We drove from Ellicottville, New York, a small town 45 minutes south of Buffalo, New York, to Caspian, Michigan on the final day of our road trip. We decided to take the northern route from DC and drive through southern Ontario, Canada. It was cool to cross Rainbow Bridge between Buffalo and Niagra Falls. I was disappointed with Niagra Falls. Not that they were not beautiful and powerful, but the tourism development around the falls was sickening to me. The street right next to the falls is filled with hotels and casinos with rooms overlooking the river. There were also hundreds of classic tourist attractions (Ripley’s Believe or Not Museum, Wax Museum, Amusement Rides, etc.) Tourists look like hundreds ants going down the side of the falls and going under the falls in packed boats. I think officials could have done it better by making it more of a natural experience with preserving the wilderness on the banks with hiking trails. Instead, they went with making as much money as they could and turning it into a Disney like experience.
We stopped by to use the internet, our phone plan did not work in Canada, and see the falls. We didn’t want to fight the crowds and pay for parking so we just drove along the falls and stopped for some quick photos. I really enjoyed watching Oliver learn how to use an actual paper map. We picked it up at the tourist information center because we didn’t have a GPS. Something is lost with GPS and it was comforting to use a map again.
I hadn’t been through downstate Michigan in about 25 years. We drove from Port Huron to the Mackinaw Bridge. It felt good to come back to the UP. The severe high temperatures and humidity of Virginia was replaced by the cool breezes and cold air of northern Michigan! I loved having a second driver in my son Oliver who is learning to drive. We made it back safely, arriving at 2:00 AM on Thursday morning.
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