Niagara Falls

Sunday afternoon I left the Rock and Roll hall of fame and headed to Niagara Falls! I drove along Lake Erie through Pennsylvania to NY. Thankfully this was a shorter drive than the rest of the week had been.

I dropped my stuff off at this cute little hotel The Giacomo and headed to the Buffalo airport to pick up my friend Ryan who was joining me for the last leg of my trip.

The view from the 19th floor of our hotel.

It was late so we grabbed a bite to eat at a delicious Gastropub and called it a night.

Monday we went to see the American side of the Niagara Falls. Now, I know everyone says the Canadian side is better, but damn, it’s amazing and impressive on the American side.

It was cold and there were still ice chunks in the water, which we later learned comes from an ice damn they create in Lake Erie, that they recently broke up/sent downstream. Huge chunks of ice.

I loved the pattern of dirt that mixed with this ice chunk.

We walked around and wanted to go on the Maid of the Mist boat but since their was still ice the boat wasn’t in the water yet. Water is so powerful and seeing it barrel over the rapids and falls is amazing. About 675,000 gallons of water go over the falls per second!

We took a hop on/off trolley tour instead and learned fun facts, most of which I don’t remember now. But Ryan and I were in awe of how easy it was to gain access to the Niagara River and falls. By that I mean there is minimal fencing and rails. And apparently people, as recently as last week, end their life here.

So while we were walking around we saw a black squirrel. I had never seen one before so here he is for all of you to see as well.

We wandered around for several hours before going to find a place to eat. We thought we found a place, called The Craft, but the owner said they were closed, still getting ready for the season, but invited us in for a beer.

This dude was a funny, honest, slightly racist local who gave us the low down on where to eat and what to do. I tried some local beers, per usual, and had a delicious blueberry wheat one. This guy was a riot and kind enough to give us cheap beer so we hung out for an hour or so before finding a place with food.

Sculpture I really liked.

We got a late lunch and relaxed for a bit at the hotel. This hotel was amazing. They knocked on the door to ask if we wanted warm cookies and milk!!! I mean how amazing is that! And how cool would it be to have the job of providing smiles to people with cookies.

Eventually we found a place to eat dinner, that wasn’t in Canada, and chatted with the bar tender who told us we had to see the falls at night. Another man came into the bar and started chatting with us and the bar tender. We mentioned the lack of gates/fences and he said it happens a lot. Then he enthusiastically told the bar tender that Big Joe went down the rapids. I was very confused by this man’s affect, so I made the quick and incorrect assumption that Big Joe was one of the daredevils/ adrenaline junkies and asked if Joe was alive… horrible thing to say even if he was a dare devil. Foot in mouth. The man just said he’s dead and they haven’t found a body. I felt like a HUGE asshole and apologized several times, which probably didn’t help. I certainly wasn’t sober and I felt like an ass none the less. We moved beyond this topic thankfully and the man later bought us both beers, although I probably should have bought him one.

Then we scooted out to go see the falls at night and damn they weren’t lying.