The Great Niagara Falls to Dunkirk – July 19

Tags

Dunkirk, Lake Ontario, Niagara Falls, Niagara River, Selkirk Shores State Park

DillyDog and I began a glorious Saturday with a jaunt around the Watertown City Complex, a mixed grouping of old and new structures with unique seating areas scattered around at, what I suppose, are convenient places for those doing City business. There weren’t any squirrels up that early; however, DillyDog managed to frighten the heck out of a few smaller varmints.

Less than an hour away, Lake Ontario, the first of the Great Lakes. Our goal is to put our toes in each and every one if we can. Selkirk Shores State Park was a good place to start. Marty found a Lake Ontario rock for his collection, and DillyDog was in squirrel heaven and, after chasing as many as possible, she tried to drink the lake dry.

The scenery on the way from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie was mostly rolling hills, a few lazy rivers and tons of farm land, a real contrast to the heavily forested mountains and raging rivers of yesterday. The sun, which had been so cheerful and bright at the park in the morning, hid and the skies were overcast…Marty had predicted rain,so we shouldn’t have been surprised. The clouds burst just west of Rochester and continued to snivel all the way to the falls.

We crossed the Niagara River which appears to be almost as wide as the mighty Mississippi, but the mist and rain along with a six foot mesh netting along the sides of the bridge shrouded it from our view. When we arrived at Niagara Falls, the traffic became heavy and slow. There appeared to be no parking to be had as all the lots within walking distance were full. Eddie decided to drop Marty and I off while he and DillyDog continued to search.


There is a beautiful flower laden park with winding paths leading to the visitors center. It was lovely, but the visitors center was a madhouse. People were filling every possible space in the building and were unwilling to give it up for the short time it would take someone to pass through! Marty finally simply plowed on through them with me in his wake.

We still didn’t quite know where the falls might be, so we allowed ourselves to become part of the human wave flowing down the stairs and when we were spit out of the doors, we saw a crowd and heard the roar of an immense amount of water in the distance. That must be it, we decided, and we were right, Niagara Falls was there before us.

Once we managed to get to the front of the herd, there it was…a huge volume of water racing over the cliff in front of us and plummeting almost 200 feet to give birth to the river below. The force of its dive created a heavy curtain of white foam that, added to the drizzle and fog, very nearly hid the massive Horseshoe Falls right next to it. We could barely make out the Maid of the Mist below as she circled the chasm the heavy falls fashioned as they plunged over the edge into the abyss. What an awesome sight to behold. Such incredible power.

Interesting factoids: about 600,000 gallons flow over Niagara Falls every second; about 20% of the nation’s drinking water goes over the falls; fish actually go over the falls…90% make it because the white foam from the rushing water cushions their fall!

We got one really good look and then the rain came down in earnest and the crowd swept us aside, so we made our escape to search for Eddie. It turns out he had found a parking spot and had even made it to the visitors center only to turn back rather than face the hordes still shoving and pushing their way in or out, whichever the case may be…difficult to tell!

We all moved out of the park to an outdoor table with an umbrella and had some pizza. Poor DillyDog had a rough time staying out of the rain. Sitting down, she decided, was out of the question. It absolutely poured driving down to Buffalo then tapered off to a slow drizzle and had gradually dwindled to intermediate spurts whEn we arrived in Dunkirk.

By that time DillyDog was ready for a nice walk. We got our stuff into the room and took off to explore. There was a nice little creek burbling beside the motel and of course DillyDog had to check it out. She sniffed and sniffed, following invisible trails, sticking her head under the shrubs that lined the water. Suddenly she jerked back. I thought maybe she might have run into a snake, but instead out came a huge, angry, gray and white cat ready to pounce on the intruder. DillyDog jumped back; the cat advanced menacingly and I cracked up laughing at my mighty warrior, much to her chagrin. We left the feline in peace…we found out later there was a whole chowder of them. Good thing we left.

After a disaster involving me losing my glasses…a long, stupid story and I found them…we stuffed ourselves at a nearby Applebee’s and headed back for some sleep time.