Niagara Falls New York and Niagara Falls Canada

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18/8 /14 - Lake Erie, Pennslvannia to Niagara Falls, New York

One of the many glorious houses on the shore of Lake Erie. Obviously prime real estate.

We decided to take the toll road to Niagara Falls, New York  from Lake Erie, which proved to be a good move. Although the toll was a hefty $11.80 plus another $3.75 when we got to Grand Island, NY it was well worth it as the road was excellent with not much traffic. A spectacular view of the bridge to Grand Island just after we paid the toll.

KOA Grand Island, NY - large rv park with chalets as well as rv parking. There were also quite a few campers, including several Amish families (they take holidays now??)

Our first view of the spray from the mighty Horseshoe Falls as we enter Niagara Falls State Park. Niagara Falls is actually the name of the town and not the water falls.  The falls themselves comprise 3 waterfalls ie, Horseshoe Falls (2/3rds is in S. Ontario, Canada), the American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls are on American soil.

This aero car is operated from the Canadian side and it crosses over the Whirlpool from Canada to Niagara Falls, New York.

An amazing sight - (not me of course!) but the amount of water that rushes headlong into the Whirlpool is mind boggling.  The Niagara River drops 40ft causing its water to hurl itself over the edge.

Be prepared to get wet and wetter - luckily for me what is a standard poncho covered all of me - I looked like a Yellow Ewok in a cheap costume! The smaller fall on the right is the Bridal Veil Falls and to the left is the American Falls. If you do decide to climb up to the viewing platform nearest the falls, you may as well not be wearing the ponchos...they are no match for the force of the downward spray of the water.

We decided to book ourselves on a day/night tour of the Falls - this includes a ride on the Maid of the Mist which you can see in the background. When you arrive at the falls, you are constantly being showered. !!At the Cave of Mist, you are given this excitingly chic yellow poncho and a pair of blue and white sandals. You take an elevator that travels 175 ft down and voila! you are below the falls.

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The power of these falls are harnessed into hydro electricity and shared by both the USA and Canada. Both countries take the water at night so the tourists like us enjoy the falls at their fullest capacity during the day.

Remember the Maid of the Mist ride I mentioned earlier? well this little baby takes you almost right into the Horse Shoe Falls. Outstanding!!

Forget about posing for glamorous shots, it takes a lot just to stop from taking off in your "wing suit". You are lashed by wind and water! Oh by the way...notice the change of costume to a fetching blue poncho! The Canadians also do a competing boat run...their costumers get Green Ponchos..from a distance they look like a bunch of Leprechauns on a St Pat's day outing. 

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The Maid of the Mist taking us closer to Horseshoe falls.

 What 675,000 gallons of water per second going over the edge looks like! For more info click on: http://www.niagarafrontier.com/faq.html Personally, this shot of the Horseshoe falls reminds me of a Bundt baking tin cut in half!

 Skyscrapers hug the Canadian side of the falls - there are many eating places and shops. It is beautifully landscaped in comparison to their New York counterparts. Apparently all the tourist money goes into the upkeep of the park whereas on the New York side, being a state park means the revenue is not totally dedicated to the beautification and upkeep of the park.

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The tower on the right side of the pic is the Skylon Observation Tower. It has a "revolving" restaurant. Just a tip..sales tax is 16% in the city of Niagara Falls, Ontario...ouch!!

 Our night tour included a ride up the Skylon observation tower to view the falls. The elevator is on the outside of the tower which stands at 775 feet.

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Just as beautiful at night - the American Falls in blue and the Bridal Veil Falls in red.

St.Louis & St.Charles, Missouri

Due to a lack of good wifi service I have been delayed in making this posting but anyway here it is.

On arrival into St. Charles Missouri a small town just north of Saint Louis we were disappointed to have problems with the truck and had to have it towed to a local shop for repairs, it turned out they needed to order a part in which was supposed to arrive on the Friday, then Monday and finally it arrived on the Wednesday over one week late.

One sick truck.

The famous Saint Louis arch which can be seen for miles.

Due to road closures we were diverted through the middle of downtown Saint Louis and found this unusual building seen on the way through Saint Louis.

An interesting building spotted by Betty as I drove through Saint Louis.

We are not sure what the suburb's name was but there were complete streets of boarded up homes and businesses. We asked but got no explanation.

The small historic town of Saint Charles main street is full of interesting small shops and we took the opportunity to walk the street and browse. of special interest to me was the Scottish shop but unfortunately it did not have anything of interest. 

We stopped and had lunch at a small restaurant called The Mother in Laws where Betty met the mother-in-law and older jewish lady who had been running it for years.

I guess this must be getting close to the ultimate in Class A motor homes, it was parked next to us and we met up with the owners and had dinner with them, from what he told me it was only a few months old and cost him (his company) US$1.2 million. The side of the Class A motor home as seen from our 5th wheel. On arrival he hooked up to the water supply without a pressure regulator and ruptured his plumbing and hot water storage tanks. Two days and $1,000.00 later and repairs by a RV repair company seem him back with water on. 

