Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls

We were really looking forward to seeing the Niagara Falls again as we had visited them in 1980 and although I remembered the falls I did not remember much else. Our RV Park was on Grand Island, which was much bigger than I imagined, literally in the Niagara River and just 6 miles from the falls. This was a KOA site; KOA sites are always good, well run and near the appropriate attractions.  We immediately booked a tour for the Canadian side of the falls starting at 5pm. It took about 20 minutes to cross the border. We saw the falls from every conceivable angle, including underneath - we were issued yellow raincoats, descended 150feet on an elevator and walked along passages to see the spray from under the falls - returning to the surface we saw both the American and Canadian Falls. One definitely gets the best ground level view from the Canadian side, from behind a barrier one can get very near the Canadian Falls the center of which is lost behind the ever present mist. After darkness had descended we went up the Skylon tower and saw both falls lit up with rainbow colored spot lights, which were hidden beneath the falls with the colors changing every few minutes - a spectacular display.  We could see for miles in all directions from the tower. We were disappointed that the fireworks display was cancelled, no real explanation - probably because of a few showers during the day- we had been really looking forward to the fireworks as we had heard that they are spectacular. Returning into the US took forever, close to an hour!

Next day we toured the American side. We parked up river from the falls and watched the rapids as we strolled along its banks. The highlight was our trip into the base of the falls on the “Maid of the Mist” we got absolutely and wonderfully soaked from the spray which comes at you in sheets of water - great fun; an experience not to be missed! Holding onto our, now blue raincoats, we climbed up into the spray of the American Falls - the others are called the Horseshoe Falls. Later on we walked to an over-hanging platform on the USA side from which there’s a good view of both falls.

It is hard to do justice in describing the awesome beauty of the Niagara Falls; the rushing of the white water rapids, the pounding noise and sheer volume of water that flows over the falls and the ever present mist blowing this way and that in the wind. Amazing and a true wonder of this world!

The area around Niagara Falls has been greatly improved since 1980, now it’s all beautifully laid out and landscaped with magnificent parks on both sides and most of the commercial areas placed well back from the falls. We will not forget our return trip to Niagara Falls.

From here it’s on to the Finger Lakes and our former neighbors and friends Eileen and Terry.

OHIO

Ohio like Montana is a state we may well return to in the future as our visit was very short…we literally traveled across the north of the state on I 90 with our first stop at Port Clinton, a pretty vacation spot on Lake Erie situated on a small peninsula southeast of Toledo. Like many other RV Parks we’ve stayed at this had many permanent sites occupied by local people who know one another; all staying for the summer or weekends.  The parks are really busy at the weekends, yet it’s very evident that business, because of the economy and high gas prices, is slow this year in many rural places. When people we speak with discover that we are from CA and Ireland they immediately stop complaining (I wonder why?). There is a lake on site - not Lake Erie but almost! It was so hot and humid that we plunged straight in once we had got the car off the dolly. After dinner we drove around the peninsula and paddled in Lake Erie. By now we were getting a bit tired of the hot humid weather; my face cream was still on top of the moisture on my face at night when I was going to bed. Our AC was employed a lot and we were eating outside “real camping” - we still don’t light fires so still have that barrier to cross - neither of us is too fond of the idea of lighting a fire in the woods. That said the RV Parks provide fire pits essentially the rim of a wheel from a truck, on every site. Some nights there are so many fires lighting that our swimming gear gets that smoked aroma. The wood is sold onsite for $4 a bundle and the bundles are small so if anyone is willing to chop wood there is a good business in supplying firewood to RV Parks. There’s a wood beetle or some other pest causing problems so much so that “Burn it where you buy it” is the motto in every State we’ve visited. On Friday last we were stopped at a road  check by NY State Troopers checking on firewood for “an invasive species” Tom spotted that the troopers name was Kelly and said “we’re an invasive species from Ireland” this got a laugh from the trooper and handshakes all around.  

