THE BUFFET BREAKFAST is as impressive as the dinner was, and the view from our table is simply breathtaking. It's also bright. The glass wall looks almost due east into the mouth of the Horseshoe Falls... and also into the morning sun. In fact, at this time of the day you can hardly see the falls at all for the cloud of mist backlit by the sun. But the cloud itself is almost as impressive as the falls; the mist from the falling water rises 176 feet back up to the top and then continues billowing on up for at least that far higher. It really is spectacular.

After breakfast we begin our first adventure of the day with a three-block walk over to the Fallsview Incline Railway. This "elevator on rails", which carries passengers 160 feet up and down the steep Fallsview escarpment, is the last remaining of what were once several "funicular railways" in Niagara. Popular in the mountainous parts of Europe, we don't see a lot of them in North America. It consists of a pair of cars which are connected to one another by a steel cable, which also connects to a winch mechanism. The cars are staggered so that when one is at the top station, the other is at the bottom. When the funicular is set in motion, the weight of the upper car descending helps to raise the lower car. The one shown in the photo on the left operated near Victoria Park as late as 1979. It carried passengers to the Canadian landing for the Maid of the Mist boat ride. Today, an elevator serves this purpose. Notice that the old style used a single track for both cars, with what is called a "fail-safe" switch-out in the middle where they could pass one another. The Fallsview one we rode on uses a separate track for each car, which sure seems a lot more fail-safe to me.

At the base of the Incline Railway, we are directly across the street from Table Rock. Beginning with the earliest tourists, this has been the best known vantage point for viewing the falls. Originally, Table Rock extended out over the edge quite a ways. In 1818 a massive chunk of the rock, 160 feet long by 30 feet wide fell into the gorge, killing several tourists. Other rockfalls occurred during the nineteenth century until it was finally cleared back to the cliff face during construction of the power station beneath it. Throughout the twentieth century, Table Rock has existed only as a very good vantage point along the edge of the falls, and a park complex site of restaurants, souvenir shops, and the Journey Behind the Falls tour.

It's also the main terminal for the tour and People Mover buses, and this is where we board for our ride downriver to the famous Niagara Whirlpool and the Spanish Aero Car. The Niagara river, which drains water from four of the five Great Lakes, is really a pretty tame river. It runs in a quiet, riverly sort of way, just minding its own business, for about thirty-five miles between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. By the time it has reached the rapids just above the falls, the river has dropped a grand total of about nine feet. That changes in a big time hurry, with a sudden drop of over 170 feet. Following the big plunge, the river levels out for a short distance, as it flows through the area that the city overlooks. Then it begins a second drop. This, by the way, is where the edge of the falls was originally located some 12,000 years ago (the edge keeps moving upstream as it erodes into itself; modern conservation techniques have reduced the erosion to only about a foot every ten years). This second drop isn't a waterfall, just rapids. But they are very impressive rapids indeed. There's a wooden walkway that extends out along the edge of the river here for a little over 300 yards. Called the Whitewater Walkway, it's part of a park attraction known as the Great Gorge Adventure. In July it's not all that much of an adventure, just picturesque. When the river is high, though, walking along this wooden trail, with tons of raging water booming just a few feet from you, must be very exhilarating indeed.

At the bottom of this rapid run, the Niagara makes a sudden, right-angle turn and then calms down a lot as it eases itself toward Lake Ontario. Now, tons of rushing, raging, river just don't handle right-angle turns all that well. The river tends to fold up on itself and creates a massive, spinning area of turbulence. At the center of this disturbance it begins a steady spin that forms a giant whirlpool.  Anything floating in the river at this point is doomed to be drawn in, sucked under, and held there until it finally bobs to the surface, maybe days later. In the hey-day of the Niagara daredevils, this is where their remains were usually discovered. In fact, long before anyone thought about going over the falls in a barrel, it was here that the daredevils challenged the fates. Tightrope walkers crossed over the whirlpool; kayaks and various home-made flotation devices were run through it. Some even survived.

