Niagara Falls

Right now we're in the town of Niagara Falls, New York.
It's a weird little place. Not at all the kind of town you'd
expect to find one of America's most famous tourist
attractions, not to be mention an international border
crossing. It's a bit of a ghost town; everything seems
closed down and boarded up. Maybe it's a seasonal thing,
and everyone comes out of hibernation in the summer. I
dunno.

Driving in yesterday, we found ourselves in the middle
of a snow blizzard at about the same time I realised my
windscreen wipers are a bit shit. I followed the headlights
in front of me whilst Will gave directions. It was like a game.
A pretty bad one, admittedly, after the accident we narrowly
avoided on the way here.

A lorry infront of us dropped a chunk of metal onto the
interstate; the car directly in front and the car beside us
hit it, shredding their tyres. One span across the road in
front of us, ending up facing the wrong way; the other I
narrowly missed as it skidded onto the hardshoulder, feet
in front of us.

We pulled up and checked everyone was okay, and then
chuffed off on our merry way.

So anyway, Niagara Falls. We slept in a Walmart last night.
The nice assistant manager, Ed, let us plug the RV in to
their electricity overnight, to save us from waking up
dead in our icicled metal tomb.

Needless to say, we both slept terribly on account we
were too hot, and ended up sleeping in until midday;
one 7am peek outside assured us we were going nowhere
for a while. By about 1, the roads had been cleared and
we decided to head for the falls, hoping to get some pictures
of Niagara Falls in the snow, which I guess isn't what the
usual tourists get to see. There is a reason for that.

The 7 mile drive from Walmart to Niagara Falls was a bit
confusing. It was like, okay I know they're close, but there
must be something between this dirty little town and those
beautiful falls. Some trees, a park, even a nice field would
separate them from the Indian restaurants, the Holiday
Inn and the plastic bagged trees.

It's just such a contrast. And the contrast is so great that
it just made it all a bit crap. The Falls that you see on
postcards and in films looked nothing like the ones I saw.
It all looked a bit industrial. The view over into Canada
wasn't pretty either. The grey sky can't have helped,
but the whole thing made me feel a bit sad.

I'm a fan of waterfalls. I mean not in a weird way, I
just think they're pretty. And I've seen a bunch of pretty
waterfalls, in Thailand and Malaysia and even England.
And for waterfalls, these guys were pretty damn impressive.
But what's to admire when a country capitalises them to
destrustion.

Mainly though, I was bothered by the cold and wanted a
cup of tea. I did get a nice new pair of gloves though, and
tried to coax a black squirrel to be my new pet with a bit
of tree. No such luck.


So all our photos of today are a bit rubbish. Hopefully
we'll get some better snaps from the Canada side tomorrow!

In other news, I had a horrific dream that I invited Will over
for Christmas at my house. He presented each member of
my family with a 'love fern' and proceded to make a speech
about how, despite our 'ups and downs', him and I were
worth more to each other. He thought this would go down a
storm, but my dad simply asked him to leave and I had to
chase him barefoot down the road.

I've warned Will that, should he ever be invited over for
Christmas, to please leave the love ferns at home and give
the speech a miss.