A Nod to the Drive-By States

We have stayed in so many different places at this point in our journey, and yet whole states go by the window without us really stopping for more than a cup of coffee or to use the bathroom. I've been reflecting on this the last few days. I wanted to give a nod to the states that we only glanced at from the minivan windows.

Alabama was supposed to be a chance for us to stop in Birmingham, and stretch our legs, and see the Civil Rights Institute. By the time we reached Birmingham the museum was closing. So, I quickly got out and looked around while Elijah sat in a meeting in the car, and the kids finished up a movie. Afterwards, we stopped for a cup of coffee, and Izzy threw a tantrum which turned into our first back seat time-out of the car ride.

South Carolina was the next state where we made only a brief stop. This time we had intended to camp in a wilderness at the top of the state that was in both North and South Carolina. The rain was so intense all the way through the drive north that we changed our plans. We stopped in Greenville, SC to have dinner and try to figure out a new plan. We had a great Indian meal, and drove around the town more than once. It's a very sweet little town, with lovely buildings, and very good services. We almost decided to stay the night just based on how inviting it felt, but we didn't.

After Maryland we drove through Pennsylvania but didn't stop. We noticed several bridges in Delaware as we attempted to navigate through them. And we got incredibly lost in New Jersey, just where Elijah said we would, because that spot on the map was incredibly confusing. As a result we ended up driving very close to Princeton University, though we never actually saw it. When we got back onto the highway it became a progressively more and more expensive toll road. We did get coffee in New Jersey also, and we almost stopped to get the boys a haircut, but we decided it was best to keep going. Elijah and I were having a good conversation that couldn't keep.

We spent a lovely mid-day in Connecticut with family for lunch, and then drove through stunning little New England towns as we made our way up through Hartford, and finally into Massachusetts and Boston.

We had dinner with family in New Hampshire. We also had coffee and drove through Portsmouth before arriving for dinner. Then much later in the night, while driving to Vermont, we got lost for a moment trying to find coffee, thinking that the exit number was enough to determine the necessary place to get off the highway.

We stayed overnight in Vermont, having driven through the whole southern mountains in the night. Even by moonlight it was beautiful, with lakes and little villages, and obviously lovely wooded hills. We only stayed for half a day before driving back into upstate New York, but Vermont is simply breath-taking, and somehow homey. I always love to visit it.

On our way from Niagara to Detroit we drove through Pennsylvania. We stopped in Erie for lunch. Then we drove along Lake Erie through Ohio, stopping several times for food and bathrooms. Both places boasted very nice people and a surprising number of colleges and universities of note. It's so clear that once upon a time the cities by the Great Lakes were very powerful centers of industry, just as the cities along the Erie Canal and the Hudson River had once been. The industrial beginnings of this country have not necessarily fared well with time. Many towns rise up in one's sight along the highways with beautiful old buildings. Buildings that no longer house the great and powerful elite who originally required that these places be built. The infrastructures are falling apart, the streets hold more potholes than people, and the businesses that put these places on the map have either shrunk or been forgotten. Williamsburg and Fort Pulaski reenact the past in costumes and teach of a time before the industrial revolution at the beginning of the country, or in the struggles of the early years, but the manufacturing cities and shipping yards of the founding industries don't yet claim enough historical significance to warrant a lucrative tourist trade. Only time will tell whether places like Syracuse or Detroit can become a fascination for tourists based on the powerful markets they once represented. Perhaps someday the Erie Canal will have mule barge reenactments, where you can spend a week pulling a barge up the canal as part of an industrial experiential vacation.

The country is a very big place. For all of the sites we have seen there are, every day, another hundred or so that we pass up. One could spend years wandering the United States and never run out of new sites to see. And so I wanted to just give a nod to those states we have passed by with little more than a thought for how to get through them and on to the next state. Someday perhaps we will stop in Cleveland and see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Perhaps like our babysitter Melissa just did, one of our kids will choose to go to college in the Mid West, and we will find ourselves visiting a city we never thought we would get a chance to know. For now these places will have to remain simply interchanges in our memory. Some of them the kids didn't even look up from what they were doing in time to see. Some of them they slept through.

