Our RV Adventures

Jan’s cat, Emma, died this morning, sometime between midnight and 6:30am. Jan came out and found her curled up in her favorite spot. It looked liked she’d just went to sleep and never woke up.

Emma was around 17, another stray that, as usual, found us rather than the other way around. The whole family was eating at King Food, our favorite Chinese restaurant one night and she showed up. Our big round table was in the front corner, surrounded on two sides by windows. Sometime during the meal we looked up to see a small black kitten, about six months old, sitting on the narrow ledge looking at us through the glass and meowing, and every now and then she would rub her head against the window and then just look at us with those big eyes.

Of course this lasted about 30 seconds until Brandi went outside and smuggled her back in. In fact, Brandi was the one who named her, I think after the literary character. So suddenly we had another cat (I think we already had two at the time). And by the time Mister came along in 2006, (another stray that found me this time), Emma was the last cat standing.

Emma and Mister never really got along. Mister tried, but Emma would have nothing to do with him. In fact she would attack him whenever she thought she could get away with it. It was always funny to see this 9 pound cat with no claws taking on a 30 pound cat with his claws. But Mister never fought back. He’d just stare at her until she panicked and ran off. But when it was necessary, like a travel day, they would tolerate each other, but that was about it.

R.I.P Emma. You will be missed.

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Apparently the “coiled tubing” phase of fracking is a lot less busy than the actual fracking part. In the last several days we’ve had vehicle counts from a high of 120 down to a low of 71, with most days in the 90’s. A real relief after the almost 300’s we had for a while.

And our temps have been back in the 90’s too. After last weeks highs in the 80’s and lows in the 60’s, we seem to be back in the whole 90’s/70’s thing again.

I wonder where Fall went?

After being out since Saturday night, we finally got water delivered this evening. Of course we weren’t really out. We just switched over to our coach tank. But our misting system works off the outside water tank and with the temps back up in the 90’s we miss it. Plus Jan can’t do laundry without it.

At this gate we’re getting diesel, water, and sewer vac from the fracking site people, and it’s worked fine up until recently, but I think things kind of fell apart after the fracking people left and we lost our contact person. We still have no trouble getting diesel because that truck comes through every other day and we only need sewer vac about once a month or so.

That’s about it for this edition of “Life On The Gate.

Here’s a repost of our visit to Niagara Falls in 2009 to round things out.

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Thought for the Day:

Opinions are like orgasms. I got mine and I don’t care if you have one or not.
(Nick made me post this one.)

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Niagara Falls – For Trudy…

Originally posted on September 24, 2009

Today we drove about 30 miles from our park to visit Niagara Falls.

The title of today’s blog says ‘For Trudy’. Trudy was Jan’s Mother who died in 2007. She always wanted to visit Niagara Falls, but never got the chance.

So Jan said “This visit is for Mom”.

After following the signs coming into the city of Niagara Falls we ended up on Goat Island, the home of the American side of Niagara Falls.

Goat Island and the Falls make up the Niagara Falls State Park. Established in 1885, it’s the oldest State Park in the United States.

Even before we got to the Island, Jan saw the mist rising from Horseshoe Falls, named because it’s shaped like a big horseshoe, of course.

But before we could see the Falls, Jan had to feed the a squirrel a Kashi bar.

The 2nd squirrel had this deal where he would lay flat on his belly and then slowly crawl toward you begging for food.

Walking over the mall and looking down on the Falls was amazing. 

You can walk right to the edge of the falls and look right out at the water going over.

And then looking straight down thru the spray and the rainbow you can see the Maid of the Mist heading into the base of Horseshoe Falls. Looks like fun!

After spending time at the Horseshoe, we walked over to the other falls, the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls.

After stopping to look at the many flower beds, we got in line to tour the Cave of the Winds.

Cave of the Winds is now kind of a misnomer.  The actual cave, named because the sound the wind made blowing off the falls, disappeared when the ceiling collapsed in the 1920′s.

What you have now is an elevator that takes you 180 feet down to the base of the American and Bridal Veil Falls and lets you walk on a wooden walkway thru part of the falls themselves. They give you plastic ponchos and sandals to wear, but they don’t really keep you dry.

You will get wet!

Here’s Jan standing where part of the falls comes over the walkway. Jan said she looks like a banana. I think she looks cute.

This is the Hurricane Deck where you’re actually standing in the Falls. I went up there while stayed kind of dry on a lower level. It’s impossible to get pics up there. My camera’s not that waterproof.

Here’s what the walkway looks like from the Maid of the Mist.

One amazing thing about this is that workers disassemble the walkway every fall and rebuild it every spring, otherwise the winter ice would destroy it.

Here’s what the area looks like in February.

After drying out we rode the trolley over to the Maid of Mist dock. These boat tours have been running since 1846, almost 40 years before the place was even a state park.

The boats take you right into the whirlpool at the bottom of Horseshoe Falls, fighting the current all the way. It’s like being in the middle of a hurricane.

One thing I found interesting on the boat trip was the remains of Nikola Tesla’s Niagara Falls power plant, built in 1896.

This plant was the first to harness water flow to generate electricity, and demonstrated the superiority of Tesla’s AC electrical system over Edison’s DC system. Many people don’t realize we owe our entire electrical system to Tesla. But back in the late 1800′s, there was a big legal war going on between Tesla and Edison over whose system was better.

By the early 1900′s Niagara Falls was lighting New York City.

Leaving the Maid we walked out on the observation tower

to a fantastic view of the entire Falls area.

A fitting end to our great day at Niagara Falls.

Walking back to the toad, we saw something I’d never seen before.

Black squirrels.

And they were very aggressive. When I turned and walked away, and then looked back, they were following me, stalking me.

Leaving the Falls area, we drove down to near Buffalo to eat dinner at one of our favorite BBQ restaurants, Famous Dave’s. We always have great leftovers.

Then it was home for the night.

Tomorrow is an errand day.

More tomorrow…

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