In 1916, a Spanish engineer, Leonardo Torres Quevedo designed and built a cable-suspended passenger car here. Like the funicular, there are similar attractions in Europe, but they're seldom seen on this side of the ocean. The Spanish Aero Car is a major attraction, and really worth doing. Again, like the Inclined Railway, this is not so much a thrill ride (unless you consider being suspended in a steel basket a couple hundred feet above certain death in a whirling torrent of water thrilling, of course). Mainly, it's a very quite, scenic ride, with the operator telling stories about some of the people who have been part of the history.

My favorite of those stories involved a group of criminals who needed to find a way to escape Canadian police. They invaded the office of the aerocar operator and negotiated a price to have him smuggle them across the river, which he did. What he didn't bother to tell them was that the border follows the main course of the river, not this right-angle turn. Once on the other side, the crooks found themselves... still in Canada.

The Mounties, called by the operator, had plenty of time to explain it all to them on their way to prison.

GETTING BACK ON THE People Mover bus, we have to wait while they fix the air conditioning before we can leave, but then it's a pleasant ride back toward Table Rock. Although the People Mover buses are not advertised as tour buses, the bus driver does give a running commentary on the places we pass, just like they did on the double-decker bus.

We arrive at Table Rock and prepare to visit the Journey Behind the Falls attraction. Here's where we really learn to appreciate the advantages of buying the PeopleMover tour package. The PeopleMover tour has its own entrance to the attraction, separate from the general entrance line (which stretches past the door and on out into the lobby, and which includes all the people in the double-deck bus tours) and we're able to walk right in to the head of our own line with no delay. It made us feel just like VIPs.

Well, sort of...

We feel like VIPs who get to wear plastic bags over their clothing, descend on an elevator to nearly the base of the falls, and  then follow each other through dimly-lit, damp, crowded tunnels to the viewing areas.

I use the term "viewing" loosely here; there's really not a lot to actually see, except a solid wall of rushing water. This is an experience mostly appreciated by other senses, and no photograph could ever come close to capturing it. Of course the sound is certainly the most obvious. At all times in Niagara you're keenly aware of the background roar of the falls; the constant sound is evident everywhere you go. But here it's much louder...  

I said, Much Louder!...  

What?...  

Oh, never mind; wait till we get back up to the top...

I said, The Top!....  Oh, forget it!

The smell is very different here as well. Of course it smells "wet", but it's kind of a combination of "musty, mildewy wet" and "fresh rain wet". They say falling, aerating water fills the surrounding air with ions that are emotionally stimulating (that's why we like fountains, waterfalls, and new rain), so you can imaging the exhilaration that having 205,000 cubic feet per second of water falling past you can bring on.  But I think the most impressive experience is that here we are, within ten feet of more raw power than most people ever see in their lifetime. You really can just feel the forces soaking into you.

And, despite the plastic bags, you can also feel the water mist soaking into you. And it's hard to linger at the edge of the portal (which is the only place you can see anything but another person's back) without feeling like you're hogging someone's turn. It would be nice to visit here when there were no crowds -- if there ever were such a time.

The main portal doesn't open behind the falls, but exits the cliff onto a two-tiered concrete observation deck that juts out along the western side of the horseshoe falls. Here the view is very familiar, since this has long been a favorite location for photographers. Here, too, the roar is much louder, since we are standing outside and still just as close. The feel of the power and glory is here, as well. But there's something else I can feel. I think it's because I realize this is also where people in other times have stood awestruck and simply unable to do anything but gape, just as I'm doing. I believe I have a little bit of understanding about what spirits are and how we recognize and live with them. I'm not so sure that everyone does, certainly not everyone brought up in my Western European culture, but I think it's really hard to avoid understanding at least a little more about the spirits who inhabit natural objects after standing here for a few minutes.

Okay, sermon's over.

It's also hard to avoid being soaked to the skin, not that that really feels so bad on such a nice afternoon in late July. Still, as we slosh our way back up the tunnel path to the elevator, we are all trying to remember the things we wanted to say to one another when we got back to where we could hear anything but the constant roar of the falls. The elevator ride brings us up to the Table Rock area and we walk out into the bright afternoon sunshine...

