As I write this, a month later, everyone has seen the TV footage of the latest Wallenda wacko walking a tightrope across Niagara Falls; actually, he walked across Horseshoe Falls, which are the rear ones in this picture, connecting the U.S. and Canada. After having seen this in person beforehand, I was pretty amped to see him try it. That was substantially diminished when they showed that he was locked to the cable by a safety harness, thus reducing the danger almost completely. That doesn’t diminish, however, the physical feat – the stamina, training, and concentration that the stunt required. There was quite a bit of swirling wind and a lot of spray when he did it. But, working with a “net,” the drama was mostly hype.
Neither Mom nor I had ever seen Niagara Falls. Loni has been here twice before with her family. Photo op!
We lucked out and got an absolutely perfect day, including the rainbow. Too bad all the casinos and hotels on the Canadian side mar the picture.
You can’t visit Niagara without taking a ride on the Maid of the Mist. I had envisioned it motoring right into the maelstrom about where the rainbow dips in. Nah. It’s pretty tame. We spotted our boat (there are several) heading in.
You start, naturally, at the top of the falls, at the Observation Platform, and take huge elevators down to the level of the river, where a long switchback path leads you to the dock.
Along the way, you are handed flimsy (but effective) rain ponchos to protect against the blowing spray. Mom looks like a blue Jabba buried under all that stuff. The original Maids were made of wood, but had a nasty tendency to burn. These modern ones are all steel.
We were loaded along with several busfulls of students on their graduation trips, and, curiously, a passel of Pakistanis who seemed to be having a great time. It was, however, a real tussle to get a railing spot for taking photos. I managed to do so initially, but kept getting squeezed out by (ahem) much heavier female voyagers whose manners were in inverse proportion to their avoirdupois. Once we were overloaded, we were off.
Frankly, I was having fun, but not terribly impressed. We didn’t really get all that close to the base of the falls, just enough so that the blowing wind kept us nice and wet and made for lousy camera shots. I was keeping busy trying to wipe off the lens and take what pics I could get. You can see in the upper right photo a nice blob of water or two. I didn’t think the falls from below looked nearly as neat as they did from above.
I think the falls we went by (and under) at Milford Sound in New Zealand were more exciting. Much more up close and personal. But, as a gotta-do-it-once experience, I was glad we went. We were all suitably drenched afterwards. Nice comment, Mom.
Mom was really happy to have finally seen the Falls at age 89, and we were really happy to have been able to enjoy them with her. Happy belated birthday, Mom!
Niagara was the end of our trip, save for the bus slog back home to Indy. I have to admit that I wasn’t too thrilled by the prospect of a geriatric “if this is Tuesday, it must be . . .” bus tour. But, once again, the natural cynic in me was proven wrong (or maybe we’re just getting old. We had a lot of fun seeing places and doing things we might not ever have gotten to ourselves. Sunrise Tours did a fine job from beginning to end. Au revoir and so long, Caaaannnada!
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