Niagara Falls

July 23-July 25, 2009.

Niagara Falls.

The drive from Canada Hari to Niagara was uneventful, other than the sporadic rain. We filled up our gas tank in Buffalo, before crossing the river because I remembered that gas was at least 4 1/2 dollars a gallon in Canada and about half that much in the US. Luckily, there was a BJ's right off the highway in Buffalo and I was able to get gas there. I almost got hit by a woman backing up her car as they pulled into the gas station. This is the closest we came to an accident during our vacation trip.

We had booked a room in a bed-and-breakfast in Niagara Falls, Ontario. I was not terribly impressed by the place, but Sandy was somewhat more forgiving. It was rather nicely said, with a grape vine vineyard right behind, and a winery and bakery just beyond. The house itself was not prepossessing, which is why I was a little cautious at first. The woman running the bed-and-breakfast, however, was extremely helpful in giving us tips about how to get around Niagara Falls, where to park so as to avoid exorbitant parking fees, what to see and what not to see, etc.

On the first night, all we did was to drive around on the Niagara Falls Pkwy, which runs about 12 miles along the Niagara River on the Canadian side. I caught my first glimpse of the Niagara Falls that evening (the evening of July 23), and I must say it was more breathtaking than any picture or movie I have seen of it. We did not, however, get to see it close up until the next day.

Breakfast the next morning was plentiful. The woman made some really good bread and much else. I thought there was nothing to complain about in terms of food, either in quantity or quality. The woman who ran the B&B had told us to park at the butterfly Conservatory, which was located at the closest part of the Niagara Falls Parkway. Parking there was free and then we could take a shuttle bus (called the "people mover") all day, for a fee of $7.50. As it turned out, we had purchased a Niagara Falls passbook from Triple-A before we left. One of the coupons in the passbook was for two days of rides on the people mover. This meant that you could pretty much move around without paying anything more than what we already had back in Connecticut.

So we started the morning at the butterfly Conservatory. Sandy wanted to see the butterflies, and we were able to get tickets half-price because of the coupon book from AAA. I'm not sure however that it is worth the price of admission. The butterfly Conservatory was not very different from the butterfly Museum that we had visited earlier in Deerfield, Massachusetts. But what was absolutely wonderful was the large botanical Garden surrounding the butterfly Conservatory. Sandy and I have both come to appreciate the extraordinary gardens in Canada and this was no exception. We spent an hour or two just wandering around the gardens, admiring the variety and profusion of flowers tastefully displayed.

We got to the people mover to the first touristy the attraction on the Niagara Falls Pkwy. this was set a few miles downstream of the Falls (I should probably point out that the Niagara River runs south to north from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. The place where we were staying was at the northern end of the Parkway. So, we joined the Parkway at the northern end and were traveling south, two words the Falls from the butterfly Conservatory. The first stop was therefore several miles downstream of the Falls). The attraction here was a boardwalk that ran on the Western (Canadian) bank of the Niagara River, at a place where the water was rushing at the highest speed. The Rapids were truly impressive. I know that several people have tried to swim across the Rapids at that very spot, and I cannot help but wonder at their bravery or stupidity. Needless to say most people never made it across to the US side. We took many pictures, but I don't think any picture can do justice to the shooter with volume of water that was rushing at enormous be over rocky terrain, creating whirlpools and Whitewater that is nothing short of awe-inspiring.

We went back to the Parkway, and waited for for a bus to take us to the next attraction, which was the maid of the mist. The maid of the mist is basically a boat that travels they are close to the Falls. We were all given a flimsy plastic raincoats to wear. Sandy and I had, in addition, brought our own raincoats. We wore the plastic raincoats on top of our more robust ones.

What can I say other than the maid of the mist is something that every human being must experience firsthand. As you approach the foot of the Falls, I look up and see the falls cascading down from great height and force, generating the most extraordinary row or and throwing up amidst that rises hundreds of feet into the air, it is simply breathtaking. You cannot help but feel humbled by the power and awesome majesty of nature. It is probably the most singular experience of our vacation.

It was May Day by then, and we stopped to get some lunch from the many fast food outlets along the Niagara Falls Pkwy. Sandy bought herself some inari sushi, which she thought was some of the freshest she had had since the time that we were in Japan. I bought myself some pizza which tasted a lot like the pizza that Costco or BJ's sells.

After lunch we visited two other tourist attractions, neither of which overwhelmed us all that much. The first was a cave that had been bored into the rock behind the false, with some portals that lead directly into the face of the rock over which the Falls cascade. The water is a few feet away from the rock face, so that it is not possible to actually put one's hand out and feel the water. This probably lucky that it were so, because I am sure the power of the water would simply take one's hand off. There were also railings to make sure the worker to jump into the water. This is okay, but won't really did not get to see much other than the curtain of water in front of one size, which is impressive but not anywhere near the kind of awestruck feeling one gets from being at the foot of the Falls in the maid of the mist boat. We also visited something called the fury of the Niagara falls, a sort of Disney-esque multimedia event. Technically this is quite nice. We were on some kind of a movable platform and they made a very good attempt at making it seem as though we were on the boat that was cruising upstream of the Niagara River towards the Falls. By using projection screens that surrounded the entire platform and moving the platform along several axes, they were able to make it seem as though you were actually on the boat. In addition, whenever the "boat" was neither the falls are a Rapids, they sprayed water on you to subjects built into the roof to make it seem that you are actually in the water. It is high-level technical cheesiness. It is worth one visit, but I doubt I would be tempted to go back there again if we went there a second time.

