Niagara Falss 2022 Part 7-the end.

 Woke up this morning to a gloomy & rainy day, but since it’s the day to travel home, that’s not an issue. Our shuttle back to Toronto was to pick us up about 9:30, so we had a reasonable amount of time to have breakfast and get packed up. 

The shuttle was on time, and we had an excellent driver this time, he had us at the airport in about 1.5 hours….he flew down that highway, with the rain coming down so hard that I don’t know how he could even see. 

There were only 6 of us on the shuttle, so there was a lot of room and some snoozing.

Security line-ups were once again non-existent and we didn’t have to take our shoes off, so we were through and at our gate with 3 hours to spare. I saw a lounge sign for KLM/Air France and I used to have lounge access with them, so I decided to see if it was still valid…..and it was! Glory Be! 

So we watched some TV in a quiet corner and enjoyed the free food and drinks. Steven had never been in an airport lounge before, so it was a treat for him and a restful couple of hours for both of us.

Beer before noon? Airport beer doesn’t count. And free beer and cappuccino is even better.

The flight back to Calgary was uneventful, we spent the night at the Wyndham Garden again and drove home the next day. It was a great getaway and I highly recommend Niagara Falls as a place to add to your “list.”

Niagara Falls 2022 Part 6.

Sunday morning. This is the first day that the sun has not been shining and there is a drizzle of rain. After our breakfast we decided to walk down to the Niagara Power Station which is now opened to tourists. The rain is hardly  coming down at all, but I was surprised at how many people are wearing their plastic poncho’s from the various watery attractions. Everyone wearing yellow had been to the Journey Beneath the Falls, red ones were from The Hornblower boat and blue were from the American maid of the Mist. It was like a touristy method of identification!

We weren’t even wearing jackets, it was still pretty humid and unless the rain is coming down hard enough to fog up and/or mess up my glasses I don’t mind a light rain, but I did feel sorry for people who looked like they might have just arrived and were sad at a rainy, gray holiday. There were some seriously miserable looking people hunched over trying to keep their cameras dry as they took pictures.

It’s only a 15-20 minute walk, along the paths and gardens that overlook all the Falls, and you see a lot of memorial statues dedicated to Nikolai Tesla. You eventually end up at the old power station which is just at the brink of the Falls. The building has been renovated as an interactive museum with a cafe, and a gift shop. And it is huge! 

It was not on my list of things I was interested in, and we only went there because it was a drizzly day, but as usual, I was wrong and it was quite fascinating.

We walked through the old power plant area, which had a lot of little movies playing as well as interactive trivia games, hands-on machines etc. I think it would be a great place for kids and anyone interested in construction engineering and electricity. The cafe was wonderful with all types of coffees, teas, pastries and sandwiches which you could snack on while overlooking the river and the Falls. 

These are the massive old turbines. 

These are some sort of something that I don’t know, but to me they looked like a mechanical creature, sort of grasshopper-ish thing that would come to life if I were in a sci-fi movie, leaping and creaking with their rusty joints as they chased you through the building.

After we wandered through the exhibits, we descended 180 ft down in a glass walled elevator, viewing gigantic pipes and strange, rusted mechanisms from eras gone by.

At the bottom, as we exited, you are faced with a looooong (1/2 mile) tunnel, it’s damp, reasonably dark and the young girl says “Bye now” as the elevator doors close and she is whisked back into the light and we are left alone at the bottom. With nary a soul around.

It was a slight downhill slope and really slippery, no handrails, I thought it seemed unsafe for older, less-sure footed people, but once we rounded the first corner, it levelled out and it was easy walking. There were little streams of water coming out of the walls here and there which was somewhat concerning, but I figured if the tunnel has been here over 100 years, then it probably wasn’t going to collapse today. Fingers crossed.

There were benches and informative information displays every few hundred feet, and every now and then we thought we could here a voice in the distance, but no sign of any other people or light at the end of the tunnel (literally and figuratively, ha.) 

After rounding a few more corners we could see light, and before long we came out onto a viewing platform near the bottom of the falls. There were 2 other people there, a young couple from Kentucky. She insisted on taking a picture of us, and I’m glad she did, they turned out sort of fun! As you can see, we were wet!

It was a super place to watch the Maid of the Mist and The Hornblower go to the base of the Falls. We watched for quite a while, and had an enjoyable conversation with them (and I’m not one for chatting with strangers, but they were like a younger “us” and it was kinda cool) Then we heard voices of other people coming to interrupt our private viewing platform so we headed back up the 1/2 mile tunnel and back to the upper world again.

