Niagara Falls

When we left Ohio we backtracked a little to visit a Cougar dealer near Toledo. Our trailer tires are not wearing properly, but the dealer couldn't work on it this week so we bought two new tires at a tire store and proceeded eastward. We decided to drive up towards Detroit, and then cut across a portion of Ontario, Canada. Given the high cost of of cell phone service on our plan in Canada, we shut off our phones for 24 hours. And the RV park we stayed in on the north shore of Lake Erie in Ontario didn’t have Internet access, so we “went dark” for 24 hours. It was kind of nice!

The piece of Ontario we drove through was beautiful along the lake. It was foggy and the road is back from the lake a ways, so we only saw the lake once, but the yards and countryside were peaceful. When Teressa and I walked Rocky in the morning, several of the locals went out of their way to say “hello” – one even in her bathrobe! It reminded me of my father's place on Rainy Lake in Minnesota, complete with water pumps and squirrels.

We hit the road at 9:00 headed for Niagara Falls. There wasn’t much traffic around the lake, but when we got closer to Toronto things started picking up. We stopped at a visitor center just outside Niagara Falls to ask directions and make sure we could get out trailer parked somewhere by the falls. As it turns out, there is a great parking lot a couple of miles past the falls, and for $10 you can park your car and they provide a shuttle bus back and forth. We were even able to get a spot in the shade so Rocky could stay cool.

We toured the falls from the Canadian side, based upon recommendations from a number of our friends. It was more impressive than any of us expected – larger and more dramatic because you are so close to where the water plunges over the cliffs to the pools below. We didn’t have time to take the boat ride down on the river, but that looked like fun too. We grabbed a quick lunch and hit the road again, clearing customs after crossing the Rainbow Bridge, and then drove to the Finger Lakes region in upstate New York. Our campground is pleasant, but right off the freeway. We got in too late to make it to one of the state campgrounds 20 miles south on the lakes.