Niagra Falls

 

I haven't had much to write about lately. My life has been incredibly boring. I suppose if I were living in Iran or Israel right now, my life would be something they would envy. I did go fishing last week, which turned out to be a fiasco, but I'll write about that at a later date when I can get some pictures of the place I visited. I rented a boat, and I wasn't foolish enough to bring my camera with me, knowing full well it would probably end up in the bottom of the lake.

So, I'm going to write about our trip down south last year. We visited the Ark in Kentucky, which I did write about I think, I'll have to check, then we made our way through our home town in Ohio, where we visited my sister and one of Jan's friends. We stopped off at Niagara Falls, New York, since we were passing through anyway on our way to Vermont to visit our friend Buffalo Bob Holden.

Niagra Falls used to be a big honeymoon place when I was a kid. It runs in my mind that different game shows would offer a trip to Niagra Falls as a prize to the winner, with lots of fanfare. Honestly, I wanted to see it, but it wasn't on my bucket list or anything. However, once we were there, we did spend two nights there. It was quite a breathtaking place. The river that feeds the falls doesn't look all that large, and its hard to imagine that something so shallow can produce such a spectacular sight.

One of the things I noticed when we were there was that most of the tourists were from foreign countries. I saw people from the Far East, India, Mexico, Pakistan and Lord knows where else. We were in the minority in our own country, which was a little unsettling.

One other thing that stood out about the place was there was a unisex bathroom on the grounds. As has become a normal issue for me, I had to pee desperately and started in to one of the public restrooms on the grounds. I was following some Indian fellow in when I noticed there were women and men both inside. I thought I'd made a mistake and went outside to look at the sign and saw that it was unisex. I'm sorry, but I'm not enlightened enough to want to be in the same bathroom as the opposite sex. The Indian fellow must have felt the same because we both hightailed it out of there.

Jan wanted to do the tourist thing and ride the Maid of the Mist boat up to the falls. I think they have about six Maid of the Mist boats, some Canadian and some American. Surprisingly, the cost was very reasonable, about twenty five dollars or so each. They give you a little plastic jacket of sorts with a hood to try and keep you dry, but they're about the equivalent of wearing a dry cleaner bag, very thin and the same color. The boats come right up to the bottom of the falls and the thunderous roar is overwhelming. There is no way to stay dry. It was a lot of fun. 

After we'd seen what we wanted to see, we dropped in at a hot dog stand. There was a sign out front saying something about American hot dogs. It was run by a group of Pakistani's and frankly, they were the most expensive hot dogs I ever ate in my life. I paid $28.00 for two foot longs and two drinks. Holy cats! Needless to say, we didn't stick around to eat supper there.

All in all, it was a good experience, and I can join the tens of thousands of folks who can say they've been to Niagra Falls.