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| Bridal Veil Falls, up close and personal |
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| people everywhere! |
Our first pause on our journey west was a visit to the
iconic Niagara Falls in New York and Ontario.
The three combined waterfalls form the largest flow rate in the world,
with a vertical drop over 160 feet. They
are truly spectacular to see and experience.
Almost as fascinating is the tourist industry that has developed to
capitalize on these beautiful falls. The
attractions and crowds rival any other we’ve experienced, along with the ethnic
and cultural diversity of visitors.
Visitors from India dominated the crowds, wearing colorful traditional
clothing. We chose to take advantage of
a tour company that picked us up at our campground and took us to the major
attractions related to the falls, a wise decision. Not only did it save us the headaches of
navigating traffic and parking in the heavily congested tourist sections of
Niagara Falls on the US and Canadian sides of the river, we enjoyed excellent
local guides that described the communities along with details about the river
and falls. We highly recommend the tours
if you’re visiting the falls. We were
able to visit the tunnels behind Horseshoe Falls, the spray of Bridal Veil
Falls, and take the Maid of the Mist boat ride close to the base of Horseshoe,
the largest of the falls. A great
experience and memories to take home.
Our trip from Niagara Falls is now more direct, heading west along the major interstates in the US. We drove our longest day yet, more than 600 miles to get through the much feared congestion of Chicago (it didn’t work!). Our easy slide through Chicago turned out to be interesting as the exit from the I-90/I-80 combo onto I-80 west was closed! Yep, completely closed, locked up tighter than a bank safe, no way Jose, and no detour signs. We ended up on a freeway that shot us directly north into the heart of the downtown Chicago Loop with amazing traffic to boot and drivers who missed the driver training part about letting others change lanes when their turn signal had been on for longer than ten minutes!!!! Perseverance prevailed and we ended up on I-88 headed west toward the Mississippi River. Mayor Emanuel should try that sometime. Trucker’s advice about Chicago was good, but didn’t account for the closed exit on a major Interstate highway with poor signage. Exhausted from the long and stressful drive, we camped at a Walmart an hour east of Sterling, Illinois, the town of Denny’s youth.
We spent a couple of days around Sterling, visiting relatives and recalling fond memories of growing up here. Several of Denny’s former sisters-in-law invited us to join them for lunch, which culminated in a visit to Margo and Joe Reaver’s farm which supplies much of the produce and poultry products for the Sterling farmer’s market. They sent us home with a wonderful supply of fresh farm produce, eggs, chicken, and turkey. Our first sweet corn of the season was wonderful! We topped off our first day visit with a gaggle of relatives at the Carroll County Fair where we were treated in typical Midwest fashion to a major tractor pull, what else? It was much fun. On our second day, we visited family graves and spent several hours enjoying a visit with Denny’s brother Carl and his wife Sandra.
The last home Denny lived in before leaving Sterling for his stint in the U.S. Navy has since become a museum, celebrating a sleep over by Abraham Lincoln in 1856 when he visited Sterling as an invited speaker at a John C. Fremont Rally.
Travel tip – we experienced toll shock driving the major interstates in the eastern US. The road tolls for our RV with a tow vehicle cost us more than $170! Had we known and planned in advance, we could have saved up to half the cost by purchasing an EZPass and Illinois pass, which would have saved the time of going through toll gates along with half the cost. We look forward to leaving toll roads behind as we move on to our beloved western US.
