I think I get a bit judgmental when I'm short on sleep. It was a little after 5 in the morning, and I was standing in line for coffee at the terminal, hating the woman in front of me passionately because she wore an ostentatious wedding ring and didn't say please when she ordered. I'm nicer when I'm well rested.

By the time I got to Philly I was more awake and substantially less misanthropic, and when my thinly boarded flight landed at Rochester's little airport after a fairly scenic flight over the deserted downtown and the unexpected High Falls, I was back to normal, and happy to see Cosine, who waited for me just past security.  It was as hot here as it was in Indy. We dropped my stuff off at his apartment, just off Park, a tree-lined street that alternates between old homes and small sidewalk cafes. We walked down to Sinbad's, a Middle-Eastern place, and took a table outside.

After lunch, it being Independence Day, we decided that the only sensible thing to do was go to Canada. We did this not out of active hostility to the country, I should add, but mainly because I had never seen Niagara Falls before, and it seemed to make sense to us that people would want to stay in the US for Independence Day, thus making it that much easier to get across the border, see the falls, maybe have dinner, and then get back to Rochester in time for the fireworks.

Unfortunately, the entire population of upstate New York appears to have had the same idea, and it took us over two hours waiting in line before we got to the border checkpoint where the guard asked, "So are you carrying any weapons?"

"No."

"You sure?"

And then he directed us to park our car so it could be searched. This they accomplished pretty swiftly, since, unlike me, Cosine keeps a very neat car, so there wasn't much to rifle through. We continued on, into Niagara.

The drive from the border to Niagara is short, twisting along the forested cliffs above the river on the way into town. When we got into town itself, the falls appeared in a flash, then disappeared from view. You can't really see the falls from the road, just the atomized spray rising from the river.

We had to drive past the falls and continue along the river before we finally arrived at a lot that wasn't full. There was a shuttle from the lot down to the falls, but Cosine and I walked instead, taking a paved bike path that hugs the river, stopping for a while to observe a beached scow, stuck in the middle of the river, rusting away.

So, yeah, Niagara falls is really big. And quite pretty, as falling water tends to be. We took pictures. The walkways above the river were teeming with people. An Italian couple asked if Cosine would take their picture. An old woman in a sari and baseball cap walked by. Across the river on the American side, a hot air balloon inflated: on its side, "I (heart) NY".

Frustrated by our failed attempts to wrest cash from uncooperative Canadian ATMs, Cosine and I found that the ice cream stands would take US currency, discounting the goods at roughly the correct exchange rate (in Windsor, some establishments accept US currency on par with Canadian, which works out to be a pretty bad deal. Fortunately, there were ATMs that could deal with my card there).

We bought tickets for the Maid of the Mist, the boat that goes right up to the falls. After walking down a long spiral ramp, you crowd into elevators for the descent to the floor of the gorge cut by the river. Here we were handed blue plastic ponchos and were gently herded onto the waiting boat. Cosine and I selected a spot at the front and stood.

The boat was soon under way. A recording came on with a brief geology lesson about the falls in English and French. We moved on to geography. The recording pointed out that Canada and the US are friendly nations, lest anyone take South Park too seriously. We approached the American falls, but moved on quickly, passing the small Bridal Veil Falls and Goat Island, where the official border between the US and Canada lies. It is apparently impossible to convey the exact sense of "Bridal Veil Falls" or "Goat Island" from French to English, as both were left in English in the French version of the recording.

The boat turned now to the Horseshoe Falls, moving slowly against the current into the mist. As close as we could safely get, the boat rocking and the water thundering down, the voice in the recording got dramatic: "Ladies and gentlemen: this is Niagara Falls!"

"Oh my God!" Cosine said. "I hadn't noticed."

The boat stayed put for a while, while we got steadily soaked. Cosine and I each slipped once, barrelling into our surrounding tourists. Eventually the boat turned around and went back to the dock. We removed the ponchos and put them into boxes for recycling. Verdict on the Maid of the Mist: Way cheesy, but a lot of fun, especially on a hot day. Besides, what isn't cheesy at Niagara Falls?

We decided to get dinner. Dad and Shorty had mentioned a good Vietnamese place they had found here. It was listed in Lonely Planet. After a short walk up the hill passing wax museums, fun houses, and various kitsch shops, we found the place. You'd never really expect to find great Vietnamese food in Niagara, but this was excellent. Highly recommended.

(Don't tell Cosine I told you this story: when the waitress brought us our appetizers, she did a double-take. "Oh," she said after a second, "I thought you were twins." I laughed. "We will never speak of this again," Cosine said.)

