Travelog: Niagara Falls

Just arriving to the land of abundant traveling spots and having 4^th of July falling on Tuesday with Monday happily sacrificed in the name of long weekend had its merits in the name of prospects of long travel as well as demerits of stressful selection of the traveling destination. Though I didn’t have to go through such painful ordeal as group of colleagues were already looking for couple of companions to join their travel “crusade” to Niagara Falls. And hence when presented with proposal, I delightfully accepted the invitation.

So the 3 day plan was laid out like this: Start from Indianapolis early towards Buffalo (Where we secured the night out option), have brief on-the-fly visit of Cleveland, OH in transit to Buffalo, Visit the massive water fall in the morning for a day, visit Putin bay island while returning back (With one more night stay somewhere nearby) and get back to routine again next day. Plan was good and workable. And we almost stuck to it exhaustively except few pleasant changes of the visiting locations.

So here’s breezy travel commentary day by day.

Day 1

(Positive take away: First long travel within USA, Niagara at night)

(Negative put down: “Early in the morning” has most varied interpretation. That’s why humankind introduced numbers and clock)

Most of the day was spent travelling by rented car which was grand caravan by Dodge. It was comfortable and smooth on road. Apart from meagre coffee breaks, we managed to have our prolonged break only while reached Cleveland.

Plan was to have glimpse of Cleveland downtown which we did. Spent some time to skim through Cleveland civil war memorial towards fountain of eternal life. Had a glimpse of NASA science center from afar resting at Cleveland’s beautiful shoreline which is formed by Lake Erie.

From Cleveland to Buffalo was almost 190 miles run (around 3 hours). We reached there somewhere during late evening. It was ripe time to experience Niagara at night. So after having hefty Indian dinner we went to Niagara fall. Cacophony of the massive water body (flow rate: 2400m³/s) falling 50m was more of a guiding star without any directional instruction. Vista at night was more profound. Rainbow lights illuminating the fall, enhanced by equally intimidating roar was sight to behold; showing the tantamount power of nature while mocking the meagre existence of human life trying to capture the sight in ridiculous digital still frames and puny videos to post on cyber world.

Day 2

(Positive take away: Niagara at Day, Maid of the Mist)

(Negative put down: With long summer weekend, comes longer waiting queues)

Amidst disappointing quantity of massive human gathering and long queues, sole relieving factor was to get through them and experience Niagara in its utmost proximity by means of the Maid of the Mist. Droplets of water floating like mist due to sheer force of falling water and wind had created dual rainbows across falls’ wide chasm where the secondary mirroring the primary in color pattern. It was like venturing in some Disney-world. And when you get near the Horseshoe Fall then only you would realize the propensity of madness which had caused those adventures to cross Niagara in name of stunts.

As for other attractions, not much was as impressive enough as Maid of the Mist. Cave of Winds allows you to get wet in icy cold Niagara water, but nothing special apart from crowing of seagulls and their stinking nests with adorable chicks hanging out besides walking path.

There were not much time left once we done with Niagara. And hence left in late evening on returning path.

Day 3

(Positive take away: Watkins Glen State Park)

(Negative put down: No time left for Putin Bay)

We changed plan to visit Watkins Glen state park on the third day of our trip. We experienced beautiful glens, lush greenery, pockets of brooks, intermittent canopy churning the sunlight creating golden shafts, slippery, wet stones carved by water having rippling design permanently imprinted upon and wooden bridges to complete the natural setup on our long walking trails.

In the evening we had brief informative visit to Corning Glass Museum.

Exhausted and satiated to the full; only thing left was to mull over beautiful memories and publish the memoirs like this.