Road Trip Diaries

I hope you enjoyed yesterday’s entry, because the phone call over which I uploaded it cost $34.23. That was quite a shock when we checked out from the hotel.

We were up with the lark this morning, so we could eat breakfast at the hotel’s very own Denny’s before being picked up for our tour at 9:00.

Woody, our tour guide and bus driver, was there for us right on time, checked our passports and green visa waiver slips, and put us on the bus with everyone else. We were given laminated badges to identify us as Woody’s group.

Now, you know what makes Niagara Falls famous, don’t you? That’s right. It’s the floral clock, and the glass blowing factory. Woody took us to these, but he also showed us a lot more.

First, there was the waterfalls: three of them. A big one and a very big one on the US side, and a very, very big one on the Canadian side.

Then there was the barge marooned since 1918. Those lads must be getting hungry by now.

We were driven downriver to a viewing platform for the whirlpool. From that distance it looks slow, but I’m sure it’s not. We were near two hydro-electric power plants — one Canadian, one US. Water from above the falls is diverted to reservoirs in the early hours of the morning, when nobody’s watching the falls.

Here’s Woody telling us all about it.

At last, we got around to the floral clock. Highlight of the tour, I tell you.

To be perfectly honest, that was us satisfied for the day. Woody could have taken us back to our car, and we’d have been happy with the floral clock experience. However, since we’d paid for the rest of the tour, we thought we may as well tag along.

The next stop was the Maid of the Mist boat ride. We queued for a while, were taken down in a lift, and were given disposable raincoats. It wasn’t long before we were out on the water, getting drenched by spray (a fellow tourist said afterwards "they have some cheek to describe that as mist"), forging right up into the centre of the Canadian falls’ horseshoe.

The Maid of the Mist was an incredible experience. Better than the floral clock. The raincoats did their job, and we came off relatively dry, with grins all over our faces. I had to put the camera away for the wettest part of the ride.

Next stop was the IMAX cinema. On the way we passed an estabishment called Kelsey’s: no doubt a sister business to Kelsey’s in Leamington Spa. We both split off from the group to use the restrooms, then returned to the back of the queue for popcorn. Woody assured us that however long we queued, he wouldn’t let them start the film without us. He tried his best, but the servers had their hands full. In the end we missed a couple of minutes of the film, but they weren’t important minutes.  The film dramatised a few stories about the falls, and contained numerous shots of boats, barrels and people in very choppy water indeed. In wondered how it had been filmed: but not quite enough to buy a DVD (which includes a "making of" feature) on the way out.

Glass blowing came next. I suspect this was shoehorned into the tour because it’s right next door to the IMAX cinema, and there may well be some money changing hands in exchange for delivering potential customers to the glass factory shop. Some very clever people make ornate vases, ornaments, lampshades etc. from coloured glass. Their speciality is "cranberry glass": just the right quantity of gold in the glass turns it a distinctive cranberry red colour. I was impressed by the craft, but the goods had an "exclusive" price tag, and would suit a more chintzy decor than ours.

Our final stop was the Skylon Tower, from which we had spectacular, clear views of the falls, the bridge, the gorge: everything.

With that, Woody took us back to the hotel, and we said our goodbyes.

All in all we were delighted by the tour. We had seen everything we wanted to see, in 5 hours flat, with nowhere near the hassle, queueing, parking woes, etc. we’d have experienced if we’d tried to do it on our own. We got some bad jokes, and lots of local knowledge. Thanks Woody! Woody told us to recommend Gray Line tours to all our friends, so here I am doing so.

Returning to our car in its underground parking space beneath the Day’s Inn, we found a nasty stain across the boot — caused by rusty drips from the ceiling. It reminded me of yesterday’s caves. A few more days and we’d have had a rust stalagmite. We were relieved to be insured to the hilt.

We drove out of Niagara Falls on I-190, then joined US-5 South of Buffalo. We followed the South shore of Lake Eerie around to the West, eventually rejoining US-20. We snickered as we passed through the town of Wanakah.

It began to rain, and we heard thunder. Within minutes it was raining so heavily that we couldn’t see ahead at all. Debbie pulled up and turned on the hazard lights. Other cars continued to speed past us.

The rain, thunder and lightning came and went as we carried on through New York State on US-20, then joined I-90 to nip through Pennsylvania without getting slowed down by the large city of Eerie. At a truck stop where we filled up with petrol, the rust stain seemed to have faded. I scrubbed with a paper towel, and with a little elbow grease, it was gone.

Our plan was to cruise through Conneaut, the first town on our route through Ohio, to find food and a cool motel. As we crossed the Ohio border, it very suddenly turned dark. We looked up to see ominous clouds, and within seconds the rain was worse than the rain that had stopped us before. Forked lighting struck on the horizon over and over again. There was a Day’s Inn right on the junction. We decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and chose the Day’s Inn: our third this holiday. Maybe one day we’ll go somewhere exciting like, ooh, maybe a Super 8?

In the car, I was dry. In the 20 metre dash to the motel office, I got drenched.

Later, in light rain, we went out to find somewhere to eat. Conneaut didn’t have much to offer, and we ended up taking Burger King value meals (large) back to our room.

In Big Brother they are referring to each other as "players" in a "game" — outside the diary room. All wrong.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 16th, 2005 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Oregon Trail. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.