One of the nicest things about Niagara Falls State Park is that access is unrestricted and there is no admission; it is the oldest State Park in the United States, and it was a simple matter of running the quarter-mile to Prospect Point, following the sound of the thundering water growing louder and louder as I approached. At this hour of the morning there were not many visitors, just a group of young Asian men taking selfies and one other lone runner.
I ran to the brink of the falls, then down toward Rainbow Bridge which connects this city with Canada's city of the same name, and then up-river along the mighty Niagara River and across a pedestrian bridge to Goat Island. The island derives its name, we learned later, from an incident years ago when a local herdsman decided to keep his livestock there over the winter to protect them from predators; the only survivor from this act of lunacy was a single goat.
After breakfast we walked out onto Rainbow Bridge and stood on the international boundary line between the two countries that share this waterfall - the American Falls and Bridal Veil falls are owned by the US, Horseshoe Falls owned by Canada.
The visitor center on the American side displays a quote by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, an early champion of the falls:
"It is a spot reserved and sacred
to what divine power has already placed there."
Next on the itinerary was that baptism which all visitors must undergo, a trip on the famed Maid of the Mist. It was a cold morning - did I mention that there was frost on the windshield again this morning and I wore gloves and hat on my run? - and the baptizees are provided the flimsiest of blue plastic rain-jackets. (My jacket is now neatly folded in my running bag for the next rainy race I happen to attend.)
Closer and closer the little boat chugs toward these mighty falls. Selfie-sticks abounded, but when we got really close, many photographers became less avid and took shelter on the lower deck.
It was indeed impressive, and I found myself snapping one photo after another at the cold clouds of mist rising skyward and the thundering curtains of water.
We were glad that our hotel was so close because both of us had soaking shoes and pants-legs; some very cold and wet tourists would be shivering uncomfortably during a long day. We decided to explore Niagara itself, which consisted partly of gambling casinos and souvenir shops, but also some very nice churches and buildings that preceded the recent development here. We followed directions given to us by a serendipitously-met local to the Third Street Retreat, where I tried "Beef on Weck," a New York favorite - a kind of French dip on pretzel bread.
We had enjoyed Savor so much the previous evening that we ate dinner there again, despite my unreasonable aversion to the trend of naming restaurants with only one word. After dinner we decided to brave the border guards and cross into Canada to climb to the top of an imposing tower we could see from the American side the night before.
It is called the Skylon Tower, it is 520 feet tall, and there is a pricey restaurant at the top that revolves and provides a panoramic view of the falls; visitors like ourselves could also merely climb the tower and get a birds-eye view of both the American and Canadian Falls.
The border crossing was serious stuff! The Canadian border guard wanted to know why we were entering the country, whether we had any guns or weapons, what was in the car; he made us put down the rear windows to be sure there were no stowaways. "What is in the back?" he demanded to know, and we told him clothing and boots. "Boots are clothing," he snapped. "And what is that in your hand? That is not clothing!" It was a cell phone, and by the way my Google Maps did not work in Canada, we had discovered. He made me turn it off, and then he waved us through.
Up and down the big tower was a breathtaking little ride, and well worth it. The trip back to the US was nearly as nerve-wracking - I had already been flustered by my GPS app not working - but a gruff American guard reluctantly allowed us back in our own country after a short cross-examination that made our trip to the Skylon Tower seem like a frivolous lark.
One last visit to the brink of the falls before we went to bed: the silhouettes of hundreds of men and women and children standing at the edge as wonder-struck as we were.
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