Back to Port Clinton…the next day we had intended going on a boat trip to Kelley Island but as there was a big storm coming our way, serious thunder and lightning - with a chance of a tornado we had to drop that from our plans. We were watching the weather channel with bleeps every few seconds telling us to go to our basement immediately!  Tom spent his time sitting up front looking for the tornado just like the storm chasers on TV. I’m thinking I should call the weather stations of America to ask them where RVer’s should go. No prize for answer suggestions! Thankfully, the worst of the storm passed about 10 miles west of us (close) and the tornado never dropped. It was the afternoon by the time all the excitement was over and as like in most places we had booked in for two nights which effectively gives us one full day and a half day on the day on arrival we missed the opportunity to go to Kelley Island to see the Precambrian Glacier Groves. Check in is after 2pm and check out is usually 11am; we struggle out of bed around 8.45am (5.45am in CA) and are usually pulling out of the site at 10.45am. As we travel approximately 150 miles on each journey we’re spot on for a 2 pm check. We break our journey at about 75 miles at the roadside service area, have a coffee, walk and a potty break - we’ve even Skyped our grandchildren in England!

Our next stop was Conneaut on the eastern side of Ohio close to the Pennsylvania border where we arrived at about 1.30 after 150 mile journey. This stop was at a golf course with an RV park attached.  We ate lunch and headed out for a round of golf, Tom had a good round while I mixed the very good with the very bad (my usual) - the water swallowed 3 of my balls so as well as our customary logo ball I bought 6 used balls from the Pro shop.  Afterwards we went to downtown Conneaut to a local Pub and Pizza joint and had their Tuesday special a 12” pizza one extra topping for $6.95, one could do half and half, so I did. My right eye was very itchy and when we got back to the RV I looked in the mirror to discover the pupil was much enlarged. I went to bed early but hardly slept as I was bothered about my eye however, in the morning all was back to normal TG.

Next day was overcast and cool with a threat of rain, after such muggy weather we were delighted with that forecast.  We drove around the Ashtabula area to see their much coveted covered bridges and saw 11 of them all different; some old (over 100 years) some new, mostly over rivers, one in a field beside the river - this bridge was swept down river and bought by a local farmer for $5 who very nicely put it on his land beside the river for all to see, walk upon and enjoy, another was owned by and named for a local family called Olin. While looking at that bridge we met an older gentleman whose name was Olin – the grandson of the original owner. He told us that his Welsh grandfather’s surname was Llewellyn (Clue-Ellen) and was changed by the authorities on Ellis Island to Olin – go figure! (Probably resulting from the combination of his welsh accent and some geek who couldn’t spell). For him this was the most beautiful part of the USA. A little piece of trivia - the longest covered bridge in the USA built circa 2006 crosses the Ashtabula River.

We stopped and had our coffee and muffins at a village called Jefferson - the first “village” we have seen on our travels and it was a big village. The day was meant to be wet but it wasn’t bad, it rained while we had coffee and again when we were touring but hey, we were touring “covered bridges” so we just parked on the bridges! There were heavy thunder showers around 10pm that night.

On to Upstate New York…

Circus & Amish photo's

Peru and Nappanee, Indiana

Peru

For those of you who enjoyed Water for Elephants a visit to Peru, a little town 60 miles south of South Bend, must be on your “bucket list”. This is where five of the largest circuses’ used as winter quarters in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. What a pleasant surprise when we visited, frankly we did not know what to expect when driving there – it turned out to be much better than we had anticipated. At one time, as you can imagine, housing five circuses required many acres of land – today’s area is about a fifth of the original with one enormous big barn full of circus memorabilia, costumes, trunks, animal cages, organs, histories of famous circus people: trapeze artists, animal trainers, tightrope walkers, clowns, ring masters and owners.

In a smaller barn there’s a an unbelievable collection of model circus’s  all built to different scale and showing the progress in transportation: animal cages for trainer and animals, horse drawn circus wagons (to move the circus from place to place), trains and lastly, articulated trucks.  At the center of all is a scale display of a 6 acre circus campus including the animal menagerie, changing tents, dinning tent, cooking tent, a 3 ring big top with performers and a large audience sitting on bleachers.

Once more our accents secured us a VIP tour from one of the Directors who told us that we had missed their big festival -by a week - the festival comprises of locally trained children who perform under a Big Top following a parade down Main Street. After our tour we enjoyed an hour long circus of professional performers who are brought in for the 2 weeks; we were lucky that we caught the second week. So under the Big Top, sitting on bleachers we relived our childhood watching clowns, acrobats, high wire performers, elephants, horses and performing goats it was a great experience. A particular pleasure for us was being introduced to the world famous clown “Weary Willie” now played by Thomas Patrick (Pat) Kelly son of the creator of “Weary Willie” Emmett Leo Kelly and Eva Moore who were, before the introduction of “Weary Willie” to the world, known as the Aerial Kelly’s – for their dare-devil trapeze acts; Eva was for a period of time a “white faced clown”. Some of you must have seen “Weary Willie” played by Emmett Kelly Sr., Emmett Kelly Jr, or Pat Kelly.

