Monday, September 16, 2013

Sep 16 – Grand Island and American Falls

We spent Saturday and Sunday hanging around the campground playing with the kids.

Jennie’s nephew has a family seasons pass to the amusement park that is right next door. There is even a train stop at the campground to take you over to the rides. Jennie was the temporary mom of the family while the real mom had a morning to herself.

Waiting for the train. I have better pictures of the kids but I am not going to post them here.

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A canoe ride. I wonder who did most of the paddling.

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Later in the afternoon we headed over to the bouncy pillow at the campground,

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It is actually very hard work. We only lasted a while while the kids kept going.

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Jennie really worked hard on the pillow with the kids so she went for a nap while the rest of us went to the pool. The water was nice and warm but it was a long cold walk back to the RV in my wet bathing suit.

After going out to dinner we sat around their trailer for a campfire.

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On Sunday the weather was cloudy and kind of cool. We were going to go back to the pool but that was quickly nixed.

This is the last weekend they will come to their site this year. Next summer they wanted a new site so we spent the afternoon packing up and moving their trailer. They will store it here for the winter.

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While we were moving Jennie kept the kids out of the way by taking them to the playground, arcade and the bouncy pillow. She was pretty tired when she got back.

After an early dinner they headed home.

We had originally been going to head back to Canada today but since we have never been to the American side of the falls we stayed an extra day.

When we got up it was raining but the forecast said it was going to get better in the afternoon. By lunch there was no sign of it clearing up but at least it had stopped raining.  Since we were going to do the Cave of the Winds tour, we were going to get wet anyway so we got our rain gear on and headed out to Niagara Falls State Park. It is only about 7 miles from the campground.

We bought our ticket and got our sandals. Since you are going to get so wet they give you sandals, which you can keep. 

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Shoes in a plastic bag and the camera in a ziploc, we lined up for the elevator to take us to the ravine bottom. There were not a lot of people here today.

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At the bottom you got a plastic raincoat but we didn’t bother.

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Here is a view of where we are headed, that we took from above later.

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You get very close to the falls.

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The guy in the elevator said that with the north wind all the mist is going to blow our way. We got thoroughly soaked. The water was actually quite warm so at least I didn’t feel very cold at the time.

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I was amazed at the number people pulling out unprotected cameras and iPhones. Ours was safely dry but I was constantly cleaning our lens.

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We went around the loop of stairs twice and then headed back to the elevator.

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We had a lot of fun and the camera survived but our clothes did not. I had a few leaks and Jennie’s pants were not very waterproof at all. Since we were so close to the RV we headed back, changed and then came back to the park.

We first went to the lookout on the island between the Bridal Veil Falls and the larger American Falls.

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It was kind of cold so I had my winter jacket on.

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Lots of people were having fun getting soaked down there.

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We walked across a footbridge spanning the rapids that feed the American Falls.

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Jennie was gung-ho to try everything today. She even wanted to go out on the viewing platform.

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It normally costs only a $1 to go out but it was getting late and they let us go out for free.

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The elevator to the to the American Maid of the Mist docks is in the tower.

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For your $1 you are allowed to take the elevator down and climb this path to the falls. What a bargain!

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Two hundred feet back up to the platform.

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This fluffy little guy was on a railing.

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Suddenly the sky cleared at around 4:30 pm.

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We were the last people allowed up the path. They closed the gate just after we went in.

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We got quite close but because of the wind direction we did not get wet.

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After we went back up the elevator we headed to the opposite end of the park. Terrapin Point is at the American end of the Canadian Horseshoe Falls.

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By now I had quite the bad hair day going on. My hat was too wet to wear after our earlier walk.

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By now we were tired and hungry so we headed home.

We had a great day, much better than I expected when we got up. I think I actually prefer the American side. You can get much closer to all three falls.

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