... and directly across the street from the Fallsview Incline and only a brief walk back to our hotel. Ah yes!  THIS is why it's so good to be staying where we are. A few minutes later, and we've all changed into clean, dry clothes.

This afternoon is going to be an "everyone gets to do what they want that the others don't care about" time. Linda and Mary are going to spend a few hours (and 67% of more than a few dollars) at the Niagara Casino. Lou, Liz, and I spend some time at a simulator attraction called Ride Niagara, which is supposed to emulate going over the falls in a sort of aqua-spacecraft. It's a pretty tame experience, but the various elements are well thought-out. After that, I want to drive around the non-tourist part of town and see (a) how people here live (which appears to be pretty much the same as they do in Ohio) and (b) if they have any really neat brands of Bourbon that I can't find back home (no; but I found some REALLY good Canadian whiskey that I'll probably never see again until we return).

Lou and Liz ride the People Mover all the way out to Queenston Heights Park to climb to the top of Brock's Monument, the tomb of Sir Isaac Brock, General, president, and Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada who was killed here in the Battle of Queenston Heights (War of 1812). If you remember from our Wild West Adventure, Lou suffers from a fear of heights, which he is dedicated to overcoming whenever he gets a chance. One of Lou's chief goals in just about any vacation situation is to find ways to force himself into high places as a way of learning to conquer his fears. He tries never to miss a good opportunity. Niagara, of course, is full of them. But yesterday, on the double-deck bus tour, Lou discovered this one that especially intrigued him. The tower, with its base and pedestal, is 160 feet tall and there are stairs that wind all the way up the inside. Once at the top there is, of course, a fine view... down. Then you get to descend each of those 250 steps, while looking down toward the bottom of the tower. This looked to Lou like something that should NOT be missed, and he convinced Liz to go along with him. They did it, too (I never had any doubt; Lou may be afraid of heights but he never fails to conquer them). It takes them a long time to do it, though, and they don't get back to the hotel until quite awhile after the rest of us. We were beginning to be a little worried, not so much that there might be something wrong as that they'd arrive too late for the show tonight...

Show?  What show? Well, it seems this morning, when we were in the hotel lobby, we saw a sign advertising a show to be held tonight in one of the convention rooms. There's a professional company preparing to tour a stage revue, with tribute-type performances of the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and the Spice Girls. Tickets are available at the hotel for this performance, which is primarily for the press and to kick off their tour. Since Liz is fourteen, which is another way of saying, since Liz is a total Backstreet Boys fan, Lou is taking her to see the show. And since Lou is, shall we say, middle-aged, which is another way of saying...  Well, anyway, Mary is also going along to "help" watch the Brittany and Spice Girl wannabes.

Lou and Liz arrive back in plenty of time to get ready and they head off to the International Meeting Auditorium or whatever it's called. Linda and I head out to the viewing deck, which is really the roof of the hotel restaurant. Rooms here actually open out into small private patios, but there is a much larger promenade which runs across the front like a boardwalk, and that's open to any hotel guest. There are tables and chairs and benches, and we sit out in the summer evening, sipping Canadian whiskey, and watching the sunset change the lighting on the falls. As the sky begins to darken, the deep-colored spotlights that illuminate the falls switch on, bathing them in color. EACH of the eighteen 30-inch Xenon lamps, located on a tower in Victoria Park, along with three more at the base of the American falls, provides a brilliance of 250 million candlepower. Even so, the effect isn't really anywhere near as garish as it appears in this time-exposure photograph. Actually the colors are quite subtle. Tonight is Friday, and the tradition at Niagara Falls is to have fireworks in addition to the floodlights. Our balcony is a perfect location, and we make sure  that there's room for Mary, Lou, and Liz when they arrive back from the show. Well, maybe the location isn't quite THAT perfect; the fireworks are set off into the area between the two falls, and the best place to see them would have been from the area around Victoria Park and the Maid of the Mist. But they are visible from here, and the show doesn't really last very long anyway. It's a great way to end a very busy day.

After all, there's still PLENTY to do tomorrow...

Story and original photography copyright ©1999 by John Lipman. All rights reserved.