On the 11th of Sep, we woke up late as we didn’t have any plans for the morning except for getting ourselves ready to ‘TRAVEL’ to the JFK airport again and fly to Niagara. By the way, the destination airport was Buffalo International Airport. Although there were various modes of transport available to reach Niagara like bus and train services. The only reason I opted to fly to Niagara was that the travel time was 1 hour and most importantly, it is difficult to hold my 16 month old kid more than that period. We had ordered for lunch to be delivered to our place in Jersey city. Everything went on time and our taxi to JFK took around 70 minutes to reach the destination. I was expecting traffic as the date was 09/11 but it was not bad. Our flight was at 4.30 PM and we reached Buffalo city at around 5.30 PM. We picked up the car that we rented in advance and we reached the hotel that we booked in advance by 6 PM. It was a pleasant stay at the hotel.
One of the reasons that we wanted to reach Buffalo by evening was that we wanted to visit falls in the illumination in the night. We didn’t plan to go towards the Canadian side of the falls as we did not have a valid Canadian visa. We took rest for a while in the hotel and by 7.30 PM, we set off to see the falls in the night. We had dinner on our way at the “Palace Of Dosas”. I have to mention here that the restaurant manager assisted us in all ways. Firstly, they don’t serve dinners on Tuesdays. Unfortunately, we went there on a Tuesday. Although they serve only To-Go, they still took our order and served us at the table. Then we went ahead to Niagara falls. I was using my phone as GPS and it was pretty good in directing me to Niagara on toll free roads. We reached the point where we could only listen to roars of the fall but we couldn’t figure out where the falls were actually located. We parked the car in the official parking lot and saw people coming out of a park. We went into that park and we were able to see the falls in the night. They were varying the colors of the focus lights. I liked the white illumination as the falls looked just like milk spilling out of a glass. It was awesome!! Also on our way to the falls in the park, we understood that it was the same point to which we should arrive next day morning to take “Maid Of the Mist” boat ride. We came back to the hotel by 11 PM.
Next day, the Sep 12, we started at 9 AM to the same park. In the sunlight, we noticed many things. The road which took us to the Niagara State Park was actually along the river that converted in to the falls. Also, there was a parking fee of $10 in the morning. We went ahead to the park tourist center, bought our tickets to the maid of the mist trip and the observation tower too. We first went to the observation tower from where we could see the American falls (also called bridal falls, I guess) and a part of Canadian or horse shoe falls. One would definitely observe rainbows here and its an amazing experience for a person who had rarely seen rainbows in his life. Kids would definitely enjoy it. We took few snaps from the observation tower and then we got onto the elevators on the observation tower that took us all the way down to the place where we could board the maid of the mist ferry. They would provide polythene recyclable covers to cover ourselves so that we would not get wet in the mist of the falls. The ferry trip was an excellent one. The closer we got to the falls, the more would be mist all around and the falls would become visible on one side and invisible on the other side. The ferry took us to the mid of the horse shoe falls and again returned to the same point where boarded the ferry. It was an enjoyable trip.
We came back to the top of observation tower. The rainbow bridge which connects America and Canada was also visible from this place. We walked in the park to a point where we were adjacent to the falls. The river which looked still few miles before the falls, was flowing with visible speed near the falls. We then walked towards Goat Island which was an island on the other side of the American falls. It was also the same place where one could go for the “Cave Of the Winds” attraction. Cave of the Winds was an attraction where a visitor would be able to go down to the bottom most and nearest point to the American falls. Although we opted not to go for that, it is a worth visiting attraction too. Going further from this point, we reached the top most and the closest point to Horse shoe falls on the American land. Although Horse shoe falls were more clearly visible from the Canadian land, it was not a bad thought to visit it from Goat Island. It was a long walk from Niagara state park to the Goat island and we were already exhausted. We came back to the car and went to an Indian Restaurant (again) for lunch and reached the hotel. We took rest for a while and got ourselves packed up for our return journey to Houston. The flight was at 6 PM and it was a one stop flight via Baltimore. We reached Houston by 11 PM as the flight got delayed.
Overall, it was a nice and exciting trip that came to an end. We collected the souvenir magnets at every place we visited and our refrigerator is full of such magnets now. Thanks to God for giving us a chance to visit these beautiful places safely and as planned!!
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