Joe & Deb USA 2014: Day Eighteen

Niagara Falls day 2

A slightly better day today weather wise, not drizzly and the wind was blowing the mist back over the falls so you could actually see much more of the horseshoe. Planned a “rest day” today, which meant less walking than usual to re-visit the gift shop for gifties, and take more photos of the Falls just in case we missed something yesterday. Colder today, temperature is about 8 degrees celcius but with wind chill feels about 5 degrees, so we were glad of polar fleece, thermals, scarves, hats and gloves. Once we were rugged up, we were comfy, so the cooler temps haven’t spoilt the visit, and it’s certainly more pleasant to have less people around, as it’s now at the very end of the season here. Shopping complete, we went back to the motel and got ourselves organised for tomorrow. We need to get to Buffalo Airport by 8am to pick up the rental car, and there is no simple public transport to take us there, across the border. So we booked a cab, which wasn’t as horrendous as it sounds, and we knew we’d probably have to do that when we were planning the trip. The alternative to picking up the rental in Buffalo would have meant we would have to waste a day kicking around Buffalo waiting for the overnight train to Toledo, to then get a cab from the train station in downtown Toledo at 5am to get to the Toledo airport across town to pick up a rental car, to drive 3 hours to Dayton …… and then do the whole palaver in reverse to drop the car back again and catch a 5am train into Chicago. So one cab trip was a much better option, and probably cheaper in the long run, and it means we miss Toledo, which is no hardship ! Toledo was Klinger’s home town (M*A*S*H) – need I say more ?

We booked tomorrow night’s accommodation at the Wright Patterson Comfort Suites, which are just across the road from the Air Force Museum that J wants to visit Friday. Programmed Dora with the address of the hotel and she calculated about six hours driving time. With that all done, we spent a few hours in the afternoon just sitting in front of our picture window enjoying the fabulous view, reading a book and generally chilling out. A rare spot of down time this trip. We flicked on the news late afternoon to catch up on the shootings at the Canadian Parliament in Ottowa. Quite hard to believe something like that happening in peaceful little Canada, just shows you never know where there will be some kind of nut job with a point to prove.

Went and had dinner at the casino complex, a very nice burger joint called The Famous, that had some gorgeous art deco features. Watched the old guy at the table next to us almost choke to death and be given the heimlich manoeuvre by the restaurant staff, who were fabulous with him. The cynical part of me said they were probably keen to avoid a lawsuit, but they did seem very genuine in their concern for him. The old guy was fine after all that and left the restaurant under his own steam a bit later, a happy camper with his even happier dining companion. I guess she was pleased not to be carting him out in a box.

Dinner complete, we went back to the motel to collect camera and tripod & set off with all our layers against the chill to take some night photos of the Falls. They are lit up with huge spotlights, which sounds a bit naff but does actually make them really pretty at night, when there wouldn’t otherwise be much to see. Mixed success with photos, some ok some pretty hopeless, but still worth the effort. Walked back to the picture window motel room and packed our stuff ready for an early departure, 7am cab pickup.

And a little bit of trivia – the binoculars that are dotted around the place for tourists to use have an instruction – “Insert one loonie here” – It turns out that the Canadian $1 coin is called a loonie as the bird depicted on it is the loon. The Canadian $2 coin has a bear on it, and while initially the Canadian treasury thought it may end up being nicknamed a broonie , in fact it’s now called a toonie… so you have loonies and toonies :-) This bit of information was imparted by our cab driver to buffalo airport.