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| An early start |
Yesterday, we woke up early (it wasn’t too hard, considering
it was a cool 30 degrees in our tent), packed up the tent, and headed back to
Niagara Falls, this time getting there at about 7:30am, which saved us the $10
parking fee (free before 8am!!), AND gave us a beautiful, unobstructed view of
the falls, since the only other people there were a few cars of visitors, and a
bus of Asian tourists. We went back to the main falls viewing area later to
find it packed and very busy, so we were pretty proud of ourselves for beating
the rush! We spent our morning exploring the falls, making our way over to Goat
Island to explore more, and see the falls right beside the famous Niagara
Falls, known as Horseshoe Falls. Personally, I thought the two were equally awesome.
Horseshoe Falls was more of a trek to get to, and when we got near the viewing
area, we were instantly drenched in the mist from the falls (no need for a Maid
of the Mist trip for us!). An interesting side note: while on Goat Island, both
of our phones welcomed us to Canada and warned us about the ridiculous fees for
phone calls and such, so you could say that we kind of went to Canada…
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| We got some really pretty pictures of rainbows at the falls |
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| Water FALL |
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| Different Angle, another rainbow. See how few people there are? We rocked timing this day. |
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| In front of Horseshoe Falls- this mist was constant near the falls. |
We also made our way over to the Niagara Gorge hiking
trails, which varied in difficulty. Obviously, the harder ones sounded like
they had the coolest views (including a whirlpool… whaaat?!), but we didn’t
really want to put ourselves in a position to have to go “boulder hopping”.. We
aren’t THAT good.. haha.
But we did find a trail marked as easy/moderate, and
followed it for quite a ways. The gorge is also a really beautiful place, it is
basically the huge valley of the Niagara River after the falls. At some points,
you can get a different view of the falls, but for the most part, you really
just see the gorge and the river.
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| On our way to the hiking trails, we checked out the Rainbow Bridge- Canada is on the other side |
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| Off the beaten path- didn't stay here long, because we started to feel woozy with the fear of falling, but it was an absolutely beautiful view. (Rainbow Bridge and Niagara Falls) |
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| Hiking at the gorge, we looked up, and realized we were a little ways down into the gorge. |
For lunch, we decided to follow the crowds and head across
the street to the huge tourist trap with an “International Food Court” and “Made
in USA Souvenirs.” Each section of the food court was labeled with a “cuisine”.
The signs literally said Indian, Chinese, American, Nigerian, Japanese,
Italian, and Greece. The American food, of course, was hamburgers, hot dogs,
and French fries. We had Indian, which was pretty good, for food court food. It
was a lot of fun to people-watch, as you could clearly look at each section and
see how the other tourists went directly to their country of origin for lunch.
The souvenir section also gave us a chuckle, as it was mainly YOLO shirts, and
other crappy ‘USA’ stuff.
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| Tourist Trap/Food Court Across the Street from Niagara Falls |
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| We also spent a good 5 minutes on a bridge, watching this seagull trying to get a dead fish out of the water, and then eating the fish. He had quite the time, it was a big fish! |
We decided to head back to the campsite and relax for a
while, update the blog, and set up camp early.
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| Again, Niagara Falls, also, it was really cold out. |
We got the tent set up just long enough to let it dry from
the night before, then checked the weather, and saw that we had rain, snow, and
35mph winds. We decided to pack up the tent and sleep in the car, as the tent
was bending and flopping right away. I feel kind of like we sissy-ed out, but I’m
pretty alright with it. When we woke up this morning, there was a layer of ice
on the car, and the snow/freezing rain had actually started to stick to the
grass. Unfortunately, tonight’s forecast for Vermont looks pretty similar, so
we will have to see how that all goes tonight.