From there we went back into the center of Peru which has a museum, part of which is dedicated to Cole Porter who was born and grew up in Peru.  His father owned the local pharmacy and his uncle was the local lawyer. Among the memorabilia is his Chevrolet which was refurbished at the cost of $15,000 - it cost about $4000 when originally purchased – he had the car shipped to and from Europe on numerous occasions. Looking at Peru today there’s no doubt that the town economy was dependent on the circuses wintering nearby.

Nappanee

Nappanee has an Amish theme park, originally an old Amish farm bought from spinster sisters by a local businessman who wanted to give tourists a sense of how the Amish people live. In summary, all one experiences is a superficially vague idea of Amish life. As we were driving into town we passed an Amish couple  cycling along on the side of the highway which had very little shoulder and looked very dangerous with great big trucks barreling by at 70mph. The vacuum from the trucks passing the RV causes it to wobble so we wondered what kind of vacuum must a cyclist experience. This bothered both of us. While in Nappanee we went for a coffee and saw a Mennonite lady on her laptop computer - that burst a bubble!  Sitting in the coffee shop we saw several Amish men ride by, one of them on those silly bikes you lie back on. After coffee we saw the couple we had passed on the highway cycling into town with not a bother on them. They must have been 10 miles out of town when we saw them initially. We saw several buggies driven by Amish ladies with other Amish ladies as passengers holding their little trophy dogs – Amish Hollywood? We went for a “Thrasher Dinner” in the theme parks dining room (2 old barns put together). The meal was a disappointment, saved somewhat by the pie which was delicious - next time we’ll just have the pie.

Unfortunately, I had two beautiful raccoon pups shot in the campsite; when I went to the recycle bins there they were at the bottom of two of the bins hissing up at me - they must have fallen off the fence during the night into two separate bins.  I was going to kick the bins over but as there was a man nearby I thought I should tell him. He said not to release them that he would report my find to the office. I wondered why he didn’t ask me to do it. Next I know, out comes the owner loading his gun to shoot them, I looked in surprise at the owner’s wife who said it must be done as they may have rabies and domestic animals could be infected.  The poor puppies...next time I’ll tell no one!

South Bend, Indiana

Here’s an interesting time twist – driving to Indiana we decided to make our first stop in Michigan City, yes in Indiana and we went back one hour in time ” Doctor Who”!  There’s a little strip about 10 miles wide along the southeast shore of Lake Michigan that keeps time with Chicago (Midwest time) while the rest of Indiana is on Eastern time. I wonder who worked that one out. Must have been very controversial to say the least. We discovered this because we decided to go the movies, thinking it was 8.30pm and had only one choice of movie we discovered it was only 7.30pm and we had at least 4 movie choices. We were one of the many millions who went to the Harry Potter movie.

The weather here in the Midwest is still hot and humid; this year has in fact been record breaking the month of July being the second hottest on record. On our way back from the movies there was a great lightning storm. We are getting used to lightning storms in these northern states which can move in quite suddenly, accompanied by inches of rain and at times tornado warnings. The suggestion is to run to the basement - we wonder where we should go?

We played our Indiana golf as soon as we could at Michigan City Municipal Golf Course. A very well kept, challenging course whose pesky trees kept getting in our way. Once again we rode a cart because of the heat and humidity. We have now learned where the old golf carts go when the luxury resorts and golf courses are finished with them they are sold to RV parks. For $70 a day (that’s the price folks) one can hire a cart, so that no one will have to walk to the pool or bathroom or wherever. The majority of people have them.  If we get rid of cars we will all be buzzing around in golf carts. Not a bad idea.