I wonder how many other tunnels are beneath this area? These ones have only been opened to the public since last year. I highly recommend it, unless you are claustrophobic, it’s a fairly long walk and there are no emergency exits.

When we left the building, the rain had lessened somewhat, although it was hard to tell if the drizzle was rain or mist from the Falls.

The birds seemed to be playing in the waves. They would land, spin around from the force of the current and then take off again. This is outside the power plant where the water is funneled into the actual plant.

Depending on the wind, these huge plumes of mist either rise into the sky and dissipate, or they fall upon you and cause everything to be damp. I can just imagine how cold it would be during the freezing winter. 

After this we went into the food court at the Casino and had a quick lunch at Tim’s. We then, of course, went into the casino and played some slot machines. As we were leaving I finally, finally, spotted one of these!:

I keep seeing other people post about them….it’s a fresh cake vending machine! I was overly excited, considering that it’s just vending machine cake, but I whipped out my credit card and chose…guess which one? If you know me at all, then you know it was the rainbow with coloured sprinkles. To my dismay, this picture looks like there is a mouse turd on it, but it was just a chocolate sprinkle (it really was, because it wasn’t there when the cake came out of the machine) 

Oh my god, it was so good. It was also $12.00. That must be the going price for touristy treats around here…the ice-cream cone, the funnel cake, this cake, and a beer with a side of Clamato….all $12.00. And all worth every single cent.

We decided to do some strolling around before dinner and take some final pictures.

There is a huge Buddhist Temple down the street, which normally welcomes visitors, but was closed when we walked by.

The Fallsview Hotel has an apiary and they collect and use the honey in the restaurant.

We saw a fox hunting and killing a gopher! I didn’t expect to see that!

Hey. It’s serious business being at Niagara Falls. 

The hives

Strange little paths that lead to various seating areas, shortcuts to other places, and also to public washrooms.

Well, now instead of heading down into tunnels, we are headed to our room to change and then walked over to head up the Skylon for dinner. It’s 775 feet above the base of the Falls and the concrete it’s made from weighs 48 million, yes, million pounds. Honestly, how can all these underground tunnels support all this weight? 

The glass elevator up the tower was great, I’ve been up the Calgary Tower as well as a few others, and I do like a glass elevator. Steven stood silently by the wall. When we were seated, we realized that the menu we had been shown the other day, the  day we booked our tickets, was in fact an “early menu” and was not available for our time slot. We were disappointed, which we mentioned to our server, but the “new” menu was pretty amazing anyhow. Steven did get to have his prime rib, and I had salmon with wild rice and a butter sauce. It was honestly the best salmon I have ever had. Both of these pictures look like it was not great food, but both our meals were spectacular. I had a glass of rosé and I’m sad that I’ve forgotten what it was because it was one of the yummiest glasses of wine I’ve ever had. Oh well….

The views as the restaurant were wonderful as well, and I’ll just put a few of them here. A full rotation took close to an hour. Now, the picture of the spider makes my skin crawl every time I accidentally look at it, but I had to take a picture because talk about determination!  How on earth did it get up here and manage to make itself a web and a home? And survive? I hate it, but I admire it nonetheless. But can you imagine if you are arachnophobic and you are also the window cleaner? And you are on your dangling platform and suddenly come across the creature? My heart pounds with fear. just thinking of it.

Anyhow, here’s a few photos from above.

When we got our bill, our server had comped us the salad, one drink each and the dessert (pecan pie with fresh berries and whipped cream!) as an apology for not having the original menu available. That was a sweet surprise!

That was it for the day, we walked back to the bottom of the falls and watched the fireworks for one final time and hit the sack. Homeward bound tomorrow.

Niagara Falls 2022 Part 5

 Who knew I could write so much about  just 4 days in a Canadian city? Ha, I guess that’s why my overseas journals are sometimes 100 pages or more long. I like to write.

So it’s Saturday morning and the weather is still hot and muggy and my hair is still as wild as ever. I’ve given up on it. We had our hotel breakfast and walked down the hill to the Wego and decided to take it to the end, or, as far as we could. There was only us and another couple on the bus and the driver was very chatty and told us lots of interesting little touristy tidbits, like the police station is the second oldest in Canada. I couldn’t find any info on that anywhere, but the building is beautiful in any case.

We decided to get off at the end of the line and take a picture of the floral clock. It contains over 20,000 plants that are changed up twice yearly. The clock works and has Westminster Chimes that ring every 1/4 hour. I was a bit discouraged that we would have to wait 20 minutes for the next bus as there is nothing else to do there but gaze at the clock, but the bus driver said that since there were only the 4 of us on the bus, and she hadn’t had to make any stops, she was about 4-5 minutes ahead of schedule, so if we wanted to hop off, take a photo and hop on again within that time frame, we could continue ‘home” on the same bus! Bonus! And as I took the picture, the chimes chimed, so bonus for that too.

