Tag: Scenery

We started today by driving  just over 100 miles from Toronto to Niagara Falls .

I’m not sure what I expected Niagara Falls to be like, but I definitely wasn’t expecting the huge town that has sprung up around it and comprises casinos, theme parks, big hotels and lots of  falls related tours and attractions. We could have stayed there for a couple of days but we’d come to see the falls and we weren’t disappointed!

We decided to take the famous  “Maid of the Mist” boat tour . After taking an elevator from the rim down to the river we boarded the boat with around 150 others which took us right up to the bottom of the falls. As you can see from the photos it was very wet and very windy (hence the fetching blue ponchos), but amazing to get that close and hear and feel the power of the water coming down.

We then drove about another 300 miles back into the US (after being stopped at customs for a “secondary inspection”) and we’re staying at an amazing hotel tonight in Detroit . We’ve worked out that you can get some really amazing hotels pretty cheap through Expedia’s “secret saver” deals. Basically the big hotels sell off their unsold rooms on the cheap but it doesn’t tell you which hotel you’re going to be staying in until you’ve booked it. We’ve done it twice so far and they turned out to be the two nicest hotels we’ve stayed in.

Oh, and as we got to our hotel just after dusk we were treated to something I’ve never seen before, an amazing display by some fireflies just outside the hotel.

 

 

 

Well, today was eventful…

Having picked our car up from the airport and grabbed a sat nav from Target we set off towards New Hampshire.

We made it slightly less than 100 miles before I got pulled over for speeding (It was a 55 limit on an interstate and I was only doing about 60!).  Anyway, once the officer realised it was a rental car (and checked that it wasn’t stolen) he just waved us on our way with a warning. I’ve now learnt how to use the cruise control and am trying to get in the habit of leaving it bang on the limit.

With that little drama over we reached Mount Washington and took the cog railway to the summit. Firstly a few facts about Mount Washington and it’s cog railway.

• The mountain is the tallest point in New England at 6,288 ft
• It still holds the world record for the highest recorded wind speed on land at 231mph
• It has the worlds first ever cog railway and it’s also the worlds 2nd steepest.
• The summit has been home to a weather observation station for over 100 years.

The weather was beautiful at the base of the mountain and the guide told us we were very lucky to get such a clear day. Unfortunately, when we got to about 4000 feet it started to rain and the breaksman said there was a big storm coming in.

As we climbed towards the summit the mountain around us was shrouded by fog rolling over it and the rain was coming down hard. We could see lightning striking the peaks around us and the observation deck at the summit. We ran into the observation deck as quickly as we could and could barely see 10 feet out of the window. I had decided a coat was unnecessary and was still wearing a T-shirt!

Some kids let out a scream as the building we were in was struck by lightning and we mooched around the museum and gift shop for an hour before the train arrived to take us back down. We ran towards the train again in heavy rain and as we stepped on another lightning bolt hit the observation deck behind us.

The descent took about half an hour, still in thick fog and I was kind of glad to get back down again but it had been fun. We may not have got the perfect clear panoramic photos we had wanted from the top but it was definitely an experience.

We then headed out of new Hampshire and into Vermont for an incredible drive through the countryside. I wish we could have taken some photos of the sunset as we drove through Vermont but it was raining and we couldn’t really pull over.

We’re staying in a lovely hotel in a small town called Stowe tonight and tomorrow we’re off to the Ben and Jerry’s factory and into Canada.