Day Fourtytwo - Jul 6, 2009
Youngstown, NY to Holland, MI
Daily Didactic
We started the day early, Theresa a little earlier so she could go running. We took advantage of the amenities at what turned out to be one of the nicest campgrounds we've seen on the trip. Around 10:00 we headed the twenty miles south to Niagara Falls. This is a stop we still remember fondly from our first road trip and are happy to have the excuse to stop again.
After crossing the Niagra River on the "Rainbow Bridge to Canada", we wound our way through the massive tourist circus (not necessarily in a bad way) that is Niagara Falls. Fortunately the walk along the falls is protected by a thin strip of what we guess must be parkland. We parked at the distant four-dollar-an-hour lot and walked along the upper river toward the falls. Niagara above the falls is fascinatingly wide and carries a ton of water. At night the water flow is diverted through a dam and generates power for an impressive grid of wires that heads east from the American side of the river. The falls themselves are even more spectacular and create a constant cloud of mist rising up from bottom. We spent about an hour walking down to the "view spot" and back up the river to where we parked. Niagara Falls is sort of an odd nature hike, but we're big fans.
The rest of the day was spent traversing Ontario, waiting for an hour in a traffic backup to get back into the states, and then traversing Michigan to Grand Rapids. In Grand Rapids we stopped at Costco to find a suitable replacement for Lumix (our drowned camera) and headed another hour to Ottawa Beach in Holland State Park, where we found a late campsite for the night.
Today's Photos
