The Things You Learn in Niagara

I've traveled most of my life, and sometimes the things that I learn just amaze me.  I recently visited Niagara Falls for the first time in 16 years.  I know, it seems like a long time, especially since I only live a few hours away, but I like new things and only have so much time; therefore I don't get to go there often.  This was my first time going there since 9/11.  I don't think I realized how much things had changed.

The falls never change.  They are beautiful and one of my favorite sights in the world.  But the world around them is really different than it used to be.  Niagara Falls used to be one place that just happened to sit on the border of Canada and the United States.  I must say that it was always more entertaining on the Canadian side.  Sorry to my fellow Americans, but it's true.  That's where my story starts.  I made reservations to stay on the Canadian side.

Rainbow Bridge has become more than just a beautiful bridge.  It has become a tightly monitored border crossing.  That's not to say that it's really any easier at any other crossing, but this is one of the busy ones.  When 9/11 happened, these people were used to running back and forth to work, or to go out for an evening, maybe even see a movie.  I used to just stop and say "Hi, I'm going to Canada."  No one worried about anything.  One of the reasons that it's taken me so long to get back now is because I had to have a passport.  It's new to me.  I grew up in pre-apocolyptic times.  I have traveled back and forth to Canada, especially through Detroit and Windsor at least a hundred times in my life.  But now it's different.

Now you choose which boat to get soaked on.  If in the U.S. you will take the Maid of the Mist.  If you are in Ontario you will take the Hornblower.  I actually took the Maid of the Mist 16 years ago, when all the raincoats on all the boats from either side were blue.  I didn't take either cruise this time, because they are wet and miserable.  So, everyone should go once for the experience, but if you go twice, shame on you.

But, what about the crossing?  We had to drive up on a curb like structure on our way to Canada.  They asked all the usual questions, and asked me if my son was my son.  Legitimate question, since he could have been anyone with the same last name.  I'd never thought about that.  They wanted to know about alcohol and tobacco and such.  We waited in line about a half hour at a busy time on a Friday and we were gone.

Our plan was to go back the next day and go to the Cave of the Winds.  That's where everything got a little weird for me.  We got our stuff, minus our luggage which was tucked away in our hotel room, and we headed to the bridge.  Traffic was backed up for over a mile.  We sat in line for an hour and barely even moved.  We met some very nice people who live there, and they said that this was not common.  They should know.  But, was that true?  I still want to know.  After sitting in traffic that barely moved.  I mean only half a block or so, and that was because people were giving up and leaving in front of us.  The line itself had not moved at all.  We finally gave up and took the turn to go back to the Canadian Niagara Falls.  Sorry U.S.  I was only in town for a couple of days, and I didn't want to spend it all in line to get into my own country.

I always meet people in my travels whether it be at a comic book store, Tim Horton's, my hotel, a rock and roll wax museum or just watching the fireworks on a Friday night.  I saw the lines then, and I wondered what the deal was.  So, in my curious way, I started to ask people about the border crossing issue.  I was on the Canadian side, so the people that I talked to were from Canada.  Most of them don't bother with the crossing.  Most of them find it too much trouble, even though they used to cross it all the time to go to the casino, theater, or out to eat.  It's just too much trouble.  I talked to a retired couple who were in town for their honeymoon from Saskatchewan.  They were both widowed and giving love a second chance.  It was great, but would they go to the U.S?  No.  He used to be a trucker, and he told me all about his travels throughout both Canada and the U.S.  He said that something just changed.  It was like the whole world had gone nuts.  They did not even bring their passports with them, even though they were going to be looking at the U.S.  They had no desire to go, because of the border crossing.  So, there I was in Canada, I'd seen the border going back, and I wondered if I was going to be able to get back home.

So, there we were watching fireworks that I'm pretty sure are put on by Canada.  We listened to some live music before the fireworks that was also on the Canadian side.  Everything was beautiful, but how long would it really take to get back into the U.S?  No one mentioned some big thing at the border during the day, so we didn't know if that was normal, or if something had happened.  We did see police when we turned off, so maybe it was an incident.  Maybe it was just crowd control.  We weren't sure.  The locals all said that it wasn't normally like that, but they all also said that they never bothered to cross Rainbow Bridge, because it was too much trouble.  So, what was the deal?

So, we spent the rest of our brief visit playing on Clifton Hill, looking at Dinosaurs, riding the SkyWheel, walking through the gardens, and checking out the Hard Rock Casino.  We had a really good time.  We never did try to cross that border again, because we were on our way to Port Huron, Michigan.  We packed our bags and took off across the Ontario Peninsula to cross at the Michigan border.  It wasn't as busy up there as it was in Niagara, so what could go wrong?

