Five Days in Canada

Writing a blog post should not feel like doing overdue homework, but that's a bit like how I'm feeling right now. When we had driven just a few miles into Canada on Sunday, we got a message on the phone that since we did not have an international plan, any calls, either in or out, would be very costly, as would our data rate. We decided to turn the phone off. Since it is our "hot spot", this effectively also disconnected our internet. We were able to use the very slow WiFi at the offices of both of the campgrounds we were at over the five days, but it was not conducive to blogging.

On Friday we returned to the US, and once again have access, but I am way behind!

I had planned a nice post about the Ford Museum and Village, but now all I'm up to writing is that it was a very interesting, worth the price of admission, and a very long and exhausting day.

One of hundreds of interesting things in the Ford Museum.

Niagara Falls has been on my bucket list for many years. The best way to get from the Detroit area to Niagara Falls is to drive east through Ontario, Canada. Many of my RV blogging friends know that Al and Kelly, also known as  The Bayfield Bunch, live on the west coast of Lake Huron in Ontario.  After exchanging a few quick e-mails to see if they would be home and interested in a meet-up date, I found a Passport America park in their neck of the woods and booked a couple of days stay.

They invited us for lunch on Tuesday and we were delighted to have a nice long day visit. Lunch was yummy, seeing their new rig was fun, and gabbing for hours about life, RVing, and blogging was priceless. All too soon it was time to call it a day, and be on our way home to the Alfa to prepare for Wednesday's drive. 

We are both very glad that Kelly is feeling so much better this year, and hope we can cross paths down in Arizona sometime.

I am constantly learning things from our blogging friends. Because I have a "delicate" back, I had been having difficulty getting into the driver's seat of our new Jeep. I could manage the passenger side, but seemed to get tangled up in myself on the drivers side. Watching how Al got into the Jeep was an "A-ha" moment. When we got back to the park I tried it his way and can now slide in with more or less ease on both sides! Makes me like our Jeep even more.

On Wednesday we drove across Ontario, and were settled into our new campsite by mid-afternoon. Although there was an all-day shuttle bus service available to us, we decided to drive into town and take our chances with finding a place to park. We found one next to the information center, and the $15 for three hours was only $1 more than the bus would have cost. We didn't have much more than three hours left in the day at that point anyway.

Just across from our parking we were able to walk quite a way along a path overlooking the falls. These are a few of the many picture we took of this amazing place.

Below is the American Falls as seen from Canada.

There is quite a bit of talus (the rock debris from the eroding edge) at the foot of the falls. Removal of these rocks was studied and rejected at one time.

Further along is the Horseshoe Falls. This is an accurate image of the water's color. It is turquoise. The water spray goes far up into the air, and it feels like rain when you are standing along the overlooking rail. The red object is one of the Hornblower tour boats.

Although there were hundreds of people from all over the world enjoying the wonder of the falls, I did not feel crowded or annoyed.  At any given spot along the rail, if I wanted to take a picture or just get to the rail, I only needed to stop and wait a few moments for the person at the rail to move on. No one was pushy or in a hurry. There was time and room for all.

[From Craig] I'm fascinated by the color of the water just as it starts to go over the falls.  May be the first time that a color ever made me really happy.  It looked like a precious stone color.

I was surprised at how close to the edge of the falls the path rail was, and how clear the water appeared to be. We could almost see the rock on the bottom.  

This post doesn't have an ending because it is not finished. In my next post, I plan on writing about our boat tour,  our walk under the falls, and the view from the Skylon Tower at night. 

Stay tuned...