Niagara Falls, NY - Cookin' the Chicken, Eatin' the Veggies

Today we went back to Niagara Falls, first because they are so awesome and secondly because we had tickets for a boat ride up to the falls and into the mist. We were prepared: we had bought 2 waterproof cameras ($9.95 each - we knew they wouldn’t take the best pictures but, hey, we don’t want to use our regular camera) we had brought extra socks in case the ones we were wearing got wet and cloths to wipe our glasses and camera lens dry. We waited in line, donned our ponchos and boarded the boat. Oohs and aahs as we neared the falls. The mist was blowing right at us and I tied my poncho hood tight. At times, we couldn’t even see the falls because the mist was so heavy. The captain of the boat gave us our money’s worth at the falls - we must have been in the spray for 10 minutes at least. The ponchos were shiny with the moisture.

We both began taking pictures as soon as we could. Hold the camera down out of the mist until you’re ready to shoot, aim, shoot, wipe the lens and start again. The wetter I got, the harder it was to find a dry spot to wipe the lens off. These cameras were the old click on the shot and then wind the little knob to get to the next spot on the film. I clicked and wound six times - on the 7th I couldn’t press the little lever to take a picture nor could I wind to get to the next picture. Shucks - 7 pictures and my camera had broken. Well, Gary still had his.

Of course, I can’t put any of those pictures in this blog since we have to send them in to get developed. Remember those days? You’d send in your 6-month old film, wait for several weeks, get the pictures back: 2 were black, 2 were blurry, 3 were of things you can’t remember now and there it was. Digitals are so much better. Click, shoot, view and try again if it was no good.

So, I’ll put in some pictures we took after the boat trip.

Then back to the dock. Fun trip. My advice is:

        1. View the Falls from the Canadian side - you can see so much more, you really can’t see much from the American side.

Here are the falls from the American side.

Cool but. . . here are the falls from the Canadian side. And, then you get to walk along them to get head on views.

        2. Take the American boat because you’ll get so much more. The American boat is smaller so you’ll get a better view and won’t have to be in back of the 5’11” guy. The trip is the same for both the American and the Canadian boat but after you take the American boat, Maid of the Mist, you get to go out on their observation tower and then up the cliff beside the falls to witness its power close up.

        We used our debit card for everything we didn’t want to take time to go to a bank to get Canadian money. A debit card and a charge card will have transaction fees attached BUT this will be more than covered by the favorable exchange rate.
Check out this rainbow.

On the way back to our car, we passed a restaurant called Tony Romas, with its music blaring loudly outside on their speakers. They have no patio seating, there was no one waiting in line to get in, why are they blaring their obnoxious music out onto the sidewalk and polluting the clean air space around them?

Back at the RV, Gary wanted to do a load of laundry. (We’ve been in campgrounds for the last 9 days that did not have sewers so our laundry has been piling up.) Laundry sounds good. BUT - how about doing the laundry AFTER we take our showers? I don’t want to run out of water in the shower because we used it to wash our undies.

Lots of different information about what Canadian and American Customs will allow across the border. We asked the Canadian Customs and he told us that all they ask is about ‘guns.’ We asked the American Customs and he told us: citrus, mangoes, eggs, raw chicken, tomatoes, peppers, milk and a whole host of other things. We’ve got several packages of chicken in our freezer. So, I’m thawing them now, plan to bread them and fry them up, eat as many as we can and then re-freeze them. We can eat the tomatoes in salads or just by themselves and I can fry up the 6 peppers we have. One package of chicken I bought in Seneca Falls, NY - the breasts are still in the original package and I have the receipt. American chickens being repatriated into America - how can they complain?

(Here's an update: I decided to cook the chicken and then refreeze it. Good thing I did - since, even though the package had an American label and even though I had the sales slip to prove that I had bought it in America - they would still have tossed it. When we went through Customs to get to Detroit from Ontario, the Customs Agent informed me.)

I was doing some bookkeeping tonight and compared our fuel expenses this year to last. We have driven approximately the same amount of miles but our costs are $1600 less. The gas prices are about $1.00 lower per gallon this year. Hurrah. Of course, since we’ve been traveling up the East Coast, our campground expenses are much larger than last year since the campground cost more.

‘I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.’
                                                                Mark Twain