niagara falls part 3- the falls

[beaky]

Hauled my carcass out of bed very early yesterday to go have a look and see what all the fuss is about...




Wow... this rainbow was incredible.Wish I had a wide angle lens; it was almost a full circle but for the shadow of the rising terrain behind me.

     



From near the American Falls, lookingtowards the Horseshoe Falls... the abundant mist made it hard to get any sort of clear shot. I guess it's better from the Canadian side...


     


I made my way across Goat Island towards the Horsheshoe Falls... temps around 40 F, and the mist was icing over on every surface still in the shade... perilous for me with my tweaked back.Just looking at that sign made my back hurt.
 I hobbled right up to the edge and got thoroughly soaked by the mist. Refreshing... sort of.
I had the whole magnificent scene to myself for a while, until a lady from Germany made her way down to the edge.
"A bit damp, isn't it?" I asked her.
"Yes... but worth it!" she grinned.
It really is. No wonder this was, and still is, a holy place for the indigenous people of this area.







How nice to see this fine tribute to good old Nikola Tesla (who is honored here for inventing 3=phase AC current, which allows long-distance transmission of high-voltage power)! But kind of sad that it was so rainy here, which keeps pigeons away... Tesla would be the only famous person who'd want pigeons roosting on his statue... he loved pigeons. I don't know if it's always so wet here; maybe it depends on the wind.

     


An attempt to capture the American Falls from the Horsehoe Falls...
     



... and vise-versa.
     




Try doing this without wings... hard to believe some lunatics have actually gone over these falls. All I can say is: you go first, mac...
I think I lucked out coming here on the 1st of November- that's when they begin reducing the flow to about 50% (a mere 50,000 cubic feet per second). The rest of the year, for the benefit of tourism, they only divert water upstream to the power plants at night. Not sure if I caught it at normal volume, but regardless, it was spectacular.

     




The tour boats were hauled out for the season... the overlook tower was still open, but not until 10 AM, and although I planned to come back to go up there, when I got back to my room to dry off and have a bite I found out my only option to get a cab to KBUF in time was at 10. So I had to pack up and git. Maybe next time...

     

Next: part 4- almost snowed-in  in Buffalo, and KBUF-KEWR

[Hagar]

Wow, that's fantastic.

An attempt to capture the American Falls from the Horsehoe Falls...

You succeeded. Excellent shot.

[Anark]

Lurvely

[beaky]

Wow, that's fantastic.

You succeeded. Excellent shot.

Yeah, I guess it's not too bad. Even the best pictures cannot convey the impression of being in the midst of all that thundering beauty. It must have been even more magical back when it was first "discovered" by Europeans... imagine hiking through dense forest and coming upon something like that!! The Iroquois people had a good thing going for a long time there... what a beautiful temple for worshipping nature.
In a way, the buildup around it simply reminds one how transient and fragile we are in the grand scheme of things.

The park around it is very nice.  I noticed they had workers raking leaves in the parking lot. That's right, no leaf-blowers. Nice and quiet.  Except for the endless roaring, that is.

I've decided that flying a Caravan on floats off the falls and under that bridge is not quite as do-able in RL as it is in FS9...  pretty rocky near the edge.

Saw a couple of light singles above the falls that morning, but they were pretty high up. I think there's a restriction below 2000 feet there...

[Threadkiller]

dude i almost forgot....theres a restaurant at the airport (buffalo Int') called Flying Tigers...and if i remember well they have a P40 sitting out front..and the restaurant itsef (as you can imagine) is themed after the tigers...you should visit b4 you go back homt to Newark!

[Omag 2.0]

Man, that some serious falls...  8)

[beaky]

dude i almost forgot....theres a restaurant at the airport (buffalo Int') called Flying Tigers...and if i remember well they have a P40 sitting out front..and the restaurant itsef (as you can imagine) is themed after the tigers...you should visit b4 you go back homt to Newark!

Got back yesterday, but thanks...

Also, unless I wanted to schlep my tools, etc all over the airport or go thru security twice, that wouldn't have worked... I left the hotel in Niagara Falls at 10 AM, got to KBUF  almost 40 minutes later, stood in line at the security checkpoint for 1 1/2 hours, then was trapped at the gate until almost 2:30 PM.

Also saw that there's some kind of aviation museum in Niagara Falls (as I was entering KBUF terminal on the way home)... but I wouldn't have had tme for that, even.

Might seem fun and exciting to be sent out of town for work, but it's always rush rush rush, work work work... almost never any down time. And these trips are usually last-minute; no time to plan anything.

I spent a week in Vegas a while back and saw nothing but the job site and my crummy hotel room the whole time... 18-to-20-hour days; seven days straight.

I'll be working 3PM-til-whenever next week in Schaumberg, Illinois, so I may actually have time to do some flying out of the small airport there... maybe just a checkout ride with an instructor in one of their Diamonds.

[61_OTU]

I sense an Omag special coming on

Great shots, always good to feel you've made 'something' out of a work trip

[Willit Run]

Awesome shots!!!

 Got a little wet did we!!

   Seems like you had a good time.

 They also cut the amount of water to save the falls.  It is deteriorating and they want to cut the amout of water going over to keep from pounding the rocks below.  It is slowly collapsing.

[beaky]

Awesome shots!!!

 Got a little wet did we!!

   Seems like you had a good time.

 They also cut the amount of water to save the falls.  It is deteriorating and they want to cut the amout of water going over to keep from pounding the rocks below.  It is slowly collapsing.

It's not really collapsing... it's moving upriver.
 Been doing that for a long, long time... very, very slowly.