We spent yesterday at Niagra Falls on the American side. The Canadian side is still closed to tourists. You can see the Canadian side with no people walking around. It was kind of weird.
Niagra Falls is made up of three falls. The American Falls with is the closest falls in this picture. Bridal Veil Falls which is the middle falls, next to that island, and Horseshoe Falls which is the big falls in the top of the picture. Cave of the Winds is not a cave, it is just a path that goes next to Bridal Veil Falls. The Maid of the Mists boat trip goes up into Horseshoe Falls. Goat Island is that island you see in the picture. That's enough about the geography of the area.
It was a light tourist day. There was still lots of parking and the wait for the Maid of the Mist and the Cave of the Winds was not very long. There was a big Amish group visiting at the same time. They made up maybe half of the people there.
Our first tour was the Maid of the Mist. You go out on this half bridge and down an elevator to the water. The boat is all electric and charges up between trips. It is about a 15 minute trip up the gorge and back. You get very wet in the Horseshoe Falls part of the gorge. I kept the camera in a plastic bag for the wettest parts.
Next, we went to the Scheolkopf Power Station. Niagra Falls was the first hydroelectric station in the world. It has always been and still is a big electric generating area. Today, they let the water flow 8 miles away to a reservoir and generate the electricity there. Both Canada and the US do it that way. Through the 1900's, there have been 3 hydroelectric stations in the gorge and you can still see the remains of them. The Scheolkopf Power Station was the most spectacular failure. They built it down the wall of the gorge, but let water get between the wall of the station and the wall of the gorge. One very cold winter, the water froze and expanded. That pushed most of the station off the wall and the whole thing collapsed. They built an elevator so you can go down and see the remains. The site is now used to dry dock the Maid of the Mist boats during the winter.
Next stop was the Whirlpool. It's not as exciting as it sounds so you can look at the 2 pictures on the New York photo page.
Next stop was the misnamed Cave of the Winds. It is a very wet walk down to the bottom of Bridal Veil Falls.
Our last stop was the 3 sisters. Someone stole the plaque a long time ago and no-one remembers what the 3 sisters names were. Anyway, they are three small islands furthest out into the river.
We had a little drama while on the bridge between the first and second islands. There were some geese with their little babies swimming in the river. One of the little goslings got swept down the rapids so the parent turned and followed after it. All the rest of the babies decided to follow as well so now we have a whole flock of baby geese going down the rapids. It all turned out well in the end. Mama goose led them all to a safe cove and they all got out of the water.
I took over 140 pictures and deleted the bad ones down to 98. I loaded the 98 pictures to the New York Photo page. I haven't organized the page yet and I haven't added captions yet. You just get a bunch of random pictures of the trip.
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