On our drive to South Bend we travelled through another lightning storm and heavy rain – like being in a car wash!  We had a list of things we wanted to see and do in South Bend.  Having parked and set up our RV, being Irish, we headed straight to Notre Dame and walked around the campus.  It is a beautifully laid out campus with spacious grounds.  The buildings are all in brick or stone and have all the same hue. The Basilica of the Sacred Heart which has been restored to its original splendor is magnificent. Keeping things in-house Jacob Ackermann, Professor of Art, received the commission to do all the necessary wall murals, Stations of the Cross, and other liturgical art. The stained glass windows were designed by Carmelite nuns in Italy, made into windows in Italy then shipped to Notre Dame and slid into their respective spaces. Napoléon the third presented a magnificent Lady Altar and a 4 feet high pure gold crucifix. All of the original decoration was undertaken, under direction from Professor Ackermann and painstakingly restored the ceiling is head lifting stuff, the colors and dimensions in the frescos are exquisite.  The Basilica is a wonderful House of God.

We found our way to the very large book store and bought T shirts “The fighting Irish” for our 3 grandsons and ourselves.   The book store is a wonder in itself, every form of memento one could possibly want, whether an alumnus or not -chairs, cloths, souvenirs and books.  It is a beautiful campus to explore. Of course, Tom wanted to have a visit to the football stadium which can hold almost 81,000 and has enjoyed sell-out crowds consistently since the early 1960’s, unfortunately it was closed. Afterwards, we had our dinner on campus just across the car park from the stadium in “The Legend” restaurant, where the history of Notre Dame athletic achievements adorns the walls.

Truth to tell, we had forgotten to take our cameras and returned on Monday, this time via the Main Gate; from which there’s a beautiful avenue of trees leading up to the famed Golden Dome, which is the Main Building of the University, right beside the Basilica. 

We were tight on time and particularly wanted to take some snaps of the Basilica. While we were there a Docent was conducting a tour; she walked over to Tom and said “I bet you’re a graduate of Notre Dame and Irish” to which Tom responded “I wish, and I am”. That was it for the tour party. Ann the Docent gave us a personal tour, including some behind the scenes areas. She also told us the story of how Notre Dame got the name “Fighting Irish”. In the late 1800’s the football team comprised mainly of Irish Catholic’s from the major cities in the Midwest; after one particularly tough game in which Notre Dame came from behind to win, the major Chicago newspaper had as its page one banner headline “The Fighting Irish do it again!” And…the legend lives on!  

Monday morning we drove to the Center for History on Washington St in South Bend to visit the historic “Copshaholm” former home of the Oliver family. Designed by Charles Alonzo Rich this beautiful home, I will not call it a house was built in 1895 and remained in the Oliver family into the 1970’s when it was gifted, in its entirety furniture, clothing, personal effects even the family silver to the History Center.

James Oliver emigrated with his family when he was 11 to the US from Newcastleton (Copshawholm in Scotch Gaelic) Scotland and later, after the death of his father worked for an iron foundry, at age 31 he bought an interest in the company. Two years later he received the first of 45 patents for improvements in plow design. This led to the formation of the Oliver Chilled Plow company. James’ son Joseph Doty Oliver who joined the company in 1868 commissioned the building of Copshaholm. Three generations of Oliver’s lived in Copshaholm before being presented to the History Center. We were greeted as VIPs by Jim in the foyer – he knew we were arriving and taken by Ken (a man who obviously loves his job) through the home. Copshaholm is on a corner of Washington Street it is built of local granite, with a wraparound porch on two sides, the outside is simply beautiful. As the furniture was included in the Oliver gift each room has some magnificent pieces.  The woodwork inside is evidently craftsmen at their best. Doors are big; the hall ceiling goes up three floors, as does the floating stairs. I was waiting for Scarlet O’Hara to glide down the stairs. Copshaholm had its own star in Gertrude Oliver on the day she married Charles Cunningham in 1916 in her home.

The History Center also houses the Studebaker Museum so we took a quick tour and saw the transition from horse drawn cart and carriages to luxury cars. Some of the early interior designs reminded me of “Driving Miss Daisy” one seat in front and a bench seat in the back but really no room behind the driver. Most of the early cars cost $1000 or more. While there we met an older gentleman who had worked for Studebaker, he recounted many fond memories of working there.

From there we went to meet a friend Nancy and her brother Bill, natives of Indiana in a Pub called “Between the Buns”. Nancy stayed with us in Ireland when she was a student at Trinity College and knew our children when they were young.  We have keep in touch over the years through respective Christmas letters. We had hamburgers, fries and beer that took more than 3 hours to finish – the talking interfered. We caught up on each other’s news and discovered that Nancy who had been a Joycean Professor had just retired and was extremely happy to do so.  It was lovely to see Nancy and Bill again.