It's Hidden in the Mist.

It's Hidden in the Mist
December 4, 2007

Interesting fact about our neighbor to the north, lodging is really expensive, like $80 canadian for a Motel 6-caliber room. That is, unless you want to stay around Niagara Falls in the dead of winter. So I took an hour or so detour to gaze upon one of the wonders of the world. Bitches were giving away rooms just because they were lonely.

It was pretty interesting. There were maaaaybe four people there. That's a weird feeling, to be the only car in a 500-car parking lot. It was freezing. This famous mist was freezing over the walkways and stones around the park (it wouldn't be until a year later when I would learn that someone precipitation does freeze into something other than snow and that is when an ice storm happens...) and the only restaurant open in the complex was the trusty Tim Hortons. Tim Hortons is basically the Canadian McDonalds but so much better. So I sat watching the mist on a frozen bench in an empty park and shared my bagel sandwich with a seagull. It really hammered in how alone I was on this adventure, especially since I couldn't use my cell phone in Canada. Here was little old me, surrounded by fenced up gift shops, restaurants, empty parking lots and tons upon tons of gallons of water; Mr. Seagull my only buddy. But it wasn't a sad feeling, it was liberating, the sort of independence I think I drove all that way to try and find. I'd learn later that there are things far superior to independence but I still crave that feeling from time to time.

Picture's a reminder of that. I like how much of it is hidden. Somewhere, Scarlett O'Hara's fanning herself in a desperate attempt to know all of its secrets.

On a side note, everyone always says that the Canadian side of Niagara Falls is much prettier than the American side. I can't speak to that, since I've never seen the American side, but it was pretty. However, Canadians don't put nearly the same restrictions on natural parks that the US does (thanks, T. Roosevelt) and there are casinos, like, right in the water. That was a little gross. I could have stayed in one but I opted for the Super 8 down the road where, like I said, it was practically free and they gave me a handicap room. I went swimming in that bathtub for hours.

(Taken with a Nikon S1. No photoshopping. Kyle's a good dude, by the way. Letting me drive his camera across the world.)