Niagara Falls, New York

7-31-2012
We arrived at the Niagara Falls Campground on Saturday 7-28. It is not a big campground but it gets a lot of RV's. Sunday we took a guided tour of many sites. There were three couples in the van including Judy and I. The other two couples were nice so we had a great time with them. The driver picked us up at 11:30 AM and dropped us back off at 8 PM. It was a full day.
We started on the Canadian side. We saw the Canadian falls which are much bigger than the American falls. We went up to the top of a twenty two story tower, called the Skylon Tower, that has an observation deck on the top. The view was great of the river and the falls. We rode the Maid of the  Mist which goes very close to the bottom of the Canadian Falls.
We went to see the large power plants that are down stream from the falls. Water is carried by gravity to the reservoirs  above the power plants and then goes through the plant and turns the turbines to generate the power. There is no energy source consumed or any waste so they are very efficient.
We saw the Floral Clock in a nearby park. We also saw the water flow gates up river from the Canadian Falls that control the flow over the falls. At night they close all the gates which diverts more water to fill the reservoirs at the power plants. When they do this it reduces the amount of water going over the falls to a very small amount.
 We visited the National Park at the American Falls and took the Cave of the Winds tour which takes you right up to the American Falls. The scenery was beautiful at the Falls. We also visited Three Sister Islands   Which were in the Niagara River above the Falls.

Monday we toured Buffalo, NY on our own. We visited two historic churches, Forest Lawn Cemetery, a Navy battleship, a destroyer and a Submarine. The best tour of the day was a Frank LloydWright House called The Darwin House.

Today we took the wine tour. We visited  six wineries. We tasted about 4 wines each in each one. Needles to say we do buy a lot of wine since these small wineries make some pretty good wines. We also visited a set of locks on the Erie Canal.

I will get pictures posted in the next few days.

Dick and Judy