Bored, we wandered over to the casino. This is pretty strictly a gambling joint, and it largely lacks the over-the-top architecture of Vegas or even its cheap cousin in Windsor. I changed ten dollars for tokens, and Cosine and I wandered around from slot machine to slot machine. We were up about three bucks for a little while, but that quickly dissipated and within half an hour, the money was gone, and we went back outside to find a spot to sit for the fireworks, scheduled to begin at 10:00. Niagara Falls has fireworks every Friday and Saturday night during the summer, plus Canada Day and Independence Day.

As darkness fell, multicolored lights illuminated the falls. As the falls turned from green to purple and blazing white, we mused that the lights were simultaneously tacky and cool. Drugs would probably help.

In the distance across the river we saw the fireworks display of some other town. Soon after, ours started blasting out of the gorge and exploding low above the falls. The fireworks were packed low and dense, a five-minute masterwork of efficiency, and then they were done.

Cosine and I walked up the bike path back to the lot. The path was unilluminated, so we had to pick our way slowly through a few spots. We got in the line to get back into the States. The line to go home was much shorter than it had been to get into Canada, so it only took us about 20 minutes to get across the border.

American Falls from the Maid of the Mist.	Precipice of the Canadian Falls.	The Canadian Falls with the Maid of the Mist.

 

July 5

Cosine was already gone the next morning when I woke up. It was about 10. I took a shower and made a cup of tea. I was sitting in the dining room reading when Cosine came home.

"I got us reservations," he said. We were going camping today. "The state park was all full, but there's a private campground a couple miles away from it where I got a site."

We headed out to a bakery for coffee, Bruegger's for a bagel, and then on to Wegman's to get groceries. We figured for dinner we'd just wrap some ground beef and vegetables in aluminum foil, which we'd done a few times in Boy Scouts. I got some brie and crackers, too.

We hit the road to Letchworth State Park, leaving Rochester behind and driving through the hilly farmland of upstate New York. Letchworth is about 90 minutes away from Rochester, and we found it with little trouble. The campground was little more than 5 minutes from the park.

Called the 4 Winds, it's mainly an RV park, with a small section by the stream reserved for tents. Our camp site, #212, did not exist. It was on the map, right next to #211. But in real life, right next to #211 was a thicket. We went back up to the lodge and infomed them that site #212 didn't exist. The woman at the desk looked at me like I was stupid and moved us to #208.

We set up the tent, the drove to the park, stopping at a gas station on the way to buy firewood and beer.

We drove into the park, where a lodge and various other facilities were located. A narrow park that hugs the Genesee River, Letchworth bills itself as the "Grand Canyon of the East." I guess that's an ok way to think of it, but it sort of sells it short. It's a narrow, high-walled gorge, and as the river makes its way through, it drops at three substantial falls, called Lower, Middle, and Upper.

The parking lot was near Middle Falls, and we followed the crowds across a field to the edge of the gorge where. Below the platform, Middle Falls descended quickly. While less impressive than Niagara, these falls are still substantial, and moreover benefit from the attractive setting Niagara lacks. We hiked up to Upper Falls, about three quarters of a mile away. As we got near the falls, I overheard a man pointing out an object in a cleft on the wall on the other side of the gorge.

"Look at that," he said, "It's a deer that fell off the edge." Small and indistinct, the deer on the other side was a crumpled heap perched high above the river. It looked like it had been there a while.

The impressive thing about Upper Falls isn't the falls so much as the massive railroad trestle that crosses the gorge above it. A historical marker explains that before the original bridge was replaced with steel, this trestle had been the largest wooden bridge in the world.

"I want to go up there," I said.

"Ok."

So Cosine and I made our way back to the road to get to the trail we thought would get us there. The entire trailhead was surrounded with orange construction fencing with warnings not to trespass, which we duly ignored. We climbed to the railroad tracks and walked out onto the bridge. We stood for a bit, looking down at the canyon below. After a couple of quickly snapped pictures, Cosine suggested we move out of sight.

"I've already been arrested once this year," Cosine reminded me. Technically speaking, he wasn't arrested, just detained, fined, etc. The crime? Trespassing in a different state park. Cosine's a shady character...

We continued on the illegal trail, which went through the woods instead of staying near the gorge, breathing a sigh of relief when we crossed more orange fencing; our trespassing excursion was finished. The trail took us back to the parking lot where we started.

We hiked down to Lower Falls. It seems that most people drive from one waterfall to the next, so for the most part we had the trail to ourselves. We saw a number of deer. Somewhere around Inspiration Point, which affords great views of the canyon in both directions, we ran into a wedding, and had to dodge guests and photographers to continue.