Well, you tell me, America.  I got to Port Huron, and saw the biggest bridge I think I've ever seen towering hundreds and hundreds of feet above the water that was emptying into Lake Huron, and I got stuck in line at the border.  I got into a line that was only cars.  There weren't even any SUVs in my line.  I thought it should be easy.  I thought about a half hour.  No.  I don't even know how long we were there, but it was long enough for me to wonder why you couldn't use a cell phone up there.  I don't even like cell phones, but we were bored.  I was snapping pictures and my son was complaining.  At one point, I saw the officials take some guy away in handcuffs.  They stopped everything.

Was it a coincidence?  Did we just happen to be at these crossings when incidents happened?  As we passed, we noticed that there was little to no line on the side heading to Canada.  We talked during our wait, and we wondered if they would actually catch a terrorist if they were coming across the Canadian border.  After much deliberation, and the time to deliberate, we decided that they probably wouldn't  That's the irony.  We decided that if someone was trying to do something bad, that they would probably have prepared for it.  That guy that got arrested probably didn't do anything serious, because he was dumb enough to get caught doing whatever he did.  Real criminals know how to get through border crossings.  When we finally did cross, the guy we talked to to get back into the U.S. didn't even ask if my son was my son.  Looking back at my Canadian crossing a few days earlier, I found that I was upset.  That was the only question that I really thought made much sense.

So, I must say that my experience with the border left a lot of questions in my mind.  I wonder if being more thorough actually helps.  I wonder if there is really a good way to secure a border.  What should the border patrol really ask?  What are they really looking for?  Why are there so many arrests and problems on our side?  I'm not judging.  I just wonder about that stuff.  In the mean time, I say don't stop traveling because of it.  Just be aware and be prepared when you come back to this country.  Save a little extra time for what I'm assured is a rare hold up.
Enjoy!

http://www.niagara-usa.com/
http://www.niagarafallsstatepark.com/
http://www.niagarafallsusa.org/
http://www.niagarafallstourism.com/
http://www.niagarafallslive.com/
https://www.niagarafalls.ca/
http://visitniagaracanada.com/
http://www.tourismniagara.com/
http://www.niagarafallsbridges.com/
http://www.crossbordershopping.ca/live-border-wait-times/buffalo-and-niagara-falls-ny
http://www.bluewaterchamber.com/visit-blue-water/Border-Crossing-Information.aspx
http://www.farrow.com/borders?borderid=13
http://terri-dixon.artistwebsites.com/
http://www.cafepress.com/artisticcreationsbyninakindred1
http://www.zazzle.com/imagings
https://www.facebook.com/adventuresforanyone?fref=ts
https://www.fictionpress.com/u/530752/Nina-Kindred

Here's Some Stuff to See and Do...Weird Stuff

We've all seen and done some strange things in the name of entertainment and seeing the world.  Ever so often, like after I've written 200 posts for a travel blog, I like to mention some outstanding ones.  I've talked about my share of unusual things like seeing a crashed plane in Greenville, Maine, and we in the north east love our mountain parks with the mountain coasters and the Alpine slides.  I've traversed Trummelbach Falls in Switzerland and gone to James Bond World on the top of the Schilthorn.  I've sat on the Berlin Wall, hiked in Iceland, gone to visit the Native Americans at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and many others.  Today, I've made a list of some of the best and the most unusual things around.

One of the things that I love is surreal places, and America's southwest has a bunch of them.  Most of the surreal things involve rocks.  Goblin Valley State Park in central Utah is one of those overlooked places.  It doesn't get near the traffic that it's famous cousins Arches, Monument Valley and so on get.  Goblin Valley is listed as one of the most surreal landscapes in the world, and with good reason.  This is a great spot for photographers, hikers and anyone who just wants to see something really different.

Page, Arizona sits on Lake Powell and is close to the north rim of the Grand Canyon.  It's on the Navajo Nation Reservation and is home to one of the world's best known slot canyons, Antelope Canyon.  The Navajo have several tours that will take you for a tour of the canyon, and let you see some more surreal landscapes in the twisted, narrow, colorful rock formations that make up the canyon.  Erosion can make some beautiful things, and Antelope Canyon was definitely blessed by erosion.

Surreal landscapes abound with the rocky moon like landscape of Iceland, the giant sculptures of Easter Island, the ferrie chimneys of Cappadoccia, and the Door to Hell which is located in the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan.  This giant burning crater was the result of a Soviet gas exploration accident back in the 1970's and has fascinated people ever since.  The Darvaza Gas Crater however, is not just one crater, although the biggest one is the attraction.  There are other smaller craters in the area too.  It looks as though it will be burning for a long time, so take the time to come and see this one.

