Niagara Falls, New York - August 18th to 19th, 2021
Sometimes we feel like we have to travel great distances to see something wonderful. We lived in the state of New York for over seven years, but never managed to make the short trip up to see Niagara Falls. Now that we live half way across the country, we finally visited Niagara Falls. Better late than never.
Wednesday was a driving day. We moved from Erie, Pennsylvania to Four Mile Creek State Park in New York. It rained the whole day. Along the way, we stopped for lunch at Anchor Bar in Buffalo, home of the original buffalo wings. Of course we split an order of 20 wings with the original medium hot sauce. Our daughter was not happy with us sending her a picture of our wings and fries while she was slaving away at work. She called us rude. The wings were delicious.
Right Buddy’s (RB’s) legs were itching like crazy. There were red bumps all over her legs. At first she thought they were mosquito bits, but how could she have gotten so many of them without noticing the mosquitoes? We came to the conclusion that they must be sand flea bites. She was sitting on the beach the evening before, watching the sun set, in shorts and sandals. We learned that sand fleas are not fleas, but small, sometimes microscopic crustaceans that can jump up to 15 inches. They are most active early in the morning and late in the evening. The good new is that they will not infest your house. Somehow knowing what they were did not make the bites itch any less. A little hand lotion on her legs helped calm them down and keep RB from scratching so much.
A little while later, we stopped again, this time for ice cream. The cute little town of Lewiston sits on the Niagara River. The Silo Restaurant serves sandwiches from an old coal silo and ice cream from a caboose. They served Perry’s ice cream, which seems to be popular in western New York. RB had the white lightning ice cream, which is a dark chocolate with streaks of white mint fudge. Left Buddy (LB) had his usual vanilla shake. RB loves dark chocolate and thought the white lightning was pretty tasty, but she believes she likes her dark chocolate and mint served separately. Dark chocolate and mint are both strong flavors that were both trying to compete against each other, with the dark chocolate winning.
When we first arrived at Four Mile Creek State Park, we headed to the Ontario lakeshore which was just across a grassy field from our campsite. The rain was light enough that LB wanted to make sure he skipped a rock in Lake Ontario. Now his Great Lakes skipping stones tour was complete. He has skipped stones in all five of the Great Lakes this summer.
The rest of the day was spent hanging out at the campground. The rain let up enough in the evening that we took our camp chairs over to the lakeshore to watch the sun set over Lake Ontario. We stayed in the grassy area above the short cliff above the rocky beach. RB was not going to sit on the beach this time!
All of Thursday was spent at Niagara Falls State Park. It is about a 25 minute drive from the our camp site to Niagara Falls. We parked in lot #1. Parking is $10 per vehicle, but the nice gentleman at the entrance gate noticed our Four Mile Creek Campground pass on our dash. The pass gets us in for free. However, that is for only one parking spot. The woman inside the booth was a little hesitant since we had the bikes on the back of the van. We quickly pointed out that we could back in to one of the open spots near the gate with the bikes overhanging the grass. They seemed OK with that and let us in.
We arrived about 10 am and spent the morning walking around the park. There are several viewpoints of the falls around the park. From Prospect Point, we continued over the pedestrian bridge to Goat Island, which crosses the Niagara River at Hells Half Acre, crossing Green Island in the process. The Luna Island viewpoint is not far from the bridge. We proceeded a little further down the path to Terrapin Point.
Niagara Falls consists of three separate falls. The American Falls are between Luna Island and the U.S. mainland, visible from Prospect Point. The Horseshoe Falls are between Canada and Goat Island, which are partially visible from Terrapin Point. Bridal Veil Falls is the smallest of the three falls and lies between Luna Island and Goat Island, separated from the American Falls by Luna Island. They can be seen from the Luna Island viewpoint.
After our morning walk, we returned to our van to eat lunch. We love that we’re able to do that. After lunch, RB changed into her Teva sandals, grabbed our small GoPro camera (paid link) and left her good camera in the van. It was time to go for a boat ride and she didn’t want her good camera to get wet.
