Monday 9-16 Niagra Falls

Having fun

We had an outstanding day. Larry said when he woke up it was sprinkling but when I woke up it had stopped. I made pancakes for breakfast and then we got ready to leave Albion Hills Campground. 

On our way out of the park we stopped by the dump station to empty our tanks. Afterwards we headed down the road towards Niagara Falls. Larry didn't want to mess with toll roads so he programmed our GPS to avoid them. We ended up taking two lane highways through towns and farm fields, it was a very nice drive. I was dozing when Larry saw some horse and buggies going around a track, he pulled over and we watched them.

A horse and buggy going around a track

A horse and buggy practicing

We drove 114 miles to get to Niagara Falls, we arrived about 11:30. We parked in a parking lot that had a machine to pay for your stay. It was $2.00 an hour or $10.00 a day and if you want to stay overnight it cost $20.00. We decided to pay for the day. The parking lot was only a few blocks from the falls. We followed a pathway down a hill which led to Niagara Falls park, it's a big beautiful park with a lot of flowers and walkways. The park has a couple of statues; Nikola Tesla and King George VI. Nikola Tesla was a Serbian/American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer and futurist. He is known for his contributions to design of the modern alternative current electricity support system.

We had actually been to Niagara Falls once about 20 years ago. I had forgotten how breath taking they are. It's hard to describe what they look like you have to see them yourself. There were a lot of people walking around looking at the falls. There are two huge sections that make up the falls. We saw boats full of tourists from both the United States and Canada side of the falls. They had four boats constantly moving people to the falls and back. The tourist from the United States side wore blue ponchos and the tourist from the Canada side wore red. They also have tours that use stairs and platforms to get you closer to the falls, they call them behind the falls tours, they really don't go behind the falls. The folks on these tours wear yellow ponchos. At the beginning of our walk by the falls we didn't get wet but by the time we got to the end it was like we were walking in the rain. The falls are so big that there is a constant mist coming from them. At the end there is a big welcome center where there are shops and a food court. We walked around for over an hour and had a great time.

First section of Niagara Falls

At Niagara Falls

The second section of Niagara Falls

Nikola Tesla statue

Tour boat from The United States

King George VI statue

 

We got back to the Minnie at about 3:00. We talked about staying in the parking lot or going back into the United States. Larry found a county park in New York that was not too far away. First thing we had to do was get back into the United States. We had to stop at the border and show our passports. The gentleman asked a few questions and came inside of the Minnie. After 6 wonderful days traveling through Ontario Canada we were back in the United States. We started at Sault Ste. Marie and drove 540 miles to Niagara Falls.

The park we decided to stay at is Sprague Brook Park Campground in Glenwood New York. It's a big beautiful park with power and non-power sites. We decided on a power site. We drove around the park and tried to figure out how to pay for a site. We finally asked a gentleman that is staying here. He told us we had to go online and reserve a site. We parked at a site we liked and then we went online and reserved it for a night. No problem, there were only a few other campers.

After dinner we went on a half hour walk around the campground. As we were walking we stopped a gentleman that was mowing to ask if they had hiking trails. He said they sure did but didn't have any maps to handout. If we wanted to look at a trail map we had to go to a shelter. He also said there was a trail at site 60. We will stay another night because we'll hike their trails tomorrow.