I love the idea of going to Gibraltar to play with the monkeys.  I've said that a million times, but in Yamanouchi's Jigokudani Valley the snow monkeys spend their time in the volcanic pools and the tourists love to stop by and take their pictures.  The valley is volcanic, as the name Jigokudani lets on, so there are many interesting sites, but the monkeys are the main attraction.

Surreal doesn't stop on the surface though.  You can spend your surreal time looking at ice caves in Iceland, glow worm caves in New Zealand, or at Mega Cavern in Louisville, Kentucky.  That's right, they used to have an enormous mine and now the have an active wonderland.  They have zip lines, tram tours, adventure quest courses, bike trails, and you can even take a lovely Christmas lighted drive through it in season.  The caverns are so large that you can easily drive a car or even run a train through it.  it's the first of it's kind and it's an amazing way to reuse an old mine.

It is summertime however, and it's time to get outdoors and try something a little crazy.  Sun City is probably the best known, and at times most infamous luxury resort in the world, and it's sitting in the center of South Africa.  It is also home to one of the largest waterslides in the world.  Valley of the Waves has a waterslide that drops 98 feet straight down with an area engulfing the size of an average park.  It only holds one ride though, and it's the biggest and the best.

If giant tall ones don't do it for you, Costa Rica has it all.  In America, we call this sucker an Alpine Slide.  In Costa Rica, they made it into a waterslide and you can try it at Buena Vista Lodge and Adventure.  This cement wonder goes 420 meters down a mountain, and it's so rough that you have to wear a rubber tube and rubber pants in order to ride it.  It does sit on the ground, unlike most waterslides and it goes through the rainforest.  It's one of a kind, folks, so you have to come to Costa Rica to try this.

Speaking of one of a kind experiences, here's one that I would love to try, but haven't yet.  I love the idea of Zero Gravity and Zero G will do it for you.  They operate in many locations around the United States and they have the specially equipped planes to take you up and run you up and down the heavens while you fly around inside like a real astronaut.  It will cost you about $5,000, but you'll love every minute of it.

But, when all is said and done, here's my pick.  I disagree with the experts on what would be the best adventure.  I loved playing with the heavy equipment in Las Vegas and all, but here's one that I'd never even thought of and it comes from Great Britain.  It's called Armourgeddon and it's in Leicester.  It's paintball with tanks.  It doesn't get cooler than that.  You can play for as low as 99 Pounds for 2 hours.  They let you drive tanks and shoot stuff out of them.  It may only be paintballs, but it's still an amazing experience.  I haven't done this, but I will.  I haven't heard of anything else like it.  It's my number one pick for amazing things to try this summer.

So, whether you take your first hike in the summer on snow or you go screaming down a mountain on a waterslide, do something different and fun this summer.  I've just given you a lot of ideas.  Go out, experience life.  I will be traveling next week, so I won't be writing.  It will be an amazing road trip, so I will have a lot to write about when we get back.  Enjoy!

http://www.armourgeddon.co.uk/location.php#.VbZvPvkaG70
http://www.gozerog.com/
http://www.louisvillemegacavern.com/
http://www.buenavistalodgecr.com/EN/WATERSLIDE.html
http://www.stateparks.com/goblin_valley_state_park_in_utah.html
http://www.americansouthwest.net/utah/goblin_valley/state_park.html
http://www.capitolreef.org/goblin-valley.html
http://doortohell.net/
http://tourismattraction.com/door-to-hell-near-derweze-village-in-turkmenistan/
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e6028.html
http://www.gojapango.com/travel/jigokudani_monkey_park.htm
http://www.antelopeslotcanyon.com/
http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/long366.html
http://www.sun-city-south-africa.com/
http://www.cafepress.com/artisticcreationsbyninakindred1
http://www.zazzle.com/imagings
http://terri-dixon.artistwebsites.com/
https://www.fictionpress.com/u/530752/Nina-Kindred
https://www.facebook.com/adventuresforanyone?fref=ts

Pez and Thimbles!

As I continue my travels this summer around my home state of Connecticut, I am finding a lot of wonderfully weird things to see and do.  Recently, my son and I took off to go on a cruise which I will talk about in a bit.  It was still raining, because Connecticut is pretty wet during the warmer months.  At any rate, we saw a sign that said we were coming up on the Pez Visitor Center in Orange.  Pez was created overseas in Vienna, Austria in 1927 as a breath mint.  Eventually, after one thing led to another, Pez was relocated to Orange in 1974.  Today, you can take a tour of the main factory floor and see Pez in action, and you can visit a charming visitor center that's set up for all of us tourists.

If, for some reason, you think that you might miss the Pez Factory, with the signs they provide, I can assure you, it's virtually impossible to miss.  Pez Boulevard was created for visitors and others to find the iconic factory.