Niagara Falls: The Adventure

Our very first glimpse of the falls was from Goat Island on the American side of the river. You could hear the falls and feel the wetness in the air and as we peeked through the trees the falls became visible in the distance.

We ran down the hill towards the path to the falls. What seemed like steam rising from some factory in the distance turned out to be the spray coming off the falls. The path leads right up to the edge of the falls which is a little scary. I gripped Hannah's hand imagining that one wrong move and she would fall into the powerfully moving water and disappear in a second. Even standing right next to it it's amazing and hard to process.

They were doing construction at the platform next to the American Falls so we could only look at it from a distance. As we watched the falls the lights of all of the casinos and hotels on both sides of the river became more visible and obvious. We decided to cross the Rainbow Bridge, we were nervous because we didn't have the correct paperwork for Hannah, and with homeland security the way it is these days we weren't totally sure they would let us back across the boarder once we were in Canada, but we really wanted to get a better view of the falls.

On our way back to the car on Goat Island we were surprised to be greeted by a giant statue of Nikola Tesla.

It seems they feel Tesla's contributions to the science of electricity warrant his direct association to Niagara. He was only barely mentioned in the Edison exhibit at the Smithsonian American History museum. The politics of science is very interesting.

The morning greeted us with breakfast in the hotel on the 33rd floor overlooking the waterfalls. An interesting but strangely separating experience.

Eli was well behaved but admitted that the food was not as good as the view.

Izzy had a very difficult time enjoying breakfast which required that he behave and not tap rhythms with his feet or drum with his hands.

Finally we were ready to see the falls. We wanted to take the kids for a walk along the river and pass by both falls. Niagara being what it is the easiest way down to the falls was a strange hillside railroad that cost six dollars a person, and there seemed to be no other way down. We decided to walk down a path towards what we hoped would eventually be a way.

We ended up walking for a very long time before we finally found a road down. It took us almost a half hour to take the long way around. But as we approached from that direction we could see the most amazing sight in the distance. The air is so wet with spray from the falls that it makes a giant rainbow amongst the trees as you walk towards the falls. I've never seen anything like it before.

The spray off the falls looks like smoke billowing up out of some mysterious space somewhere below the severe line where the water drops away.

The rapids above the falls are vast and so intense, with whirl-pools and staggered drops in the river, and a sense that there is so much water going at an incredibly fast speed past you.

Elijah and the kids didn't want to get wet from the spray and went looking for the funny garbage bag ponchos a lot of people wore. They came back to tell me that we could buy tickets to ride an elevator that would take us down behind the falls.

Like everything else in Niagara it required we wait in line.

Izzy was very uncertain about going down into a cave behind the falls and was pretty upset. He's become more and more clear that he does not like dark and loud places like giant caves or underground elevators. Poor Izzy, we made him go anyway.

Hannah was very enthusiastic about it, and also really liked the poncho.

The windows that they built behind the falls are very deep and the falls are so intense that all you see is the water flowing powerfully past about ten feet from where they allow you to stand. The sound and pressure of the water is like nothing you could ever describe.

There is also an observation deck down next to the falls. When you see it from a distance it seems to not be very close to the falls, but when you are out on the deck it feels like you are right up against the falls. The water pours in on you from the spray.

Hannah wanted me to take her picture but the water and wind from the spray was so intense that she could only last on the steps a few moments.

Even that short amount of time left her very wet.

Being that close to the falls was like being in a terrible storm. It was almost impossible to look directly in the direction of the falls themselves. Most of the people who came down the elevator did not last long out on the open part of the deck. They would peek around the door and then back away.

I've rarely experienced anything as powerful and intense as standing that close to Niagara Falls. It was an awesome experience, and very wet. After taking this picture I went up to the very edge of the rail. I couldn't even open my eyes, but I stood there and let the water of the spray rush over me, and listened to the pounding falls.

The cliffs above made it more clear how tall the falls were, as we were positioned about two thirds down and there was still more distance below.

Later when we came up from the observation deck and looked down to where we had been standing a rainbow was visible in the spray where we had been.

