Niagra Falls

From the 17th to the 25th we were in Westfield, NY. The park we were staying at was about 200-300 yards from the shore of Lake Erie. It was very pretty and very peaceful. We didn’t do a ton of stuff while we were in the area, drove around a lot to see the area and took a day to go up to Niagra Falls.

Niagra Falls is beautiful for it shear size and power. But I have to say that the development all around it kind of messes it up. Just my opinion, I prefer to see things like in their natural settings, not in the middle of a city.

While at the Falls we took a trip on the Maid of the Mist from the Canadian side (they have it on both sides now, but the Canadian side still seems to move more boats). This was probably the coolest thing we did at the Falls. Our captain took us straight into the horseshoe and sat us in there for a few minutes…it’s really wet and pretty cold. I don’t know for sure but it looks and seems like they run full-boar into the horseshoe falls, but the power of the water coming out of their doesn’t let them get all the way in. It’s pretty awe-inspiring to sit there and get chucked around in those boats.

After that we took the Journey Under the Falls walk, this wasn’t nearly as cool as the Maid of the Mist, but they also still had the lower deck closed for the winter, so maybe that would have made it better. The thing about the Journey that’s cool is the sound of the falls, you are walking in concrete hallways that have to be like 6 feet thick or something like that and all you hear is the thunder from the falls, it’s impressive.

We had a fun day the Falls I actually preferred the look of the American Falls better than the Horseshoe (Canadian) Falls, because you can see more of it. Horseshoe Falls puts off so much mist that you can’t really see the entire falls.

The Falls are beautiful and I’m really glad that I had the opportunity to see them and so is Hi’iaka. She just wants to remind everyone to be safe and not to try to float over the falls; it’s both illegal and deadly.

That’s about it for now. The rest of our week in NY was spent driving the beautiful countryside and eating ice cream at a little stand we found that has excellent ice cream. We had to limit ourselves to only going twice lest we get really fat.

One bummer is that we have to skip the trip into the New England states. Between the rising gas prices, the RV parks up there not having what we need and still being affordable, and the time limit we were on to be back in PA for Bill’s grandmother’s birthday, we were looking at spending between $2000-3000.00 in a 17 day period….how about NO! That’s just way to expensive for us to rationalize, so New England will have to wait…again….strike two!

So, we are currently in PA now getting ready for Steeler’s Fan Blitz tomorrow. That should be a ton of fun and we’ll hopefully have some good pictures from it.

;-)K

Last of Gettysburg

Bill and I took one of the Ghosts of Gettysburg Candlelight Walking Tours on April 12th. It was really a lot of fun. http://www.ghostsofgettysburg.com/ We took the Baltimore Street Tour and our Tour Guide (who’s name was Bill) was really awesome. I have wanted to take a ghost tour somewhere because I like stuff like that and because we had just been spending a lot of time in all the areas that are reported to be haunted.

I didn’t see any ghosts on our tour, but Bill (our guide) was a great storyteller and made it totally worth the walk. He himself did have a couple of ghost stories from his personal experience, so that was kind of fun, I guess after having given over 300 tours you’re bound to see something if there is anything to see at all. All in all it was fun, I enjoyed myself, and if you go to Gettysburg, make sure to tour with these people. They were the first to start ghost tours and have since has many other rip-off companies pop-up in Gettysburg, make sure you get these people.

We spent the 13th back on the Battlefield and took our time with Little Round Top and The Bloody Angle. Again, it’s really something to stand at these places and image (doesn’t take much imagination since it’s where these event’s really happened) what the different sides would have seen and experienced. Gettysburg is in the process of returning the battlefield to its original 1863 condition. I’ve tried to find a link to the organization that is doing this, but can’t…so too bad.

After our day of walking the Battlefield we of course had to re-fuel with Battlefield Fries, mmmm….yummy. http://www.flickr.com/photos/manahanwill/119193633/ We get the medium, which is a smaller bucket than the large, of the fresh cut Idahoan potatoes and we get our cheese on the side, these are highly addictive, so be careful. Funny how I can find a link for the Fries, but not for the place to donate money to restore the battlefield, granted it’s just someone’s blog and a picture, but you can still find it on the internet.

The 14th found us having a relaxing day and just kind of tooling around a bit. We went to a malt shop in Gettysburg for ice cream; I’ve never been to an actual malt shop to my recollection so it was fun for me. I had the Peanut Butter Malt…it was really good.

The 15th brought us back to the Battlefield Fries, it’s a really good thing I don’t live in Gettysburg, and from there we just window shopped and relaxed. Sunday the 16th was Easter and we had a very relaxing day. Took a scenic driving tour with crappy directions, so we cut it short and went back home. Didn’t really do much of anything, talked to family, sat in the sun, had a fire later that night, ate ham and potatoes and stuffing…all in all a good day.

Monday the 17th we got up early, drove into town to go to the visitor’s center to see the Electric Map presentation, then went home, packed up and moved from Gettysburg up into Westfield, NY.

We are currently in Westfield, but not for much longer, our plans have changed yet again…but that will have to be a story for the next blog.

;-)K