niagara falls, ny
      - jul 27-aug 1

The campground is right next to an amusement park called the "Island Fun Center" -- but we didn't realize it until the next day when we tried to make sense of the sounds wafting over the trees...was that a choo-choo train??? what's with all the screaming bloody murder? -- until we saw the rollercoaster cresting just over the treetops.

The Falls themselves are only about eight miles away, and we went, preparing to be awed and soaked. It really is ginormous and makes me think of an old George Carlin riff about how we talk about going down "the tubes" -- and how if all these people throughout history had actually gone down "the tubes" wouldn't someone have located these tubes by now? and perhaps sealed them up to prevent others from going down them? After seeing it, Niagara Falls has got to be "the drain" that we hear so much about. I'm thinking that if anyone dove down underneath them (fight your way out of that barrel), you'd find a big silver disc with holes in it, sucking you straight down to hell. It fits with the "going over Niagara Falls in a barrel" cliche...I've always pictured those barrels as being the kind you wear when you lose all your money in cartoons -- standing in a wine barrel with your head and legs sticking out. First, the debt-induced barrel, then over the Falls...and then down the drain.

(Pictures of people who actually went over the Falls in a barrel show a different story, though -- they actually enclosed themselves completely in long, pill-shaped barrels. Is that cheating? Isn't the whole point to see where you're going as you WHOOOSH over the Falls? Only a couple folks who tried this survived, so we should all probably look for a better drain for the inevitable debt-barrel-let's-end-it-all-day.)

Google Earth screen cap aerial view of Niagara Falls:

We went on the Cave of the Winds tour, which used to take you back behind the Falls back in the day. Now it's just a series of catwalks that let you access the bottom of the Falls from an elevator (the only cave-like part of the experience) so you can look up at the foaming water boiling furiously over the crest above your head. But before you get anywhere near it, you have to line up with the other lemmings and get your plastic raincoat and rubber shoes, and stand in a zigzagging line waiting your turn for the elevator, and follow the orange-panted-guide (giant traffic cone people) down to a tunnel that led to the tour. We waited until we were actually in the elevator area before putting on the baggies...the rest of the Saran-wrapped folks baked in their plastic shells in the sun.

A woman had, inexplicably, brought two gray kittens with her and was sitting on the side of the line trying to keep hold of them both. Let one go to lap at a saucer of water while grabbing for the other one, trying for an escape. Scoop them into her skirt and pop! -- one head would escape and mewl and she'd grab that one as it tried to escape...grab the other one while it contorted its way out of her grip....

Spectacular views and rainbows and gulls from the trip where you "caved INTO the winds" -- really windy out there, and at one point you sluiced *through* some of the water (not as cold as you might think it would be). At the top of Hurricane Deck, the closest you could get to the Falls, there was a big sign: NO SMOKING. (Who could even get a lighter to stay lit in all that spray??) We squished along in our slurping shoes back to the elevator, where the girl in front of us had committed the ultimate White Pants Faux Pas. (Hey, wear those transparent-when-wet white pants if you want to, but don't wear bright turquoise bikini panties underneath...!) Passed a woman wearing a full black burqa. I watched her until she made it to the elevator, wondering if she'd pass out from the heat.

Had lunch in the restaurant overlooking the Falls, with cutesy-named entrees..."Devil's Hole Burger"..."Whirlpool Caesar"....We were seated across from a family of about 14 people, 6 of whom were under five years old. It was similar to watching the woman with the kittens earlier -- they'd corralled the little ones in the banquette, but one would spring up to stand on the bench, and once that one was back down, another would slide down to crawl under the table...however, they were hopelessly outflanked (and outnumbered) by adults (Adults: 1, Kittenpeople: 0).

Outside the window, we watched a couple get married by the Falls. Later, on the trolley ride (the tra-la-la ride), we passed the wedding party again, and their stretch Hummer...only in America...! or at least on the American side of the Falls...I wonder if the environmentally-conscious Canadians zip off from their weddings in something less gigantic? Do they make a stretch Prius?