Once you get to Lower Falls, you reach them by going down a long series of steps; there's a sign advising people who aren't sure they'll be able to make it back up not to go down. A whining little girl and her mother passed us on their way up as we went down.

"Well, if you'd just get out there and ride your bike instead of watching TV all day..." said the mother, who was breathing hard herself.

Lower Falls is standard-issue pretty. Actually the best view of it isn't from the viewing platform. There's a stone bridge that crosses the gorge just below the falls, and it's a good spot to stand and watch the river.

We hiked back to the car, and drove on back to the campsite. We got the cooler out of the car, opened the beer, and started the fire. Cosine had brought a supply of dryer lint as fire starter, and though we failed on our first attempt to start the fire, the second time the wood caught easily and blazed happily. We cracked open a beer each and set about making dinner, chopping the vegetables for what we hoped would be tin foil masterpieces. We combined the beef, potatoes, carrots, spinach, and onions, sprinkled them with rosemary and white wine, wrapped them in foil, dropped each one in the fire, and covered them with coals. We waited twenty minutes,

Masterpiece isn't the word for what we got. The vegetables were ok, but the beef was dry and, in places, charred. The problem, of course, was that we were idiots and bought lean ground beef. There lack of fat was problematic. Improbably, Cosine's ingenious idea to mix a couple slices of brie in till they melted worked nicely. Tasted kinda funny, but dinner went down easier.

After cleaning up we sat by the fire, roasted marshmallows, and drank beer while Cosine read stories out loud from Bill Bryson's history of American English. Then we worked through a proof to show that the square root of 3 was an irrational number (Cosine asked me not to tell anyone about that, either, but I'm ignoring him).

Our campsite was situated next to a stream, and when we got inside to go to bed, the rippling water lulled me to sleep easily.

Upper Falls.	Cosine on the bridge below Lower Falls.	Me on the bridge below Lower Falls.	Cosine tending the fire. Wait, no, he's eating marshmallows and drinking beer.	View from the railroad bridge. Moral of the story: trespassing is worth it.

 

July 6

When we got up in the morning, my jaw was in acute pain. Neither of us had pads to sleep on, so I was sore all over because of the various rocks I'd slept on, including, obviously, the one on which I'd decided to rest my head.

We made breakfast, frying the eggs in a little bit of water since neither of us had thought to bring butter, though we did remember the salsa, which we both heaped on top of our scrambled eggs. We followed that up with blueberries, did the dishes, and took down the tent.

Back in Rochester, Cosine and I went out to lunch at a deli down the street, where I got a pretty good Buffalo chicken sandwich. We drove up to Lake Ontario, to walk along the beach. When we got down the narrow strip of sand, I saw a few dead fish lying around, and thought little of it, but as we walked, we saw there were thousands and thousands of fish lying on the beach. Children played in the water while their parents sunbathed on shore.

We left and drove back to the University of Rochester, parked, and walked down to the Erie Canal. A paved path runs alongside it, and people use it for jogging and biking. There weren't a lot of people out today. We walked beside the still water for a while, then turned back when we reached a meadow of buttercups overlooking the canal and the interstate.

We toured downtown quickly, which consisted mainly of taking a picture of the Kodak headquarters and looking at High Falls. I experimented with Kodak's new black and white film that you can process with standard color processing.

We spent the late afternoon repairing Cosine's bike, which was in rough shape. We (well, I) made a mistake the first time we went to the bike shop and bought the wrong size tires and the wrong valve-type tubes (I'm really not incompetent--I repaired my own bike without screwing up, but when it came to my brother's, I was a mess). Cosine's building super, who fixes bikes on the side, came out to help us, inadvertantly emasculating me, but efficiently getting Cosine's bike back in working order.

I took Cosine out to dinner at the Empire Brewery (or something like that), near High Falls. Pretty good food, better beer. After dinner, it was exactly time for Rochester's weekly laser light show at High Falls. In addition to the lasers, there are fireworks and film projections onto a rock face. It was lame. The laser patterns were simple and boring, the fireworks were erratic, the animation on the rock face was stupid.

But then, something happened. A hysterical song about the history of Rochester started. I don't remember anything about it except one line: "Is that flour with a U? No it's flower with a WE!" It had something to do with Rochester transitioning from a mill town to a flower town (huh?)...and...uh, yeah, something about community, or something.

We left before the end of the show.

Kodak headquarters.	High Falls.

 

July 7

Next morning, I had an early flight out. Cosine dropped me off at the airport. It had been a good trip. Rochester's a pretty nice town, but the outdoor stuff around it is a lot better. Except for the Lake Ontario fish kill. That part was pretty crappy.