The Honeymoon Is Over

OK, so the honeymoon is over and has been for several days now, but there has yet to be an entry about it from either Frema or me. For those who don't know, we took a trip into Canada to get to the Niagara Falls area and spent time in both Niagara Falls, Ontario and Niagara Falls, NY. Let me tell you, that the falls are mighty impressive; pictures do not really do them justice as to how breaktaking that much water falling around 180 feet can be, especially when viewed close up.

Pictured up above is the Maid of the Mist heading into the Horseshoe Falls, which is the portion of the Niagara on the Canadian side. A few of the people we know who've been to see the Falls kept insisting that we don't even bother with the New York side, but we actually had a much better time in the New York park. You can get much closer to the falls, even if you can't get a direct view of all of them, as you can from the other side. Just check out Frema under the Bridal Veil Falls during the Cave of the Winds tour, a series of decks and steps that leads down to the bottom. The "cave" itself is long gone, after erosion took out the rocky overhang that used to provide a walkway behind the Bridal Veil until 1920.

So we saw the Niagara Falls from about every angle except for the Behind the Falls tour in Canada, which sounded overpriced for the chance to peer out a tiny window in a dank tunnel. On our way back, we took a drive through southern Ontario's wine country north of the Falls. At nearly every exit you see signs for a good three or four different wineries, so we hopped off the QEW (Queen Elizabeth Way) freeway and stopped at the first one we found, the Kacaba Vineyards. In case you're ever in the area, I'll save you some embarrassment. The name is pronounced like the name of a casaba melon. We walked in the wine shop laughing at "kaka-ba," until we were politely corrected by the proprietor. A great thing about such places is that the staff is typically used to dealing with people who don't know a lot about wine and are usually not condescending to them when discussing their wares. Plus, tasting is often free, so you could accidentally (or purposefully) get loaded if you hit too many of them in a row. We also got a kick out of the sign by the bridge over a stream on the property that read "This bridge creaks. It is rated for military tanks -- So don't worry -- It's safe." Whew!


We were not really expecting to see the plethora of vineyards that seem to dot the landscape north of the Falls, but it didn't seem like that much of a surprise. What was surprising was the pirate ship (ARRRRR!) that seemed to be withering and rusting away on the shores of Lake Ontario. The whole scene looked like something out of straight out of The Goonies. If only we didn't have the long drive ahead of us, I could've pulled a Chester Copperpot and went looking for treasure. But then he was dead before the movie even began, so I guess it was just as well.