niagara falls and toronto again!

this is a typical vermont country road somewhere between londonderry and peru. we went for a drive on wednesday (after getting my social security number in rutland....which wasn't nearly as funny as getting fingerprinted but had it's moments.........remember that gary larson farside cartoon with the woman posting up a sign for a lost dog, but the dog is actually stuck to her big butt?? well there was a woman who had lost her kids social security cards and was applying for new ones.....i'm fairly certain if she looked in some of those crevices she might find the cards...vernon and i had a good laugh at that thought...anyhoo........).

here we are getting close to niagara falls state park in new york. we decided to stop on the american side because it was more convenient. i'm so glad we did as there was basically no one there - we saw about 100 people in this huge park. and you still get really close to the falls, it's still really beautiful - you don't see the entire horseshoe but i didn't care. it was cool. lots of people in ugly rain slickers though......looking totally touristy and lame. so what i didn't realise is that there are actually two falls - "american falls" and "horseshoe falls". horseshoe is the one that you always see photos of and that the boats go up to. american is beautiful but just straight. i found horseshoe hard to look at because of all the mist - it's basically obscured.

this is the view of "american falls" from the top looking at where it drops off. i held the camera over my head and took a shot over the 6 foot guard rail. the rapids were actually really cool too. and to be honest - all those crazies who went over the falls in barrels were totally freaking insane. there are HUGE rocks and stuff.

here is the view down the river with american falls to the side.

here is the view from the u.s. side of the horseshoe. you can tell that you don't get the full breadth. but since we could see HORDES of people on the canadian side and we were totally without a crowd around us it was nice.

me. driving. through new york state. i only drove about 2 hours yesterday. vernon drove for about 7. whoops. i think i slacked off! i guess that means that on sunday i'm doing the majority. ugh.

vern above american falls.

me above american falls

the maid in the mist leaving the horseshoe.

last time we were in toronto i forgot to take a shot of the cn tower. this time i almost missed it as we drove by but here it is in all it's tall glory. i am SUCH a tourist....

this is the old city hall in toronto. it is a beautiful building with some interesting features. none of which i know the proper names for so you'll just have to go and look at it yourself. the NEW city hall is hideous. it is two giant semi circle office towers that face each other and have windows only on the inside - so the outer walls are just 40 stories of cement. nice. really really nice. i'm not sure what their rational there was.

the clock tower on the old city hall has neat chimeras sticking out.
this is st michael's cathedral near the eaton centre. i just thought it looked cool (and i was walking back to the cello shop, starbucks in one hand, camera in the other looking totally loserish taking shots of random toronto architecture).

ok - that's all for today. more later....

j