After the observation deck I was glad we had not attempted to take one of the tour boats that goes right up to the middle of the falls. If you look to the far right in this picture you can just make out the roof of the observation deck next to the falls. If it was so wet there that I was drenched and couldn't open my eyes, imagine the poor people on that boat. From above you see them huddled together with their backs turned away from the falls, cowering for shelter from the onslaught of the spray.

The American Falls are much less dramatic in behavior but truly beautiful to look at.

The architectural details all over Niagara Falls make it clear that it is a natural site, like the Grand Canyon, that has been a tourist destination since sometime in the nineteenth century. Much longer than many of the smaller national parks whose architecture dates back to the works of the 1930s developed as part of the WPA.

Going down behind the falls made us all a little tired.

The kids seemed more subdued than usual.

The American Falls are incredibly beautiful.

We decided that it would be a good place to pose a couple of family pictures.

Even Mama had her picture taken.

Than we walked up to the Skylon where Elijah had decided we should have lunch and get a view of the whole area.

The bottom of the Skylon building is a giant arcade.

Because it is no longer summer the arcade was almost completely empty. The kids wanted to hang out, but we were getting hungry.

The Skylon has elevators with windows that look out over the falls as you ride up.

It's a short but spectacular ride.

Once in the restaurant the tables are two layers deep. the ones by the windows seem to fill up with tour bus tours. I'm guessing the tour leaders pay the restaurant a little something on the side to keep the good tables.

Luckily there is an observation deck at the very top. After lunch, which was not great, we went up to the top and looked around. You could see lake Ontario and Toronto on one side and the whole of the Falls and Niagara River receding into the distance on the other side. 

After a little while though we realized that it had been a very long day and Hannah was getting a cold.

It was time to head back to the hotel. Eli was so cranky it was clear that we had waited a little too long to get back.

Walking back to the hotel was somehow much easier than walking to the falls.

All the roads in Niagara Falls seem to lead back to shopping and services.

The Skylon in the distance was far more impressive now that we had been up to the top.

And we could still watch the falls from the window of our hotel.

The next day we drove back over the Rainbow Bridge and crossed easily back over the boarder into the United States and headed out for Detroit, Michigan. The Falls were worth it, even and despite the intense tourist and casino reality of the surrounding human constructs. What a strange mix of tacky and magnificent.

Niagara Falls: The Falls

On our way across the state of New York we thought it would be cool to drive along the route of the Erie Canal from Albany to Buffalo as the song says. Since we were going to Buffalo and since we had been told time and again to go see Niagara Falls, we drove north from Buffalo to take a look. We weren't sure if we wanted to cross the boarder into Canada so we thought we would just take a peek and make our decision based on what we could see, and more importantly what we couldn't see.

We arrived at the falls near dusk, and the sky was overcast enough that it seemed like it was getting dark even before the sun had gone down completely. The falls from the American side are intense to experience, the sound, the sudden drop, the size of the falls stretching out at our feet, but it was not that easy to get the full visual impact we wanted.

We decided to cross the boarder to the Canada side and get a hotel room so that we could really spend time near the falls the following day. Going to Canada was totally worth it. The falls are really beautiful and so intense to experience. There are two falls, the Horseshoe Falls and the American Falls. The Horseshoe Falls touch both sides of the river so we could get really close to them on both the American side and the Canadian side of the river. The curve into themselves and the spray from the falling water is so intense that you get very very wet when you get close to them. It's like being in a rain storm. The spray makes it hard to see the entire falls completely.

The spray rises into the sky and merges with the clouds above.

When you look down into the center of the spray near the water's surface the clouds of spray move around into all sorts of beautiful shapes. I could watch it for hours.

The water pressure from the falls is so powerful it is hard to take an image that does it justice. There is huge amounts of water falling every second.

The river below the falls churns and flows into great spiral patterns.

Horseshoe Falls is really long, even though they rerouted part of it and made it something like four hundred feet shorter than it used to be.

It's so wet that people wear garbage bag ponchos to keep dry.

After the Horseshoe Falls the American Falls look almost small... Almost... they are still so huge compared to most falls I have ever seen in my life. Too bad that you can't ever escape the view of casinos towering on all sides.

Later in the day we went up in a high tower to the observation deck and saw the falls from farther above.

It was easier to get a view of the whole river system and the two falls together.