On the return trip we decided to “do” the White Water Walk. To get to the elevator you have to walk through (“surprise!”) the gift shop and then you get on an elevator that takes you down approximately 7 stories, and then follow a 75 metre tunnel (man, this place is riddled with tunnels….one strong earthquake and I’m sure everything would collapse) and you exit onto a boardwalk that is about 1/4 miles long and has incredible views of the Niagara River and their Class 6 rapids. It was amazing! 

Class 6 rapids are considered “unsurvivable”, which I didn’t know, but you can certainly see why. The waves must have been 8-10 feet high in places. I don’t think a short distance would be unsurvivable, but these went on for what seemed like a mile or more.

Branching off from the boardwalk are a couple  viewing platforms that allow you to get even closer to the breathtaking water flowing by at a speed of 48 km/hr. These platforms provide some of the best photo opportunities that I have seen yet.

I wonder if anyone else ever gets the urge to fling themselves off of cliffs or ledges or edges of things? When I am up high, I seriously want to leap off of things. Balconies on boats are the worst, but these viewing platforms were a close second. I think I was a bird in my prior Buddhist life. Really.  

It was mesmerizing; the spray, the sound, and the lack of people. The colour of the water was such a perfect blue. The other side of the gorge (that you see in the pictures) is the USA. The border is down the centre of the river.

Look at this tree growing through a crack in a rock. Nature is pretty determined.

You could walk down these stairs and pretty much dangle over the railing to see the water flow by.

After we finished wandering here we went back through the tunnel, up the elevator, through the gift shop and decided to go to Clifton Hill for something 100% different.

It was so fun! Extremely touristy and totally a place to take your kids, or your kid-like self. It’s like a giant, tacky, fair with all the trappings. Dinosaur mini-golf, go-carts, a midway, all sorts of things like wax museums, zombie attacks, mirror mazes and an absolute plethora of places to eat. It also has Canada’s largest sky wheel! That’s where we headed first. It was supposed to be an 8 minute ride, but ours was much longer, maybe because half the seats were empty? All I know is that after every revolution Steven was deflated when it didn’t stop. He does not like heights, and he made me not move to take pictures. I tried to move as gently as possible, but he was having none of it. 😮😊. Thank goodness our car had air conditioning and music, so he could close his eyes and pretend he was elsewhere.

Zombie picture is not mine, it’s a stock photo.

And….I had my very first funnel cake. I’ve heard about them, but never had one. Oh my god, it was massive and delicious and could have fed a family of 4. It was another $12 treat, but worth every chocolatey penny.  By the time we started to eat, the chocolate bits were all melty and gooey…soooo good.

Satiated after that, and feeling the need to walk some of those calories off, we walked around the area and ended up in the Midway, buying tokens and playing all the silly games where a lucky person might win a crummy stuffed animal. It was really hot outside and the Midway was all indoors with powerful air conditioning and it made me laugh because almost every person in there was in their 40’s-50’s-60’s and more, with children being the odd exception. All these grown men playing Skee-ball and shooting tin cans at the Shooting Gallery and trying to grab a stuffie from the Claw Machine! Couples in their 70’s sitting in the 3D machines, laughing hysterically, it was awesome! It was like a Chuckie Cheese, tickets flying out of machines and no one (including me) had a clue what to do with them. Such a fun day!

We ended up walking back to the hotel, he had a hot tub, I had a rest in the room (all that Midway action…hahahah) and for dinner we walked up the street to My Cousin Vinnie’s and had a good Italian meal outside with live entertainment. I had tortellini, he had a seafood pasta. 

We stopped in at the casino on out way back, but I guess all the people we were not on the streets during the week were all in the casino on this Saturday night. It was so crowded and noisy that we had to leave. I think every stag and stagette party in Ontario was there as I have never seen so many tipsy women wearing “Bride” and “bridesmaid” banners and groups of guys trailing after them. I’m pretty sure there was crying in bathrooms and much vomiting. 

We watched the fireworks instead, and even that was crowded as there was some sort of concert happening in the park area by the Falls. It was an East Indian festival and the band was excellent. I love Hindi/Bollywood music, and it reminded me so much of the wedding in India I went to a few years back. Made me a bit maudlin to be honest.

And then we walked up the hill and went to bed. What a great day!