Maid of the Mist costs $25.25 per adult to ride the boat up to Horseshoe Falls, passing the American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls along the way. Included in that price is a cheap, plastic rain poncho to keep you from getting too wet. Also included is access to the Crow’s Nest viewing platform of the American Falls near the bottom of the falls and viewing from the Observation Tower at the top of the gorge, which extends out over the river. From the tower, you get pretty good views of all three falls, with Horseshoe Falls being the farthest away. For $1.50, you can opt to skip the boat ride and just have access to the Observation Tower and an elevator ride down to the Crow’s Nest. Even though it was expensive, we felt the best view of all three falls were from the boat.
Now it was time for ice cream. There are several concession stands throughout the park that advertise Perry’s ice cream. However, the small free-standing concessions only sold ice cream novelties. The concessions in the lower level of the Visitor’s Center had hand-dipped Perry’’s ice cream. Of course that’s where we went. They did not have any dark chocolate, but RB spotted someone getting the chocolate. Even though the flavor was just called chocolate, she could tell by the color of it that it was Dutch chocolate, so that’s what she had. If she can’t have dark chocolate, a good Dutch chocolate is the next best thing. It was very tasty. Since the weather was turning warmer, LB thought the lemon sorbet sounded good. He liked the flavor of the sorbet, but so did the bees. While RB sat at a table in the shade enjoying her chocolate ice cream, LB got up and kept walking around the area while he ate his sorbet, trying to keep the bees at bay.
There was one last thing we wanted to do at Niagara Falls and that was Cave of the Winds. It is not actually a cave. At one time there was a rock overhang that allowed people to stand under the falls. However, the ledge is long gone. Now there are just wooden walkways and platforms that allow people to get close enough to Bridal Veil Falls to get soaking wet and feel the strong winds produced at the bottom of the falls. Included in the $19 per adult admission is a short movie and an elevator ride down to the platforms. They also provide a pair of cheap sandals and a rain poncho, all of which you are allowed to keep as souvenirs. From the board walks, you have up close views of Bridal Veil Falls and a side view of the American Falls. The rain poncho keeps your clothing mostly dry, if you keep the hood up. RB opted not to put her hood on, which easily blows down if you don’t hang on to it, but she could feel the water going down her back. By the end, the back of her shirt was soaking wet. It was a hot day, so she didn’t mind. You are not standing directly in the falls, but close enough to get a good sense of its power and feel the force of the wind. From an experience point of view, this was our favorite part of Niagara Falls.
We traveled with our passports with the hope that we could visit the Canadian side of the falls. People say the view of the falls is better from Canada. Pedestrians are allowed to cross Rainbow Bridge over to the other side. However, it is a border crossing. Normally, all that is needed is your passport. Canada opened the border to Americans just a week or two before we got there. It was our understanding, however, that it was quite a process. First you had to prove you have been vaccinated. Then you have to have a negative COVID test within the past three days. We saw some sites set up to do rapid COVID testing. Then there is some type of application form that needs to be filled out. To us, that seemed like too much work just to go over to the Canadian side for a couple of hours. We decided to pass.
Since we do not have a lot of space in our camper van to carry souvenirs, we opted to return the rain ponchos and the sandals to be recycled. However, RB started regretting that decision on our walk back to the van. Her trusty Teva sandals that she’s had for decades finally decided to fall apart on the way. Such is life. She managed to make it back to the van without incident. It just sounded like she wasn’t picking up her feet as the bottom of the one sandal had delaminated and was dragging across the ground with each step.
It was a full day and we feel like we really experienced the falls. The only other things we saw that we didn’t do was the IMAX movie in the visitor center and the nearby aquarium. Maybe next time.
It was dinner time by the time we returned to our camp site. Again, we watched the sun set over Lake Ontario. This time we were joined by our camp site neighbors. It was a lovely evening of great conversations and beautiful scenery. We turned in for the night feeling very satisfied with the day.
We can check Niagara Falls off of our bucket list now. Don’t worry, there are still plenty of places left on our list for us to visit, including some places close to home in Colorado.
Check out our related video: Niagara Falls, New York
(RB)