the "Illumination" tour. There were no fireworks that evening; they only do that on Fridays and Sundays. But they do light up the falls every evening till about midnight or so. We tried to make some nice pictures from the Canadian side. But they did not come out at all; there was too much wind on the Skylon Tower, which is on the Canadian side of the park. The ride up en down the elevator is quite nice, because you can see the town all lit up in the evening. But it does get very busy though. Earlier we also had a look at Journey behind the Falls, you get wet when you go outside. You get really close to the Horse Shoe Falls. But there is way too much mist to make any decent photos. We also went to the Great Whirlpool, the Niagara River goes thru a narrow gorge that ends up in a whirlpool, the rapids that go thru the gorge are considered to be one of the most dangers in the world (class 6). From the Canadian side you can not see it as well, we did see it from the American side and that view was much better.
We visited also the tourist trap “Souvenir City Headquarters”, they sell all sorts of touristy stuff, food and very expensive kinds of chocolate. But the one thing that I did enjoy watching was the glass blowing at Niagara Artistic Glassblowing Studio, although the Master Glass blower, Angelo Rossi was not there. Most of the object there were not to my liking, but I find it fascinating to watch them blowing the glass like that. There goes an awful lot of skill into that process.
Today we went for a tour on the American side of the Falls, it poured down most of the morning and when we got on the bus to go on the tour it was still raining. Not much hope for the rest of the day we had though. We went to the Cave of the Winds, situated on Goat Island, here you can get as soaked as much as you w
ant. They give you slippers you have to wear and a rain poncho. And boy, do you need that. I got soaked anyway, glad that I had some trousers on that dry very quickly. On Hurricane Deck it feel like you are standing under a jet shower, actually the water falls with a speed of 50 mph down and you get an awful lot of spray there, but that is all part of the fun. The trouble is with these tours that you never have enough time to do anything properly; you always have to watch the time. Just when the sun was popping out from behind the clouds we had to get into the elevator and go to go down to the Maiden of the Mist, a boat that would take us up close and personal to the Horse Shoe Falls, the American Falls & the Bridal Falls. This was a wicked ride on the boat. The river is pretty wild at the base of the fall and the trip was way too short for me. Did not have enough opportunity to make photos, because of the spray the camera gets too wet. But t
he sun came out again just when we were near the Horse Shoe fall and that was beautiful, loved it, loved it, loved it. Then we went to the Prospect Observation Deck, you get a really good view of the American Falls here. If you do not go with a tour, do not miss this one, it is only one dollar or so to get on the deck. (Beautifull colors in Whirlpool State Park ->)One of the last stops we made was at Whirlpool State Park, here you get a really good view of the gorge and the whirlpool, and they do go upstream from Lake Ontario into the gorge and then in the Whirlpool with a powerboat, did not see any on this day. But they are not allowed to go any further then the base of the rapids, way to rough. At night the Whirlpool goes the other way around, this is because the power plants increase their intake of water, and it goes from 50 % during the day to
75% at night and during the winter months. The stream flows much slower and this causes the water to turn around the other way. Hopefully tomorrow the weather is going to be nice, and then we can go back into Canada and use our free tickets for the Skylon Tower. We will see how it goes…..Ciao
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