Niagara Falls! Slowly I Turn....

Day 40 Geneva on the Lake OH to Grand Island NY
165 miles

Saturday June 6, 2009

The weather was fantastic again today as we left the Lake Erie area. We took RT531 which is the part of the Lake Erie Circle Tour. We passed mile after mile of vineyards and wineries. I don’t remember quite so many vineyards on earlier trips. At one point I90 rose on a bluff and we could look to the north at Lake Erie. The lake stretches for a far as the eye can see, hard to believe it’s a LAKE and NOT the ocean.Eventually we moved south to US20 and then to I90 for the rest of the day’s trip northeast toward Erie Pa, Buffalo NY and finally the Niagara Falls area.

We arrived in the area of the Falls early, around 2:30pm. We settled on the KOA here on Grand Island. It’s only about a ten minute drive Niagara Falls. It was early enough for us to go visit both sides of the the American and Canadian Falls.

On the US side looking toward the Canadian Horseshoe Falls


First, we went to the American side, and to the left side Goat Island and Three Sisters Island. We’ve never viewed the falls from this side before and we appreciated the different perspective and the beauty of the state park. There were hundreds of people there today. I’m sure the delightful late spring weather had a lot to do with it.


The American Falls

Norman wanted to come along, he saw the American side...
And the Canadian...(shhhhh, no passport!)

We then got in the car and drove over the bridge, crossed the border and visited the Canadian Falls. That side is more built up and geared to tourism. There were even more people there! By this time, the sun was getting lower providing us with a spectacular rainbow.

The mist was blowing UP, we got soaked

Now, THEY really got wet!

When we came back over the bridge to the US side, the agent who checked our passports and asked us where we were from in South Carolina. Seems he came from an area between Myrtle Beach and Wilmington NC. We mentioned that Jim’s mom had lived in Carolina Beach NC (small town) and the agent knew the town well and has family there. He also knew Jim’s uncle! Small world, eh? Yes, I put the ‘eh’ there for the Canadian effect…


We ran back to the RV to take care of the dogs and then ‘tried’ to go out for some dinner. Bad idea. There’s really nothing except fast food here near the KOA, so we decided to head toward the bigger city, Buffalo. Apparently no one eats out here. We did see a busy seafood restaurant, Harry’s, on the Niagara River, but couldn’t find an off ramp to get to it. So we continued on…until we were almost in downtown Buffalo. Jim took the exit to try to turn around and get back on in the other direction. Nope. The other ramp was closed down. This left us in the middle of the ghetto…no, ghetto is too nice a word. It was more of a crack house/garbage/boarded up sort of neighborhood. And we couldn’t find out way back to the Interstate without getting further into it. Finally, I saw a sign that read, ‘downtown’ and told Jim to head that way, at least we’d have a point of reference. There was also a bridge, we could have taken, but it was clearly marked to Canada and they would have just turned us around because we no longer had our passports with us.

From downtown we did manage manage to find our 190 north on-ramp and head back in the direction that we’d come from. Now we decided to head the other way toward Niagara Falls to find a place to eat. We weren’t being terribly fussy…a Chili’s or Friday’s would have fit the bill. We drove all the way to the falls, touristy/hotel area…and we STILL can’t find anywhere to eat! By now we’re getting quite hungry. We did see a few places to eat, but every one was for Indian cuisine and we don’t care for Indian.

We turned back toward the KOA, and I told Jim to try ONE more road, toward Tonawanda…the only direction we hadn’t tried. So we drove, and drove and saw only residential neighborhoods. Don’t these people eat out? Then we saw a sign for a ‘shopping mall’…aha! There are always out parcels around malls. Except when the mall is closed….as in ‘shut down’. BUT…there was a small grocery store there. I asked Jim to stop and we could grab some grape jelly and a loaf of bread (already had peanut butter at the RV) and we could have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches…which by now, was sounding REAL good.

We’d been driving for almost TWO hours. I was starting to feel like we were in a Chevy Chase vacation movie! But you know what? The peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were GREAT!

Tomorrow, heading toward the Adirondacks and maybe the Lake George area. We have many pleasant memories of that area from when the kids were little and always try to stop there if we’re near. Last time, in 2003 we hit town the same weekend as a HUGE motorcycle week. Everything was full and we ended up in Saratoga Springs…which was nice too.

So tomorrow, north and then east toward New England!