We went back to the better bet breakfast for a brief respite, and then on the advice of the woman who ran the bed and breakfast, we spent the evening in the old, historic part of that peninsula, called Niagara on the Lake. It was a bit like walking on Main and cottage streets of Bar Harbor, Maine, except somewhat more upscale and less crowded. One additional feature, which you never see in Bar Harbor, with the flowers. Every street corner and the central island were veritable botanical Gardens. The Canadians seem to specialize in horticulture and it is astonishing given the very short growing season that they must have. There is a confusion of flowers many of which I have never seen before, but I am sure Sandy knows. Personally, I was impressed by the amount of sweet potato greenery. I have loved sweet potato foliage ever since I saw it first at the Yankee Candle factory in Deerfield Massachusetts.

We had dinner at a restaurant located inside a hotel called the Prince of Wales. We sat at a table on the sidewalk, watching the world go by. Sandy had lobster dish which she thought was terrific, and I had pizza which was very good. We thought the whole ambulance of the restaurant and the rest of the hotel was so good that we decided to price out the rooms. We later found the least expensive room was about $240 a night, which seemed a little steep. However, it was a high-class establishment!

The next morning, breakfast was just as spectacular as the day before. The woman made a multigrain bread, but Sandy absolutely adored. She was, however, not able to pry off the recipe from the woman.

What enlivened breakfast was the conversation. We sat with two Canadian couples, one perhaps a few years older than us and the other a few years younger. Everyone was somewhat left of center like ourselves, which made the conversation pleasant and bereft of friction. The younger man (who is of course, not all that young, I guess about 56 or so) at the table reminded both Sandra and myself very strongly of Eric Kronstadt. He looked like Eric, he talked like Eric (except somewhat more than I ever does) and seem to be quite smart, just like Eric. He also turned out to be an oenophile, and was able to recommend some wineries to visit on our way to Toronto. I guess I have not mentioned that of the most extraordinary features of that whole area seems to be the profusion of wineries. I could not help get the oppression that every other house was a small winery.

In any case, we talked about all kinds of interesting things at breakfast, many many political issues but most importantly their impressions of the health care system in Canada. As with most other Canadians we spoke to during our visit, they were basically happy with what they had and were quite astonished that there were so many Americans who did not have health coverage and the numbers of Americans who go bankrupt if they fall ill.

Before leaving the better breakfast, we walked through the vineyard behind to the bakery. It was a very nice bakery, and be realized that they could have picked up some really good for lunch the previous day had been known that it existed, instead of the rather mediocre fast food we actually had. Sandy had come to Canada hoping that you would be able to pick up some maple extract better recipe for maple oat nut scones called for. This seemed to be just the kind of high-end bakery that might have that ingredient. As it turned out, they did not order a book to recommend some places to try.

We decided to drive through the Niagara Falls Parkway one last time before we left. We wanted to take another good long look at the Falls because it was quite likely we would never come back again. But initial thought was to park the car at the butterfly conservatory, and take the people mover but in the end we decided that this would take too much time. So we simply drove the car through the entire length of the Parkway, and headed towards Toronto. As our pseudo-Eric had recommended, we decided not to take the highway to Toronto, but drive through some of the back roads through the wineries that dotted the landscape. Pseudo-Eric had suggested that we stop at a specific winery whose name I have now forgotten. It is housed in a lovely old stone house. Because of my Plavix and aspirin, I'm not able to drink, but Sandy tested many of their wines and wine tasting. The guy who poured the wine was an older man who seemed patient, knowledgeable but not supercilious and informative. Both Sandy and I found an excellent guide to the winds at the winery. We had heard that one of the specialties of the entire Niagara Falls region was ice wine, a wine made from grapes after the ground is frozen. Sandy made a point of testing that ice wines, but found them unbearably sweet. We ended up buying a few bottles of wine at the winery.

Soon after we finish of the winery, it started raining. We stopped at a small Greek restaurant and bought a Greek salad to eat on the way. Unfortunately, I seem to have left the umbrella we took with us (the one that we have both last year in Nova Scotia) at that restaurant.

By the time we hit the highway to Toronto, it was pouring very very hard. There were times that I could barely see the road (this would happen again on the last leg of our journey, between Ithaca and Farmington). There were times when we wondered whether we should just pull off the road and wait out the rain fall. However, we also realize that he did not seem like it was going to stop raining at any time. So we just pressed on and got to Toronto on the evening of July 25.