaac Brock, which contains his remains. The signage is terrible in most of the park. It is impossible to follow the trails. Some of the plaques are missing altogether, others are different colors and unnumbered. All of that was a little disappointing for what was a fairly important battle in the War of 1812. The scenery was beautiful, lush, and green, and I have a fairly detailed understanding of the major events in the War of 1812, so the impact of the site was not lost on me. Many of my fellow travelers were tired by this time, and stayed in the pickup anyway, awaiting my return.
We then went back to try the “behind the waterfall” hike again. Parking was available this time, but for $35CDN. We did not want to pay this for a less than an hour visit, so we decided to come back Friday and try again to find cheaper parking on the front end of their opening times. We went instead to eat at Balti Indian food. They had a hot and sour like soup called something like “resminj.” It was a little hotter than Chinese hot and sour and had a few more ingredients. It was very good, I’d say better than hot and sour. I had Lamb Korma. All of our food was very good and it cost all together about the same as riding the sky car. Interestingly there are a LOT of Indian people here around Niagara Falls. Our hotel guy even told me he was from Punjab, about an hour from where we plan to land in Amritsar in a couple of months.
Finally, we went to the site of the Battle of Lundy’s Lane. This battlefield is only a mile and a half east of our motel, in a cemetery next to a Presbyterian church. The signage is much better, despite the publicly owned portion of the battlefield being incomplete and in the middle of town. A 20th century patriotic Canadian teacher bought several lots surrounding an old motel that she knew to be part of the battlefield. She eventually donated these to the city for historic preservation. The signage is much more even handed. Isaac Hull’s nephew Capt Abraham Hull was killed at Lundy’s Lane, and his remains are in the cemetery, as are Laura Secord’s. I was pleasantly surprised by this site’s interpretation and presentation. (Continued)
Friday was Niagara Falls day. I think Kimberly was probably a little disappointed at how military/historical Thursday had been. Friday would be all Niagara Falls, all day. As usual, I got up at daybreak and put my exercise in. I got 28 miles in headed south on the Niagara Parkway. We ate breakfast as soon as it was available so we could head downtown and get to the Behind the Falls walk around when it opened. We discovered the 23rd that parking along the river ran a whopping $35, and decided to look for something a bit further away. We found a motel about three quarters of a mile from the riverfront with a sign advertising all day parking for $10CDN. I pulled in and went to the office, but could not find anyone, and no one answered the posted number to call in case there was no one in the office. As I peered through the window, an overweight bald fellow with khaki shorts sauntered down stairs from the second floor rooms. He informed me that the office staff seldom arrived before 9:30. They would not be there for at least another hour.
“Just pay them when you get back,” the hotel guest offered.
“That will be fine, as long as they don’t tow my vehicle before I return,” I responded.
“I am heading down to get some coffee,” he said. “Just give me the $10, and I’ll give it to them for you.”
This sounded like a classic ruse, to me. Seeing as it was only $10 and not thinking quickly enough to manufacture a polite way out of handing over the note, I pulled out my wallet. He took the bill and sauntered off toward the coffee shop. I mentally calculated the odds the $10 would end up where it needed to and whether my pickup would be there when I returned as I watched him round the corner. We would only be gone for a couple of hours, I estimated. It seemed unlikely that I would be towed, but probable that I would be forking over another $10 in about two hours.
We made our way toward the waterfront, and soon discovered that the $35 parking fee was protected by a cheese trap maze any casino designer would be proud of. The cliffs had been utilized to make it nearly impossible to descend to the river without either walking a couple of miles out of the way, or paying the difference between the higher and lower parking fees to take a tram across about 100 yards of cliff. I was invested at this point, and we meandered north until we found a vehicle road we could walk along to make our descent. The path south along the water was the kind of misty overlook one would expect at Niagara Falls, making the additional hike worthwhile.