Everything about it is electrical - all the blinds on the windows, the extensions the awnings the leveling etc. and as you will see from the photo above it is all controlled from a very complex central circuit panel, actually it is all controlled from specially modified iPads that feed back to this panel. It seems like in the States there is no limit to how big or complex an RV you can have.

Apart from the cost of our repairs this created complications in my schedule as we were now running about 1 week behind time. Unfortunately this meant redoing our plans and cutting out a visit to friends that we made on our Alaskan cruise who live near Chicago so we will have to visit them next year. As a result we will go directly from St. Charles to Erie, Ohio and then we will be back on track for Niagara Falls and onwards.

Du Bois, Illinois

While at Wittington Woods Campground we made a day trip to a small country town called Du Bois with a population of about 150 to meet up with Elaine Wiles from Twin Waters back home in Australia. We play cards most Saturday nights with Elaine and her husband Norm and we had arranged to meet up with her in her home town so that she could show us around her childhood neighbourhood.

What an interesting day, we started by meeting Elaine at her mum's old home where Eleane spent most of her youth.

Eleane's family home surrounded by the corn crop outside of the small community of Du Bois, this is rural America at it's best.

Behind the rental car stands Eleane Wiles and in the background the garage.

From there Elaine took us on a tour of the local small towns which were her haunts in her youth followed by lunch at a Mexican restaurant which is rare in this part of the world. After lunch we went to meet up with Elaine's mom who lives in a seniors care facility.

Left to right

Eleane's mom, Eleane and Betty

After visiting Elaines mom we went to tour Elaine's old haunts around town and then onto her niece and neighbour Laurie and Michael in their considerably improved and expanded home which is surrounded by sheds full of John Deer farm equipment. Given the amount of John Deer and Micheal's passion for them I think he must have shares in the company.

Eleane and I sitting out watching the corn grow while Betty takes the photo.

Betty and Laurie in front of one of the John Deer tractors and this was by no means the biggest of them all. Pity there was no work under way as I would have loved to have a drive of one of them.

Wittington Woods Camp Ground & Golf Course Benton, Illinois

From Nashville we headed north to a small town called Benton in Illinois on our way to St Louis Missouri and are now spending a few days at a  place called Wittington Woods Camp Ground & Golf Course. We have a nice site surrounded by trees and close to the swimming pool.

Betty enjoying a cocktail in the cool of the shade and waiting for the barbie that I was cooking to be ready.

This morning I played the golf course and am pleased that I played considerably better than in Nashville, it's a nice 27 hole resort course and is in good shape.

2014 Atlanta Georgia to Nashville, Tenessee

Well we are on the road again for our 2014 tour and what an eventful start it has been. The Truck and 5th wheel were in storage in Atlanta, Georgia for over a year during which they had a big freeze and also a hot summer and has it turned up some problems with the rig.

The 5th wheel had two totally flat tyres, the truck would not start in spite of it having major work done on it about 3 months prior.

The truck problem turned out to be a faulty crankshaft sensor and the tyres had shrunk and come off the rims. We finally got the rig moved to our starting base at Monica Keith's place just south of Atlanta. What a gracious host Monica is, she put us up in her home for 5 nights while I sorted out the problems.

Among the problems were the following:-
Air Conditioner not working - stuck fan fixed with a hammer


Monica's neighbours invited us over for dinner and what a fabulous home they have, a few photos follow.

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This is their outdoor entertainment pavilion complete with chandelier.

The main lounge, everything is done out in a western theme.

The bar area featuring more western features including photos of well known Indians.

We finally got on the road one day late but kept to our booking schedule.

Our first stop was at Scottsboro, Alabama to visit the Unclaimed Baggage Centre which is a place that sells off all the goods from peoples unclaimed baggage, what a waste of time as the prices are much the same as you can buy anywhere on the internet. As a result we only spent about 30 minutes there before proceeding onto Nashville Tennessee.

We had a great RV site booked at KOA Nashville and I can highly recommend this park to anyone visiting Nashville as it is close to everything including the Grand Ole O'pry, stores and even Camping World.

Thursday July 31st we went to a Blue Grass concern at the famous Ryman Theatre, this place is credited with being the home of country music.

The following night we went to the Grand Ole O'pry which we had been to last year and it did not disappoint again with some excellent performers. Below are some photos of the show.

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Downtown Nashville, this is Broadway which is full of bars and free entertainment.

The Grand Ole O'pry

We were so lucky that I managed to book really good seats dead centre and 5 rows from the front and we even had an empty seat in front of us so Betty could see.

I thought I would include a couple of photos of this 5th wheel and truck just to show that in the USA there is big bigger and biggest in everything.

I think this rig qualifies as the biggest I have seen.