Cindy and I had an absolutely wonderful time at Niagara Falls, a trip I highly recommend. The trip took about twelve hours on the way up, but we stopped quite a bit. One of those stops was at the Yuengling Brewery (America's oldest existing brewery) in Pottsville, PA, where of course, had a few samples. (It would be un-American not to.)
We stayed on the Canadian side of the Falls for most of the trip, with one day on the American side. Our very first stop was for breakfast. There was only one choice: The Flying Saucer Restaurant, where I had the E.T. Special – three eggs, bacon, sausage, home fries, toast and pancakes. (E.T. wasn't too slim, if you recall.)
For the first two days, Cindy and I checked out most of the touristy stuff on the Canadian side: The Journey Behind the Falls is okay – you travel down an elevator to tunnels that let you see a fair amount of the falls and feel some of the mist. You don't really get that close to the water, but the sound of it from the tunnels is pretty impressive. Go on this first – you'll be disappointed if you do anything else before The Journey.
The Skylon Tower elevator ride gives you a great overhead view of the Falls. Highly recommended, unless you're afraid of heights (which I am – but I still enjoyed it).
You'll have to go to the American side for the Cave of the Winds tour, and you should. You'll get drenched, but it's worth it. (For this, the Journey, and The Maid of the Mist, you'll receive a poncho, but don't count on it to help much on the Cave tour.) The Cave of the Winds is as close as you can get to experiencing the Falls without diving in.
You can take the Maid of the Mist boat ride from either the American or Canadian side. (We took the American side since the line was much shorter.) Highly recommended.
There's tons of other stuff, but if you've read this far, you're either already interested in going yourself or bored stiff. Anyway, we had a great time. (Pictures to follow, if I can get Blogger to cooperate.)
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Reading material for the trip? Since my XM Radio wouldn't work in Cindy's car, we thought we'd read to each other during the drive. We made it most of the way through Prince Caspian (Chronicles of Narnia), one of the few books we could agree on. I read about half of Horror: 100 Best Books and the first hundred pages of lost boy lost girl by Peter Straub which is so far excellent. Magazines? Nada.
2 comments:
Geeks that we were, we had great fun in high school with the Skylon Tower, calling it the Cylon Tower and hoping that Starbuck wouldn't go over the falls in the Barrelstar Galactica. (Yes, I am that lame.)
Before we had children, Lera and I read to each other on all our long trips--mostly so that both of us would be awake.
Any waterfalls in forthcoming stories?
You never know, there may be a waterfall just around the corner. (Although I would discourage any participatory research in that area.) Now a combination of a waterfall and The Flying Saucer Restaurant...now there's a story!
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