The Behind the Falls experience itself is a bit disappointing. Two tunnels provide access to portals through which you can stare at the back of the waterfall. You don’t stand behind it like Natty Bumpo, the Munro sisters, and his Indian friends in the cinematic interpretation of “The Last of the Mohicans.” Rather, you stare through a small opening at a distant sheet of monolithic white water. I am not sure why there are two portals, unless it is so you now it would be the same anywhere you looked at the back of a waterfall…
On the other hand, the viewing platform at the base of Horseshoe Falls offers a perspective about equal to what you would see on the Maid of the Mist cruise. The big advantage to the Beyond the Falls activity is that you are not time limited. You are free to stay and enjoy the view and the mist as long as you like. By know, you know my aversion to organized, scheduled tours. Yet again, I felt vindicated for going it on my own. As we gazed at the sheets of water pouring over the nearly 200 foot drop, I watched several Maids of Mist come and go, their decks packed with little red or blue human sardines many of who were squeezed to the center of the top deck. The entire voyage is advertised as taking 20 minutes. Much of that is absorbed coming and going. Only a precious few moments remain for gazing at the spectacular feature you’ve come so far and paid so much to see. We traded photo shoots with a few families as we enjoyed the platform and the people.
After we had our fill of the lower observation deck on the Canadian side, we ascended the elevator and prepared to make our way over to Niagara Falls State Park, on the New York side of the international boundary. With trepidation, I approached the motel parking lot where we left the pickup. The truck was still there. I could see a motel clerk having a smoke on the steps outside his post. I approached him to explain our parking situation. Both the motel clerk and the guest could have easily bilked $10 out of me. Both were honest men. The clerk told me the gentleman staying upstairs had dropped off my ten spot, and just asked that I fill in my license plate information and home zip code. I got a warm feeling knowing there are so many honest people in the world.
The American side of Niagara Falls is often disparaged in comparison to the Canadian side. There is much to do on the Canadian side, to be sure. But it really is a giant tourist trap. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes tourist traps are fun. It is worth noting, though, that everything there is designed to separate you from some money. There are bird parks, aquariums, amusement parks, casinos, and restaurants featuring food from just about every part of the world. It is a beautiful tourist trap, offering arguably the better view of the falls. If you go to the state park in New York, you are there just to see the falls, and there are several different ways you can see them.
The views of the falls are quite good from Niagara Falls State Park as well, though. There are many very good view points on Goat Island and Prospect Point, offering an impressive variety of views. You can’t really get a full view of Horseshoe Falls from anywhere on the New York side, but you can see most of it. You get a much closer view of American and Bridal Veil Falls. The divergent shades of green in the water impressed me most as I savored the breeze against my face from the force of the water. As the water approached the falls, it took a deep, emerald green hue with white accents where it churned or struck rocks. Once it took the vertical dive over the edge, the air it accumulated gave it the mint hue of 1960s bathroom tile. Of course, in many places, it was still just white. The stark contrasts in greens were stunning. It was beautiful. The only thing slightly marring the scene was a twinge of sadness I felt for the multitudes who saw the entire spectacle only through a two inch screen. I took a lot of pictures, to be sure. I, too, can fall into the trap of spending too much time staring at electronics. If I come so far to see something as magnificent as Niagara Falls, I try to be intentional about absorbing the atmosphere, the aura, the environment, and the people at such a place. I want to experience it. Someone, somewhere has taken better photos than me, and I can look at them on the web anytime. But I am here, now, and if I am ever here again, it won’t be anytime soon. Let me live this moment and experience this place to the fullest. I drank it in, and encouraged my children to do the same. The wind and the mist just don’t feel the same through a screen.
We began our state park visit on Goat Island. There is a pedestrian bridge across to Prospect Point. After we had seen the major look out spots on the island, the kids were hungry, and Stephanie wanted to rest her back for a few minutes. The one major item left on our park agenda was the observation platform. I went to scout this out, while the others had a picnic. The observation platform is operated by the same company who runs the Maid of the Mist. The lines were short on a weekday, and it cost just $1.25 to enjoy it as long as you want. There is even an elevator to a lower observation deck. You will get wet if you spend much time at the lower deck. Steph and the kids joined me on the upper deck after lunch and we took some pictures there.
