Ohio, Erie Canal and the FALLS!

We spent two nights and a day with Bill and Carole Harter. Chris and Bill talked and talked - mostly about physics.  Carole chatted some and left me alone a lot, and I did practically nothing.  It was glorious.  Well, I DID get caught up on my blog, so I'm sure you all appreciate them!We took off towards New York with the idea of heading to the Erie Canal and also Niagara Falls.  We saw a sign for the falls information while we were still in Pennsylvania! We thought that was amusing, but decided to pop in and see what they had to offer.  Chris says, "But I'm not buying anything."  We walked out with two tickets to a shuttle tour of Niagara Falls area, including the big observation tower, a trip on the Maid of the Mist, a journey to the Cave of the Winds and other sights!  However, it was Saturday, and Canada Day was on Sunday, and 4th of July was on Wednesday, so things were getting mighty crowded.  We chose to do our Niagara experience on Monday, and we still had Sunday to fill.  Also, all of the hotels in the Niagara area were booked out, so we stayed at a little podunk hotel in North East, Pennsylvania.  That's not the direction, that's the name of the town!  It's just on the border before New York.  But there was a tiny park nearby and we went swimming in Lake Erie just so we could say we had done it! 

On Monday, we took a little tour of the Erie Canal.  Many of you have probably heard that Chris wants to buy a little trailer/sailer boat so we can "cruise" through the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes.  We thought we should check out our new "neighborhood."  

"Low Bridge - everybody down!"  This bridge is only 12 feet above the water when in it's down position.

But it raises straight upwards to let small boats through.  They decided NOT to have drawbridge type bridges, because they wanted to limit the size of the boats on the canal.

The water works by gravity - both filling and draining, but the draining process seems much faster.

On Monday, we caught a little bus for our shuttle tour, and had a WONDERFUL day at Niagara Falls!  I had been there once before, about 35 years ago, and in the WINTER (when Jim LeDuc interviewed for a church job in Buffalo) and I remembered that it was beautiful, but I didn't really absorb how MAGNIFICENT it is!  

We're about to go down to the Cave of the Winds - they give you a yellow raincoat, and they also even give you some sandals!  So the plastic bag is Chris carrying his tennies.  We are standing right in front of the Bridal Veils Falls, and the American Falls is further behind us with the Rainbow Bridge in the background.

Here are the levels of walkways for the Cave of the Winds.  The Upper Level - right under the Bridal Veil Falls, is called  the "Hurricane Deck".

The sun was so beautiful - it was a lovely day.

You can tell it's me on the "Hurricane Deck" - look at the HAT!

On this trip we got BLUE raincoats - but no sandals.

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Then we rode on the Maid of the Mist RIGHT up into the center of Horseshoe Falls FANTASTIC!

This photo was taken the next day on the Canadian Side, but I wanted to show you where the boat goes - it gets even closer than this one!  It was SO awesome!  

Aren't they gorgeous?  You like the gull I caught in this photo?

If you look carefully, you can see little blue people walking up towards the American Falls.  After the boat ride, you can climb up there.  

This was taken from the top of the observation tower, after the Maid of the Mist trip and after the blue raincoats came off.

We enjoyed it SO much that the next day we decided to view the falls from the Canada side!  

We took a chance on the "Behind the Falls" walk.  We went down in an elevator and through some Looooong  tunnels to the two bright spots you see on this poster behind the horseshoe falls.

But this is all you could see - a portal full of falling water!  It's just like you took a photo of your shower  - haha.  It was noisy, but not lovely.

However, we COULD walk outside, and get pretty close to behind the falls.

See?  This is where we were.  On the Canadian Side of the Horseshoe Falls.

We had a great time exploring the falls, and we were REALLY glad we took the time to do it.  We can count that as our second honeymoon, as our 15th anniversary is on August 6th.  Close enough!