My plans for today were to get up before the sun, and to go watch the sunrise over the Falls.  Great idea, right?

Well these were foiled by the wind storm outside that kept me awake all night by smashing my door around and making me sit straight up in bed every time I was positive the sound was someone breaking into my room.

I ended up being awake pretty early, but not early enough.

On my way out, I decided to ask the woman at the hotel reception desk which way to walk to the Falls.  Good  thing I did.  Looking at a map. I was sure I had to make a right.   Turns out, it was a left.  I must learn how to read a map.

Here is an upside down house:

I walked down a couple of blocks to the Falls.   It was pretty dead outside, being that it is winter and freezing and we are inside a wind storm.

Niagara Falls is a carnival type town.  It must be packed in summer time.

Finally, in the distance, I spotted it.  NIAGARA FALLS.  I have waited so long to see this!  Look!  I am almost there!

Okay now let’s get closer!  I was so excited!   Now it is time to walk from Canada to America across Rainbow Bridge!

You need two quarters to go through the turnstile.   They take either American or Canadian.  I cursed myself for leaving my quarters on my nightstand, thinking I would not need them since they were American and I was now in Canada.

Rainbow bridge:

Walking across this bridge in a windstorm was frightening.   I was trying to take pictures but I could not hold my camera steady because even with using two hands to hold it, I could not hold it still.  I was scared I was going to get blown into the railing and die.

I would also like to mention that I had my hair back in a scrunchie.  The wind was so treacherous that it actually ripped quite a fair share of hair out of my head at the scrunchie point.   So now I have a whole lot of shorter and uneven hair all around my head.  I almost look like I am growing out bangs, except that I never had bangs.  The hair that did survive reaches the top of my pants when it is down.  So all this shorter hair on top really makes everything uneven.  Also for a month or so, when I would put my hair back, I could no longer get all of the front or sides into the scrunchie since there was too much of it that was now too short to reach the scrunchie.  Because you know, it got ripped out in a wind storm at Niagara Falls.  Isn’t this insane?

Thankfully, I have had years of practice of going to hardcore/punk shows so I am used to having my hair ripped out by stage divers and such.  Who knew that would ever be a useful thing?

Halfway there!

LOOKIT!

Once I got to the other side, I had to go through border patrol.  Always a pleasure.  “What is the reason for your return to the United States?”  Uh, I walked from Canada to the United States because I could? 

On the United States side is a viewing platform.  I watched so many people get blown around on it.  There was a group of Asian tourists all holding onto each other to try and not blow away.  One took out an iPad to take a picture and a wind gust slammed the iPad into her face when she tried using it.

Here is the only picture I took that came out steady on that platform.

Niagara Falls rainbow!

View of Canada from the American Falls:

Once I was done being knocked around by the wind I decided to walk to the Seneca Casino.  Of course I did.  They give $20 free play to new members.  On the way, I stopped to eat.  Once I walked in, the hostess took one look at me and started with “the bathrooms are down that hall”.   I am pretty sure this had something to do with my windblown hair making me look like I stuck my finger in an electrical socket.

CASINO TIME!

The $20 free play went so so so so so fast, as did the $60 of my own money I put in.  I will never learn.

Time to walk back to Canada.  Canada does not make doing this easy:

Once back in Canada, I decided to take a stop in my room to pick up the tickets I forgot to bring with me for the Niagara Sky Wheel and Skylon Tower.

I had left the “Do Not Disturb” sign on my door but it blew away, of course.  Housekeeping took all the American change I had left on the night stand.  I guess he/she thought it was a tip.  It wasn’t.  Oh well.

Back out I go, to now attempt to watch the sunset, since I missed the sunrise.   I thought maybe standing on Rainbow Bridge for this would be a good idea.  I lasted maybe five or ten minutes before I decided I was going to get blown off and die.  So instead I walked down to the Horseshoe Falls, taking about 3298743829 pictures along the way.

When I got down to the Horseshoe Falls, I took literally 300 pictures.  I will spare you about 297 of them.

Looking down, you can see where people threw change and made a wish.   Obviously, I did the same:

I was down here for a very long time.  I knew that there was a light show of sorts, where the Falls light up in different colors.  After over an hour of being windblown, I figured maybe they were not doing that in the winter time.   So I left.   After I was far away, I looked back and saw the Falls all lit up in changing colors.  By now, my camera battery was dying.  So I just decided this was not to be.

If you are traveling to the Falls and want to see the sunset, I would recommend planning for dinner near Horseshoe Falls.  This way you get to see the sunset.  Then once you are done eating dinner, you can see the Falls lit up in color.

From here, I went to the Skylon Tower.   You know how I have mentioned the wind storm quite a few times now?  Well the wind once I got up top made the wind down below look as brutal as puppy sneezes.  This is the closest to clear picture I have.  Even with trying to hold the camera with both hands, I could not keep it still.

I kept trying to walk around the tower, but I was getting blown so bad.  I had to keep ducking for cover in doorways.  

A family came outside.   The woman starts screaming “WE ARE GOING TO DIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE” and I did not even think she was being irrational.   She kept screaming and screaming for the father to take their daughter back inside before she died.  I could see from where I was perched that he was trying but the daughter could not walk because she was being blown so bad.  The father was holding her hand trying to drag her to safety and she kept being blown back until he finally picked her up.

I was still determined to just walk around the tower just one time.   There was a point where the wind died down and I made it halfway around.  Then it started up again and I feared for my life.  I finally made it around and bolted back inside.

Since I had not yet had enough of being a dare devil, I then walked over to the Niagara Sky Wheel.

Now.  I don’t know why this happened, I just know it did.  I have been on many ferris wheels, my favorite being the Riesenrad at Prater Park in Vienna.   I absolutely loved it.

But for some reason, at the Sky Wheel, I became convinced I was going to die.  Luckily for me, I was the only person on it so no one saw me be a big fat baby.

The first round, I rode with my eyes closed.  The second, I took my camera out and put it on video and held it up to the window so I could view it when I got back to my hotel.  The third time, I kneeled down on the floor with my eyes closed.  Then the FOURTH TIME, I wished the ride operator death for forcing me to go around FOUR TIMES.

BONUS: When I got back to my room, I started to upload my pictures to Picassa.  The program froze completely and when it came back up, there were zero pictures on my SD card.   Then I spent literally two freaking hours trying to recover them.   I eventually had to pay for a program to do it for me.  While I got just about everything back, including a ton of old pictures from Europe two years ago that were still lurking on the dark side of my SD card, I was not able to recover any videos.  I am still mad.

Note: I typed all the above up back in November and it took me this long to finally go through the hundreds of pictures I took.  I planned to do that and post this back in November, but after Picassa ate my pictures, it was all over.

I would like to go back to Niagara Falls when it is nicer weather.  I also truly regret not going during the Polar Vortex.   I could have easily taken a cheap bus up to get some pictures over the weekend and didn’t really look too much into it.   As I am editing this post to add pictures, , Zemanta is showing me related content to my post and it is all news stories of frozen Niagara Falls.  If I get a chance again, I am going.

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