Niagara Falls

As we were leaving Erie early this morning, we pulled into a gas station to fill up.  It had a sign on the window saying closed Friday.  Since we weren't sure what day it was, we hesitated for a while and the owner came over and said he was closed today because today he was supposed to ski across Lake Erie to the Canadian side.  After further hesitation on our part, he explained that only one other person had ever skied across the Lake before and that was many years ago, in the 60's.  He also said he'd tried it a week ago but was stopped half way across by the Canadian authorities (who hadn't been forewarned) who asked for his passport.  He didn't have one and didn't think it mattered since he was doing such an epic thing!  Anyway, he got in touch with the Pennsylvania governor who cleared it with Canada and was go for today, except that the forecast was for thunderstorms this morning.  He was therefore somewhat dejected that he probably couldn't go.

The other problem the Canadian authorities had was that water skiers are supposed to have two people in the boat, one to drive it and one to spot to see if the skier falls over.  He only had the boat driver and his Jack Russell terrier who has been trained to bark if a skier falls over.  Canada didn't think that was good enough.  This seems typical of the spirit in this little town that we hadn't discerned when we arrived, just thinking how run down it all was.

Anyway, once we had found an alternate gas station, it was a fairly short drive to Niagara Falls this morning and we arrived about 9:30am.  Another beautiful day as we walked around on the American side.

Niagara River Above The Falls

American Falls

American Falls

American Falls

Bridal Veil Falls

Horseshoe Falls & Maid Of The Mist

Horseshoe Falls

 After a couple of hours Sam was overheating and getting fed up with head pats so we each had an ice cream and moved on.

Somebody say lunch?

We drove round the south shore of Lake Ontario and found a nice place to sit next to the lake and have lunch in the little town of Olcott.  The town was working up for its pirate festival (?!!!?) this weekend and several locals suggested we should stop over for it.  There were more than a few piratical characters around, and a fun fair and some really odd looking stalls.  Looked like it could have been interesting.

Anyway, we moved on and are currently in Syracuse NY in an hotel at the airport (don't ask why).  We repacked the car and got out some fresh clothes and then I took Sam for a stroll in the dusk so he would settle down for the night.  After letting him off the leash in a field next to the hotel he was soon hot on the trail of something and then he dived down a hole and started furiously digging.  He was so far down little more than his tail was showing.  Unlikely that it was gophers, probably racoons.  It took me some time to haul him up and away and then had to sneak him back in the hotel with his head covered in mud.

Tomorrow we head to Cambridge Massachusetts, close to our first sight of the Atlantic Ocean on this trip.  It's finally beginning to feel like we are getting there.