Back in the USSA

Sunny and 36 at rising this morning.  The Falls are pretty much due east of our hotel room window so the rising sun interferes majorly with photography.  I gave it a shot anyway.  The American Falls:

Right below our window and more directly into the sun, Horseshoe Falls:

From there we had breakfast, got the valet to get our car, and started to try to navigate our way to the international bridge back to the USSA.  All of the guidebooks say that the views of the Falls are better from the Canadian side and it is pretty hard to argue with the view out the window from our Canadian side hotel.

It still seemed possible, though, that even if inferior, the USA side views would be different and probably interesting.  So we set out for an excursion into the nation to the south.

USSA customs went pretty well, we explained that we had been in Canadia for a few days and just want to cross for the USA side views.  We drove right out onto Goat Island, part of Niagara State Park in New York.  If you go to yesterday's picture 4, the first one showing both Falls, you can follow along pretty easily with today's adventure.  That piece of land between the two Falls is Goat Island.  The point of land on the island next to Horseshoe Falls is Terrapin Point, just above that is the visitor center with a parking lot behind.  We parked in the lot and walked on down towards Terrapin Point.

Here's the reverse angle view just after we passed the visitor center, that is our hotel on the now far side of the Falls.  There are only four floors of rooms, we are second from the top. Each room is a jewel box with essentially one window.  Of the three windows at that level that you can see fully, our room is the farthest to the right.

You have a better angle to see the entire horseshoe from the Canada side but on the American side it feels like you get closer.  And since the mist makes it impossible to actually see most of the horseshoe anyway, the American side has a couple of points in its favor.

The rainbow is much easier to photograph from the USSA side.

It is easy to even include the Maid of the  Mist in the rainbow fun.

So we walked back up to the visitor center and then down along the path to the other set of falls.  There are actually two falls there, a tiny one called Bridal Veil Falls.  It is the one visible here mostly obscured in the foreground.

We crossed the footbridge to Luna Island over the river just above Bridal Veil.  It is tiny in comparison to what else is going on there in the river gorge but it is by itself at least twice the width of Minnehaha and of course a whole huge hell of a lot higher.

So again referring to yesterday photo 4 we crossed to Luna Island, the land bit visible between Bridal Veil and American Falls.  Once again the attraction here is that it feels almost as if you are in the river when you are on Luna Island, the Falls are extremely close, powerfully immediate, powerfully present, a very intense waterfall experience.

We had a little fun before leaving Luna Island.  The Island is only a couple three hundred square feet of land with rapidly flowing water on both sides.  But on the back side there is an almost quiet little meander between Luna and another miniature island just upstream.  The name given by the signpost for the other little island is "Island next to Luna".  They then also give an alternative name for that bit of land but it isn't nearly as much fun as "Island next to Luna" so I am not going to report it here.

One more time a reference to picture 4, we now retrieved the car and exited Goat Island to arrive at the part of Niagara State Park located on the mainland, visible at the far side of American Falls where the large green tower rises from the riverside.  There is again a perspective on the Falls just clearly not available from Canadia, now with Horseshoe Falls providing the backdrop.

The green tower visible center left frame of picture 4 hosts an observation platform extending out over the river gorge.  We went out there and took a look and frankly, it doesn't add much, the new perspective isn't enough different from what was already available to make the intrusion into the river gorge worthwhile.

Except of course, that the real reason for the tower being there is to host the elevators leading down to the Maid of the Mist dock.

That's where we went next.

Boats leaving every fifteen minutes meaning that's about the length of time you get to travel upstream right to the foot of the Falls.  We assumed positions on the upper deck starboard as far forward as we could obtain  a position on the rail.

The guidebook says the mist is pretty intense and hauling your expensive electronics along might not be the best of ideas.  I tucked my good camera under my raincoat AND the complimentary poncho and prepared to try to get some photos with my cheap pocket bicycle ride camera.  I pulled it out of my pocket but for now kept it tucked inside the sleeve of the poncho.

At the top of the ride the boat is only holding its own against the current but it does so for 3 or 4 minutes right there in the mist.  I produced the pocket camera. That's the Canadian (starboard on the upriver leg) shore visible in this shot.

And then the boat begins to swing to  port to fall away from the Falls and exit the maelstrom for the relative calm of the dock.  A swing to port swings the starboard rail right directly into the middle of the Falls.  We did the research, we knew we wanted the starboard rail.

At about this moment the guide on the PA said, "THIS is Niagara Falls".

Turned almost about, this is Terrapin Point from below.

And the American Falls from below as we returned towards the dock.

The fellow said that the reason why there are so many more rocks in the river beneath the Falls is that there were dramatic rock slides at the American Falls in 1931 and again in 1954.

We were done with the USSA, we had lunch and found the road back to where we will be sleeping tonight.  The Rainbow Bridge outgoing from Ontario is part of the package of highways provided by the Ontario highway department.  Leaving New York to use the same bridge you have to pay  a toll

We checked out some other sights on the Canadia side and eventally called it a day.  Here is one last look out our window, this one taken on a day without a cloud in the sky:

One final bit of Niagara Falls trivia for today, the guidebook says that in 1848 a severe ice dam where the Niagara River exits Lake Erie caused the river to stop flowing for 30 to 40 hours meaning that there was only a trickle of water over the Horseshoe and American Falls.