Canada 2019 - Day 16 - Fort Erie to Niagra Falls

August 1 - Thursday
Fort Erie to Niagara Falls
Be forewarned...this was a visual overload day.

Even the motels here take their flowers seriously. We only have 20 miles to go and this is a day and area made for moseying.

Mather Arch, just a little ways straight down the road from our motel.

 

Not sure what these birds are but they were big and noisy.

It reminded us of the chateaus that we saw in France last summer as it had a stone wall around it also. And it is for sale, if you are interested.

We had seen a number of these along the road and finally checked one out. It is a reference point for the international boundary.

We think the tree has won this battle.

A family on bikes is always a joy for us to behold.

Battle of Chippewa Park. It was a decisive battle towards the end of the War of 1812 in 1814 and helped establish the Niagara River as the boundary between the two countries.

This is one of two diversion tunnels that take water from the Niagara River and put it into the hydroelectric generation system.

The Niagara Falls city skyline.

Our first really good look at the mist generated by the falls.

Marianne and her daughters are from The Netherlands. When we stopped, she came over to asked us about our experience biking in Canada. She was a high school exchange student in Indiana and is taking her family there after they take in Niagara Falls.

Getting ever closer!

Not the falls but a diversion structure. This river is REALLY wide.

But first lunch at the Welcome Centre where we encountered a bit of commotion.

These paramedics travel by bike! Given the amount of people and cars in this area, it makes a lot of sense.

Doug loves getting pictures of police and other emergency personnel on bikes. He has a whole collection so this encounter almost made him forget to eat lunch.

The traffic officers are on bikes as well.

Off to find our motel and stash the bikes and gear.

Then we walked back down to the river front where we spent the next couple of hours.....

....watching people, ....

...and watching the water falls.

American Falls on the left and Bridalveil Falls, the little one on the right with the Maid of the Mist in front. The Maid comes from the American side of the river.

The Zipline, a totally different way to see the falls.

We aren't really sure that the adrenaline lets them see the falls on their way down.

This is a very international place. We heard so many different languages over the course of the afternoon and evening.

Then we went to find dinner and found a bit of Las Vegas instead.

The miniature golf course was over the top too.

The volcano even erupted but we never quite timed our pictures right to capture it.

We decided on dinner at Jimmy Buffet's Margariteville.

We watched her make balloon creations the whole time and she did not waver once as she maneuvered her way around the tables on those stilts.

It is faint but it really is a rainbow.

When you are standing here it feels like it is raining. The roar of the water and the scale of the falls is just impossible to capture in a picture.

That will be us tomorrow, except we will be on the Hornblower, the boat the starts on the Canadian side

Then the sun goes down and the lights come on and the crowds of people are still everywhere.

There are fireworks at 10:00 but we had a bit of a walk home and it had been a long and glorious day already.