Niagara Falls – our first stop official stop on the trip! One year in our Airstream traveling all over the United States. We were excited, and just a little nervous. A whole year of travel. We had never spent that long traveling, much less in in our Airstream. We had really only travelled in it a handful of times before we left, mostly some long weekends and then one 8-day trip to Maine. We are also relieved to be finally on the road – the exhausting mad dash of preparing to leave was finally over! We pulled into our campsite, hooked up, settled in and patted ourselves on our back – we were on our way!
Our campground was Branches of Niagara Campground on the New York side of the Falls. We were happy with the campground, we had a spacious, relatively level site with full hookups (water, sewer and electric) and we were a short 15-minute drive to the the Falls. Elle liked the campground because it had a big playground and was filled with kids.
Our first full day in the area we drove and parked on the U.S. side of the falls. The falls themselves were massive amounts of water spilling over the cliffs, thundering to the basin below and creating enormous clouds of mist. Little Maid of the Mist boats bobbed in the water below. It was impressive, at least for the adults. Elle was unimpressed and deemed them “boring.” To this day, she claims it’s her least favorite part of the trip.
We viewed the falls from the U.S. side and then boarded the Maid of the Mist, all three of us donning our blue plastic ponchos (it’s red ponchos if you take the boat from the Canadian side). When the boat pulled in close to the falls I went to the front to feel the mist of the falls on my face, while DT and Elle enjoyed the slightly drier view from the back of the boat. After our boat trip we enjoyed the movie on the history of the falls that was playing inside the visitor center. Elle was particularly impressed by Annie Edson Taylor who went over the falls in a barrel… with her cat.
That afternoon we walked over the bridge to Canada to stand on the International Boundary line. We were in two countries at once – one foot in the United States, the other in Canada. And it was a good thing we had our passports with us to get back in the United States. There was not even a warning sign on the gate as you left but you needed them to return.
The next day we viewed the falls from the Canadian side and we all agreed that the falls are best viewed from there. You get a wider, more expansive view. We then drove onto Niagara-on-the-Lake for lunch. It was a scenic drive, passing various wineries along the way. Niagara-on-the-Lake is a cute flower-filled town, where we enjoyed a gourmet lunch and wandered in some of the little boutique shops, and then walked down to the lake. We topped the day off with an ice cream cone before we retraced our steps home.
We also faced our first Airstream challenge here – the cabinet door under the sink popping off one of its hinges. This is a feature – the door hinges all have buttons you can press to release the hinge. Why you would want to do that, I have no idea. But something had inadvertently hit the button. And it seemed like this was a problem we needed to address – we couldn’t simply leave the door dangling from one hinge. After searching the Airstream Air Forums, googling the hinge maker and watching a video of someone effortlessly clicking the hinge into place… we still could not reattach the door. Finally, in desperation, we wandered down to another Airstream owner who came over and showed us how to do it. Disaster averted. We have managed to pop the doors off their hinges multiple times and now we are able to simplify pop them back on… just like the video!