I thought I might check out the old Erie Canal terminus if we had time, but Stephanie’s back was hurting, and the Buffalo waterfront district was 22 miles from the state park, so we called it a day at about 2:30 and I navigated back to the room for a couple of hours’ rest before dinner. Caleb got a Canadian passport stamp on the way back. The four of us feasted on a delicious steak dinner for less than $100 total at Chuck’s Roadhouse. I highly recommend this place if you visit. A strong dollar may not be good for cotton exports, but it makes for a great deal on an international steak. (Continued)
After a morning bike ride and our last breakfast at the Niagara Lodge, we double checked all of our bags and headed for Toronto via a few more sight seeing destinations. We first headed for the Devil’s Punch Bowl, a stark round drop off in the Canadian Shield escarpment where water washes down toward Hamilton and Lake Ontario. This was a free site with a paid parking lot. It could have been viewed by parking at a nearby boarded-up store, and only merited about a 20 minute stop. You do get a nice view of Hamilton and the lake from the edge of the escarpment.
We then headed for the HMCS Haida, the last remaining tribal class destroyer. These were effective anti-submarine and convoy escort vessels during World War II. Several of these were made each for Canada and Australia. Haida continued to be utilized in Korea and the Cold War until its deactivation from service in the late 1960s. All of the original armaments had been removed and upgraded, except for a set of original torpedo tubes. I learned a few new things on my Haida visit. I was surprised to learn that these ships featured exposed bridges, meaning that the command staff controlled the vessel even during combat while exposed directly to the elements. I also learned of a post war innovation called a squid mortar. During the war, destroyers had to roll depth charges right off the ship’s decks to bracket submarines. This meant they had to directly pass over the submarine. This left destroyers with very little flexibility in placing depth charges. Squid mortars were depth charges fired as projectiles with fuses to control the depth at which they exploded. Initially, squid mortars could only be fired over the bow. Even with this limitation, they greatly expanded the area over which charges could be dropped. A further innovation allowed the devices to be aimed laterally, expanding their range to a large circular area.
I considered Haida to have been an excellent stop. We were finished by about noon, however. We were less than an hour from the airport, though, and our plane was not slated to depart until 10:00 p.m. We decided to pass the airport and head into downtown Toronto to visit a post office museum recommended to us by one of the living historians at Fort George. There was quite a traffic snarl in Toronto, but we had plenty of time. Other than the stress of driving through a traffic jam (twice), it cost us nothing. The post office museum was free, too. It was a small but very interactive museum. They had quill pens to write with, examples of postage canceling stamps you could use, and several other interactive stations. Even so, this did not occupy an hour – even with my chattiness.
We braved the traffic jam a second time, and still arrived at our long term parking location six hours prior to our scheduled departure. As often happens when one tries to utilize the least expensive possible option, we were ripped off once arriving at EZ Park Toronto. A tiny paragraph in the details of their listing agreement allows them to essentially charge any vehicle they deem “oversized” any amount they want in addition to what has already been paid. You have no option to go somewhere else at that point, having already committed a non-refundable fee. Presumably, most travelers would not have time to argue this point anyhow. The “friendly” attendant notified me that there would be a five dollar per day additional charge for my “oversized” F-150 to park there. This, he said, would cost an additional $250 for the twenty days we would be there. I complained about this, to which he replied he could offer me a discounted amount of $100. I pointed out that $5/day for 20 days amounted to exactly $100, so I didn’t see how that was any discount at all. He said the rest was tax. I could see that this discussion was going nowhere and that this was clearly their standard operating procedure, and just chalked it up in the “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” category.
It turned out to be quite fortunate that I had arrived at EZ Park six hours prior to my plane’s departure. The extra 50% they charged me for my “oversized” vehicle did NOT buy a 50% larger parking place. There were cars ricked in everywhere, so that in many places an economy sedan couldn’t have rounded the corners between the rows of parked cars. It took about 15 minutes to squeeze the pickup between a couple of cars without hitting any. We then spent a few more minutes changing, rearranging bags, and double-double checking that we had everything we needed for the coming weeks and months. Our shuttle driver was kind and friendly. Like our Niagara motel operator, he was from Punjab and was pleased to share advice on things to do once he heard we planned to go through Amritsar later in our trip. We arrived at the airport still over five hours prior to our departure. This turned into six as our flight was delayed. We boarded our red eye flight and departed at about 11:00 p.m.