I was surprised how much fun I had as an adult at the Pez Visitor Center.  You walk into a very colorful environment with way more than I thought to look at.  You have the history of Pez, all kinds of collections of dispensers, antique Pez memorabalia, the factory, and some other interesting things.  We took part in a game to find the Presidents.  Pez makes dispensers with American Presidents on them.  Not all presidents have been represented yet, but the rest are coming.  In the meantime, they had a game going on where they had hidden presidential dispensers around the visitor center and they each had part of a message by them.  If you found them all, filled in the message on your game card, and had it correct;  you won a prize.  It was fun, but I never found Thomas Jefferson.  He was hidden well.  You can have parties there on the second floor.  They even have the chopper that Orange County Choppers of American Chopper made.  They have all the holiday dispensers, NASCAR, sports, movie themes, etc. of dispenser.  It's quite a place, even though it's a place that I never would have thought about.

My favorite parts were as follows:  They have games for the kids and adults, they give you an adorable entrance ticket that doubles as a souvenir, the five dollar ticket price allows for four dollars toward merchandise in the shop, and I got to see a woman working on Minions.  I love these little guys, and there were so many that I was overwhelmed.  It was cool.  So, check it out.  If you think that maybe you're a little too adult for a stop off the road like this, try it.  You might just be surprised.

Now, on to part two.  As I said, we were going on a cruise, and that cruise was of the Thimble Islands in Stony Creek, CT.  Stony Creek is actually part of Branford that sits on a lovely cove or harbor or bay or whatever you want to call it.  Now, I've lived in Connecticut for over 20 years, and I didn't know about this one.  There are over 100 islands in that bay or whatever and 23 of them are inhabited.  They are called the Thimble Islands.

This is an area that loves their boats, and there's no questioning why.  The islands do have a ferry service per se, but if you want to get to a house on one of the islands, you'd better have a boat or a friend with one.  The islands exist because of glaciers that came through New England eons ago and dropped a bunch of pink granite off the shore.  Eons later, rich people decided to build fancy summer homes on them to get away from it all.  At one point, the pirate Captain Kidd spent some time hiding there, and people say that he left some treasure behind as well.  No one has ever found it, but in similar venues in the area some treasure of Captain Kidd's has been found.  People still take a look around now and again just to see if they find anything.

The Sea Mist and it's smaller cousin are the boats that will take you around on a guided tour of the islands.  The cost is only $12 for adults and the tour lasts about an hour.  On the weekends, the tours do go all the way out to the end of the islands where you can see seals on the seal tour.  It costs a little bit more, but you get to be out for longer and you get to see seals.  It's a deal.

There's all kinds of places to see in the Thimble Islands.  There are private homes of all sizes, there are some islands that have interconnecting bridges.  There are houses on stilts, and houses of the extremely rich.  There are old houses and new houses.  One island has 23 houses on it.  It's like a whole town out there.  You would be surprised at all the places and things you see.

The Stewart B. McKinney Natural Wildlife Refuge is on one of the islands.

The Mother In Law House comes with the story of the two newlyweds who were followed to the house by one of the mothers on their wedding night.  The couple left her stranded there and took off to be alone.  There are great stories all over the area about any number of things.

One lovely island was reportedly home to a lovely couple that bought it for a couple of million dollars, turned it into a beautiful home and sold it for $23 million.  They even have palm trees on this island that somehow survive the weather.

There's the $285,000 gazebo.  Turns out the chap that bought that island thought that he would build a home on it, only to discover that it wasn't big enough or high enough or something like that.  So, now it holds a gazebo and is for sale.  It sounds tempting, but remember, you can't build a house on it.

There's a little bit of everything out there from new to old and large to small.  There are all kinds of stories and Captain David's crew will tell all of them to you.  We did find out that the waters can be a little shallow though.  We did run up on some shallows and get stuck on a rock.  It was no worry however, because a couple of local fellows stopped by and pulled us off the rock.  It was actually entertaining, and we got our cruise for half price.  It was a good deal.

Once back on land, we were hungry, and there's not much in Stony Creek.  It's a really quiet seaside burg.  We stopped at Thimbleberry's and had a little lunch.  It was charming and you could eat outside by the water if you felt like it.  The food was good and the prices were reasonable.

So, it's the Thimble Islands in Stony Creek, which is Branford.  It's the Pez Factory and Visitor Center which is not only orange but is in Orange.  Two amazing little discoveries right off of I-95 that I'd never investigated.  I'm glad I did.  And you should two.  It's a great way to spend an easy afternoon.  Enjoy!


http://thimbleislands.com/
http://thimbleislandcruise.com/
http://www.thimbleislandbrewery.com/
http://www.ctvisit.com/travelstories/details/cruising-the-thimble-islands/83
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https://www.fictionpress.com/u/530752/Nina-Kindred
https://www.facebook.com/adventuresforanyone?fref=ts