It’s hard to keep your expectations under control when you’re
visiting the world’s most famous set of waterfalls.
We were sure it would be beautiful without question, but we were
also certain it was going to be a complete circus with thousands of tourists
vying for limited space and with unpleasantly long queues.
The lengthy lines of cars we'd seen the previous afternoon vying to get over the bridges to America from the Canadian side had also put us off the idea of crossing the border for a different perspective.
So in an attempt to beat the crowds, we set an alarm (something we hadn’t done
at any other time on our trip) so we could make sure we were at Niagara Falls State
Park by around 9 a.m.
We found a parking spot for Bessie on Goat Island (only $10) and caught the $2 state park trolley over the American Rapids Bridge to the Maid of the Mist Ticket Office.
Once we'd boarded the Maid of the Mist ready to power out on to the Niagara River, we were feeling a bit like turkeys - not because we were wearing blue ponchos but we were wondering why we had gotten up so early when there wasn't a queue in sight!
And WOW!!! Niagara Falls truly is a very mighty set of falls. Very, very impressive.
The Maid of the Mist was something we'd wanted to do as much for the fun of the boat ride and the sense of history as for the viewing of the falls themselves, but it really does a fantastic job of providing an up-close encounter with the thundering water.
The ponchos came in very handy.
We walked away feeling like we had gotten pretty much the same view we would have gotten from the Canadian side anyway.
After spending some time on the Observation Tower we were astounded at how big a queue had suddenly formed for both the Maid and for the Visitors Centre movie about adventurers who have attempted the falls in barrels, etc.
We skipped the movie (the boys never sit still anyway) and instead had a snack looking down at the American Rapids -- the turbulent water en route to the American Falls.
Such a huge expanse (breadth-wise) of swirling, churning rapids was something we'd never encountered before.
After walking back to Goat Island along the Pedestrian Bridge, we checked out the views from Luna Island before admiring Horseshoe Falls from Terrapin Point (though the view from the Maid of the Mist was much better than from the top).
Our last stop was at Three Sisters Islands, where we checked out the gushing Canadian Rapids -- the water heading down to Horseshoe Falls.
Bidding these amazing falls goodbye, we spent the afternoon driving around Lake Ontario and stopped the night at Westcott Beach State Park.
