Beach glass, fort, church, and sunset

Our campground was just a few miles from Fort Niagara State Park so we decided to take a picnic there and check it out.  We were expecting to pay for entry but when we arrived there was nobody at the booth so we just went on in.  There were only a few other cars in the parking lot.  We headed straight to the beach of Lake Ontario which had smooth stones just like the one back at our campground.  But as we looked closer we started finding beach glass…green bits, clear bits and brown bits.  Every so often you would find a nice dark blue or ruby red piece.  All 5 of us got so mesmerized by looking for the stuff that anytime one of us would say, “ok, let’s take a break and go eat” everyone would agree and then the next thing you know, we’re all heads down again picking up bits of glass.  I cannot tell you why it was so satisfying to search, find and collect that glass but it was.  It actually happens to us at most beaches but it’s usually shells that capture our focus.  There is a sameness at the same time that there is uniqueness…maybe that is what makes it so intriguing.  All the glass is composed primarily of silica and roughly the same size…but they are different colors and they are different shapes.  If each one could tell it’s story.  The story about the bottle it once was, the tragedy that caused it to break and the journey it has taken to arrive at this beach where it was rescued by someone who saw the beauty in its brokenness.  Maybe we are a bit like the beach glass and perhaps this is why we were so content to spend hours collecting the stuff.
Looking for beach glass

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Falling for Niagara

Steph booked us a spot at Four Mile Creek campground just north of Niagara Falls.  It was a LONG day of driving…might have actually been a record day.  We left at 8:45am, only made 2 stops and pulled into the campground about 6:00pm.  We had more insane tolls and some of the worst paved roads I have ever seen.  The Robert Moses Memorial Highway from Niagara to the campground had grass growing up through the concrete highway…if I were Robert I’d be pretty miffed about how I was memorialized with that crappy excuse of a highway!!  But the campground was GREAT!!  Big grassy spots with shade trees and just a short stroll over to the shore of Lake Ontario with a view of Toronto across the water.
A little bike riding

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Over the Falls and Through the Rocks to… Death Maybe?

I am fascinated with waterfalls and that sort of thing so I was happy when we went to Niagara falls. We couldn’t go over to Canada because of passports, or lack thereof. We still saw the falls, we just didn’t get that famous view of horseshoe falls. We did however go on a cave of the winds tour which at one point gets you to a “hurricane deck” where you’re partly under bridal veil falls. We did a lot so I’m not gonna be able to tell you every last thing we did like, picking up tons of beach glass and how I even got some big blue pieces, or how Dacen and I played some soccer with these older-ish kids (some were my age), and maybe how we basically just relaxed a lot and played on some playgrounds and that was about all we did. Yeah I just can’t go into detail like how the slides were really fast and how the soccer nets were so high and at Niagara falls we learned about people going in barrels over the falls and through the rocks. I can however, tell you about this sign before the falls that said No Water Access Violators Will Be Prosecuted. In my mind it said No Water Access. Violators Will Drown or if not They Will Die Going Over the Falls or if not They Will Die Hitting the Water or if not They Will Drown or if not they Will be Hauled out of the Water and be Prosecuted. Yeah.

That’s all folks!

Caden

Niagara

One day I went to Niagara with my family on my road trip. We saw some 200 feet from the ground falls. There were Horseshoe Falls, American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls. It was so cool! I went to the bottom of Bridal Veil falls.  I felt wet! It was so cool! I went on the Hurricane Deck. I could hardly breathe and I couldn’t look up because water was falling on me. It felt like ice cubes falling on me. It was the awesomest falls I ever saw. Back in the day people went down them in barrels. I think that would be cool. And some survived and some didn’t. It was very rocky. I wanted to see the fireworks and the falls glow except we didn’t see them.

Kids on the hurricane deck   American Falls from tower

— Brielle (transcribed by Steph)