Article: A BEAUTIFUL NIAGARA TRIP! | Roy E. Joy

On the early morning of Friday 24th July 2015 we (my brother-in-law, sister and me) set out from New York (NY) for the long drive to the Canada border, about 500 miles, to see Niagara waterfalls. I was looking forward to this trip. My excitement rose to the height of the Empire State Building in NY! Niagara I am coming! GPS in the car enabled us to go all the way without asking anybody for directions. Whenever there is a turn GPS will say prior to that to take left or right. If you make a mistake it’ll make you turn round and round and bring you back on the right way. Thanks to technology which can lead us straight and lead us astray as well. (The GPS of the Bible says, to reach heaven, turn to the right and go straight!) The highway, most of the part, is three or two lines one way filled with cars (90%), buses and trucks running at an average of 80 miles per hour speed! No honking on the road but indicators. After every 40 or 50 miles there is a service station, mostly run by McDonalds, where you can relieve, refresh and refill. This is the American version of ‘Dhaabas’ found in the national highways of India. (I’ve always loved Dhaaba food—daal fry, mutter paneer, tandoori roti, tandoori chicken, aloo paratha, etc. yum, yum!) Here you can enjoy bread, hamburgers, fish and chips, and multi-storey sandwiches like Mr. Dagwood from the Blondie cartoon! We stopped in three Dhaabas, err, service stations. And around 1.30 p.m. we arrived in Niagara, Buffalo, NY. Hundreds of people were there already. Parking 1 was full and parking 2 was full, moved forward and found a place in parking 3 and parked our car.
Niagara on the lake is a historic old town with beautiful hotels, restaurants and shops. As we were approaching the waterfalls in our car while on a bridge far away we saw smoke billowing. l wondered what it was but later we realized it was the mist formed by the terrific waterfalls of Niagara. We bought tickets for a trolley trip (a tram like bus, a bogey attached). Tickets strapped like a watch. You may alight at any stop for sightseeing and catch another trolley for moving forward. The guide, a knicker waali, said something through a microphone. Didn’t understand anything, must be English! We got down at a stop and found an eatery. I enjoyed a hamburger, no harm to indulge you once in a while, I think. Bought tickets for the ‘Maid of the Mist’ boat ride. We walked to the terrace of a tower and from there we can have a wonderful view of the waterfalls. In fact the falls is the international border for US and Canada. I cannot cross the border to Canada because I do not have a visa. On the Canada side we can see huge hotels, towers, etc. One particular tower hotel has elevators on its side which I could see going up and down. And I was told that the tower has a revolving hotel, offering a panoramic view of waterfalls. From the tower terrace where we were standing went down to the shore of the river in a lift, about twenty storey down, I guess. We were given blue colored plastic raincoats before boarding the big boat which can carry about 200 people, standing room only. The boat took us directly to the basin of the waterfalls. Water falls from the height of an eighteen storey building, with a force of 60,000 gallons per second. Imagine the deafening roar of the falling water and we were all wet and couldn’t see anything but mist. Oh, the thundering noise of the falls. Still we were many meters away from the falls because nobody can survive if you venture to go right underneath where tons of water crashes on you with the force of a gigantic nuclear explosion! The captain of the boat paused the boat, allowing us to take in the spectacle. Wow! What power it generates! True to the fact, US/Canada govts. are generating hydraulic power from Niagara. Many were screaming, either out of excitement or fear! A near ecstasy experience, I would say. More water flows over Niagara Falls than any other waterfall on earth. The boat took a U-turn to return. At the same time, a Canadian boat was carrying tourists with red colored raincoats. A souvenir card says the ‘maid of the mist’ boat ride started in 1846.
We came up through another lift and went around seeing a few more things. I saw some bigger squirrels running around, climbing on trees, eating nuts, etc. My people said they are a kind of humanized squirrels. They accept eatables from human hands. That’s interesting, I thought. I am yet to see some similar squirrels in India. “A squirrel is a rat with a cuter outfit!” Who told me this saying? Who knows? Then we took leave from the wonder of the world. We enjoyed the place. Drove about 1 ½ hours to Rochester, had supper at Panera Bread, and stayed in a hotel, Best Western, right in front of Rochester airport, a small airport.
It was already night and we badly needed some sleep. Got up next morning, had a good complimentary breakfast from the hotel and started our journey for NY through another route. The road took us through some scenic countryside. There’s an orderliness everywhere you look. Even the woods seem like a plantation grown line by line. Somewhere we took a wrong turn. One way, you can’t turn the vehicle. GPS calculated new ways and finally through highways and byways we came home in the afternoon. A trip worth remembering. An experience once only in life! Wow!

Thank God I am in the USA!

Roy E. Joy

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