Monthly Archives: May 2018
Repeat Week, Part Trois . . .
With not much really happening this week, I thought I’d repost another highlight of our 2009 East Coast travels, this time to Niagara Falls.
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 small and looking down on the Falls was amazing. BTW Most of these pictures can be seen larger. Just click the picture. If there is a larger version, it will come up. Click the Back Arrow to get back to the blog.
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 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.
Thought for the Day:
asdfads
Bubbling Up . . .
I spent the morning and early afternoon mostly working on website stuff, both the Knife website and the the Big Huntsville Storage website.
Around noon our power went off here at the park. It seems to happen every couple of weeks or so, and usually comes back on pretty quickly. And it was back on in just a couple of minutes . . . and then back off again. And then off again. And then back on.
This raised my suspicions so I got up to check the LED that monitors our shore power voltage and found it, not at the normal 122-124 volts, but showing 131 volts. And as I watched, every so often, it would bounce up to 132 and then back down to 130. But then it momentarily hit 133 and our Progressive EMS (Electrical Management System) disconnected us from shore power to protect the coach
I took my new 50 amp tester out to the pedestal to check things out.
And I had 131-132 volts on both legs so it wasn’t an unbalanced voltage situation. I watched it for about 15 minutes without it ever going above 133 volts, so I switched the EMS into bypass mode so we’d get power back in the coach. I did keep monitoring the voltage in the coach, and about 15 minutes later it was back down to normal. So a little later I switched the EMS back into the circuit.
I don’t what the problem was, but it seems to have been a power company problem. I’ll keep an eye on it.
But I did get another plastic tub filled up which we took over to the storage room a little after 4pm. Then it was on up to Whataburger for dinner. #6’s for both of us. Plus I got an Apple & Cranberry Salad to bring home for dinner tomorrow night.
I received a number of nice emails from readers about my Bay of Fundy repost yesterday. I guess most of our readers today weren’t reading the blog back in 2009 since I had just started it in January, and it was mostly so family and friends could keep track of us.
So I thought I do a repost of our visit to the Bar Harbor, ME area.
Bar Harbor and Bubbles…
August 24, 2009
Today we made the 50 mile trip down to the Bar Harbor area to see some of Maine’s Atlantic coast. The drive was pretty uneventful, except for a 25 minute wait right outside of Ellsworth for road work. Luckily, by the time we came home they were finished for the day.
Right after we got into the Bar Harbor area, we stopped for lunch at a small seafood place called Gateway Diner and had lobster rolls and sweet potato fries, and then split a pumpkin crumb pie with ice cream. Great food, but unfortunately for me, the place also had a gift shop with a lot of moose stuff.
Mucho $$$$ later, we stopped at the Bar Harbor Visitor’s Center right down the street to check out a tip that the lady at the diner mentioned about a loop road through Acadia National Park.
Getting directions, we headed out around the loop.
The first place we stopped was a scenic viewpoint overlooking Frenchman Bay, and this was just the start of a lot of beautiful scenery.
The dock area on the right side of the picture is Bar Harbor.
The next stop was Sand Beach.
Although the beach was closed today, apparently people really swim here, even though the water temp usually doesn’t get much out of the 50’s.
And some of the other views in the area are amazing.
Leaving the Sand Beach area, we drove down to a spot that unfortunately has been in the news lately.
The area is called Thunder Hole because of the noise of the waves when the right conditions makes the sounds reverberate and sound like thunder.
The area is also popular because you can go out on a rock that juts out into the Atlantic ocean and stand where the waves come in over your feet when the tide is right.
This point is where about 20 people were smashed by a 25 foot wave caused by a combination of high tide and Hurricane Bill. 11 people were hospitalized with broken bones, and 3 people, a 7 year old girl, her father, and an unrelated 12 year old girl, were swept out to sea in the 55 degree water.
The 12 year old girl and the father were pulled from the water by the Coast Guard, but his 7 year old daughter was later found dead.
When we were there, the area was still closed off, but a ranger said the waves have to get over the top of the handrail before it’s closed off.
Leaving the area, we drove further around the loop to more fantastic scenery.
Toward the end of the 27 miles we passed the Jordan Pond Inn, a restaurant we had been told about and thought we would later have dinner there.
Leaving the loop, we headed over to Bar Harbor to look around. The first thing Jan found, wouldn’t you know it, was a couple of moose stuff gift shops.
She really wanted this one, but we couldn’t figure out how to get it in the rig.
So she settled for trying on the latest in moose wear.
Walking down the hill we were able to look out over Bar Harbor itself.
And of course the many flower beds everywhere.
One of the ships I noticed in the harbor was a beautiful 4-masted schooner called the “Margaret Todd”.
And rather than being an old ship, she’s only about 10 years. She was launched in 1998 and built to give Windjammer cruises to the tourists.
Here’s what she looks like under full sail.
Before heading back over to Jordan Pond Inn for dinner, we drove down to the end of Bridge St. to take a look.
When it’s low tide, a sandbar is revealed that extends over to Bar Island in the distance, allowing people to walk over to the island. Unfortunately, at high tide it just looks like a boat launch ramp.
Timing is everything!
Our dinner at Jordan Pond Inn was fantastic and we had a great meal. The restaurant was really something,
and the scenery was something else.
The view from the outside dining are is of an island called “The Bubbles”
Of course, the locals call it by another ‘B’ word, but I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out what the word is.
After a really great day, we finally headed home about 7 pm. Luckily, the morning’s road work was over, so we were home in about an hour.
Today is our last day here in Bangor. Tomorrow we head about 130 miles northeast to Houlton, ME, which is about 2 miles from the Canadian border.
We’ll stay there for three or four days, cleaning up some loose ends before we head over the border.
Thought for the Day:
agsdfg
