Friday, August 20, 2010
From Elkhart Campground, Elkhart, IN
Before our arrival in Elkhart, I need to update for a couple of days prior to our leaving Niagara. On Tuesday, we first visited 'The Whirlpool' overlook. This spot in the river, where the river takes a 90* turn into a narrow canyon is located about 3 miles downstream from the Falls.
Some very nice landscaping at the welcome shelter welcomes the visitors to the state park.
The water is really swirling as it makes the turn into the narrow channel.,
From there we drove on further north to a little village by the name of Youngstown, a cute little area. In getting there we drove along the River Road with some fine homes on a bluff over-looking the Niagara River.
Youngstown is the site of Fort Niagara, a very important fort in the 1700's and 1800's. Occupied by both the French and British at various time, the fort has been restored nicely. The fort guarded the entrance to the Niagara River from Lake Erie.
The main building inside the fort..
We saw a demonstration of musket firing from some volunteers.
On Wednesday we drove back to the US side of the Falls to take a cruise on the Maid of the Mist, a boat that takes you right up into the falls amid all the mist (rain) from the falls.
Before boarding we were given rain gear consisting of a hooded cover-up to keep us dry in the wet mist... Yeah, Right !!
We are waiting for the next boat... first in line..
As we approached the American Falls, I thought "Hey, this ain't so bad.. why was everyone getting off that last boat so wet.
As we continued on past the American Falls and getting closer and closer to the Horseshoe Falls I began to understand just how close we were getting to the falls, or at least I thought I understood.
We kept getting closer and closer, until I thought we were actually gonna hit the rocks at the bottom of the falls. There was so much water and wind I couldn't even manage to take a photo, even though I had our little Olympus water proof camera.
The current in the river from the falls was so strong the boat seemed to be at full power just trying to maintain its upstream progress. Suddenly the captain turned the boat back down stream and with the current, within just a few seconds we were in the clear.
Back at the dock and before returning to the top I got this shot of Donna with the American Falls in the background.
Back up top and over to the Visitors Center, we decided to have a little snack. We each got a Hot Dog and shared a Pepsi.
We concluded that these must have been the best Hot Dogs we have ever had. Since the total for the above was $16.75, we figured they had to be the best.
On Thursday we did a little housekeeping, went out for breakfast and plotted the route we would take to get on I-90 W. The ramp we would normally use was under construction, so we had to figure on an alternate route.
We had a 450 mile drive on tap for Friday to get to Elkhart and join our friends, many of whom are already there. So instead of a long day of driving on Friday, we left Niagara about 1:30 Thursday afternoon, spent the night in one of the Plaza's, and got to Elkhart shortly after 10 Friday morning.
After Happy Hour at 4 where we met a lot of new folks, 10 of us who are all already acquainted, went to dinner and then came back to the park for more visiting and catching up.
Life is Good!
Posted by: Dortha Hall | Saturday, August 21, 2010 at 09:08 AM