Glimpses of Beauty...: Water- lots of water....

Friday, July 13, 2012

Water- lots of water....

The next day’s agenda? Find Niagara Falls AND a quaint thrift store or even a yard sale for wine glasses and Egyptian organic cotton sheet. Cheap. ( I can dream…) I left South Dakota in January and had two down comforters- one in a duvet cover, two quilts and no top sheet. Janet brought one but she wouldn’t share. I’m telling Mom.

And it was in the upper 90’s. Every day. Most nights. With excessive humidity. And I put a 4-inch memory foam topper on the queen size camping mattress. We might be camping but we will do it on Memory Foam. One little problem…. Memory Foam must create its own heat. So a human body side down cooks, human body side up freezes from the air conditioning.

It wasn’t until our final camping night, we discovered the AC had a thermostat. With a nod to Mark Twain and his Innocents Abroad tome, this trip could be titled Idiot’s Abroad….

Off we go. Still in New York and on the bumpiest road of our trip, we bounced toward Niagara Falls and suddenly; there was our yard sale. Hurrah…. Our breakfast drinks were sloshing out of the cups and our sore backs needed a break so let’s stop. Well, the yard sale wasn’t exactly what we needed- no organic Egyptian sheets or wineglasses but we did find the hands of the green super hero - Hulk!

Giant, puffy green hands that roar and growl when banged together. ”Don’t make me angry,” they threaten. Perfect- it’s just the comic break we needed. Best buck we'd spent so far- they roar when we'd go around a corner or hit the brake a wee bit fast and we howled with laughter. It takes very little to amuse us.

And look- clearly a collector’s item!

http://www.amazon.com/Hasbro-78268-Hulk-Smash-Hands/dp/B000XUA6KG/ref=cm_cmu_pg_i

We read up on crossing the international border into Canada. Will they make us eat all our fresh produce? We will if we have to. No one gets our Trader Joe salads. We have a seedpod from a Gettysburg’s tree and the cremains of a dead cat (another story…).

We remove our sunglasses, calmly hand over our passports and serenely say, “No animals, no passengers. All the boxes in the back seat are nutritional supplements for personal consumption.” (The entire back seat was filled with our new Reliv business purchases)

We refrain from chatty comments with the very serious border officer (very tough for the two of us) and reply we were only driving across his country and would leave by nightfall. He checked out our passports, found out we are not security threats and waved us on our way.

Yeah, Canada! We were officially abroad!

Everyone talks about how the Canadian side of the falls are so much nicer than the American, pretty, pretty, etc. OK we believed them until we were routed right down Niagara Falls, Ontario’s “Las Vegas” strip past the Chippewa Nation Casino.

Photo blatently lifted from the internet.
We missed this view but the people facing that wall of water must have a thrill each morning.

"Do you think that's really what it looks like, Harold? Let's go there and gamble!"

This is what is Niagara Falls, Ontario really looks like. So very attractive.
http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-photo/daslink/canada_roadtrip/1181226600/downtown_niagara_falls.jpg/tpod.html

Be still my heart.

Still not sure about the cost of fuel in Canada.
Fortunately, we filled up in New York.

119.9 for regular?? Dollars, pesos, yen?

It was unbelievable. But our trek continued - find the big falling water and way, fewer people . And it became the first of many serendipitous adventures. “Let’s go this way and wander over there and…. Well, look at that- a park, a quiet spot, the right street, etc.” Great fun for us to wander and discover our way but we recognized that this would not be nearly as much fun for a spouse with an agenda.