Spectacular View

I boarded a bus in Charlton, Massachusetts for a Niagara Falls tour.  When I got on the bus I could see it was a very international crowd.  There were dark Indians, blondes with accents (Sweden or Norway?), Australians, Chinese, Japanese, two Anglos, and myself. Almost everyone had a different accent. By the end of the tour we had meshed into friends and if we could not speak to each other we did a lot of smiling! Our tour guide was Chinese with a very thick accent that made it difficult to understand what he was saying and I imagine we lost quite a bit of what he was telling us.  His personality made up for our lack of understanding because he won us over with his sense of humor and his attempts for us to have a great tour.



George, Our

Chinese Guide

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My  Friends from Perth, Australia



I noticed the rest stops in Massachusetts and New York are large, clean, and well kept up with plenty of them along the highway. Toll booths are also common!  I found the prices at some of the stops to be extremely high like paying $2.03 for a pack of gum that usually costs me 89 cents!

Arriving at Niagara, we were hustled to a boat named the Maiden of the Mist, given blue raincoats and taken for a ride along the bottom of Niagara Falls.  The thunderous noise as the falls hit the bottom is deafening.  Rainbows can be seen on and around the falls. I was on the United States side while Canada is on the other side.  Canadians issue yellow raincoats and Americans receive blue raincoats. Depending on where you stand on the boat, getting one's legs and feet soaked is not unusual.

Niagara Falls

The falls in the above photo are the American Falls and the smaller fall to the right is named Bridal Veil Falls.  On the Canadian side is Horseshoe Falls.  Niagara Falls is the 2nd largest in the world after Victoria Falls in Southern Africa.  During the winter small pieces of ice will be seen floating down the river and over the falls though the falls themselves do not freeze over completely. The park is large and as I walked along the walkway on top,  I could see the swirling and pounding river before it went over the falls. We attended an IMAX movie about how the falls were discovered. The interesting movie told about the daredevils who go over the falls and how some have lived while others perished. An observation deck 279' high takes visitors on a speedy elevator to the viewing area  .  On the top, I could see the falls and the 400 acre park.

Prospect Point
Observation Deck

On top of Observation Deck

Abhinav Bansal, my seat
mate from India

Our tour took us to Goat Hill to see the Canadian Horseshoe Falls which we were told are 170 feet tall. At night the falls are illuminated with colored lights giving the falls an entirely different and beautiful look.


Barbara and Maurice (Mo)
from Massachusetts
kept an eye out for me.

 If 12,000,000 tourists visit Niagara Fall from around the world each year, now it is 12,000,000 plus me visiting this spectacular area!

"Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue,
and the dreams that you dare to dream
really do come true."
Harold Arlen with "Yip" Harburg