Blog No 30 Niagara Falls
Approaching the American Falls
As the last scheduled event for the Center for Inquiry conference that I attended recently in Buffalo, NY, a group of us participants piled into two buses and made the forty-minute ride to the Niagara Falls. Enroute, our guide quizzed us with obscure facts about waterfalls, and when you got the right answer, a piece of candy was tossed your way. Rains for that Sunday afternoon had been predicted well in advance, and the forecast proved correct.
As we lined up outside of the ticket booth for the Maid of the Mist, and before we could put on our blue rain poncho, the rains came. We were thoroughly drenched by time we boarded the all-electric boat that holds up to 600 passengers. Our vessel set out along the American side for Horseshoe Falls, and I noticed thousands of white gulls sitting on the left bank that I assumed were nesting. The area is famous for up to a 100,000 gulls of nearly 20 species that congregate here, especially in fall and winter.
The heavens opened up with diluvial rain, and throughout our 30-minute ride we were saturated, not only by waves and the mist, but especially the rain. Our boat edged up to within a few hundred feet of the Horseshoe Falls before it turned around and headed back, now taking a route closer to the Canadian side. I had never seen the falls from below, and they were a worthy sight, but still paled in comparison to the Iguazu Falls in Argentina and Brazil.
The American Falls
The other Maid of the Mist vessel
Leaving the area underneath Horseshoe Falls
