Stay Out of Canada!

The Cave of the Winds -- another opportunity to get wet on a VERY hot day!

We turned in our tickets (part of the Discovery Pack we had purchased on-line) and were given another poncho -- yellow this time -- and a pair of sandals. Then you headed down a long tunnel which had been hollowed in the rock of the gorge. From there you rode the elevator to the bottom.

 This area of the Niagara Gorge is loaded with birds (note the complete covering of guano on this rock!). These are Double Crested Cormorants.

The Ring-Billed Gull nests in the rocks. This is a good picture of the webbed feet --

This is one of the chicks fledged this spring. He doesn't yet have the ring around his bill.

We got good advice from the elevator operator who recommended we NOT suit up until we got to the end of the pavement. The ponchos are just too hot and they weren't needed until then --

The actual original cave no longer exists, but this scaffolding structure is rebuilt every spring to allow people to get close to the Falls --

 You really do get close to the action --

After we dried out a bit from the Cave, we took the trolley around the Niagara Falls State Park. We saw a few of the other areas of the Park, including the bridge over the American Rapids and Goat Island.

Our plan was to cross over to the Canadian side, eat dinner, then watch the lights on the Falls when it got dark. We called our insurance company this morning and they emailed us a statement of coverage in Canada. I got our passports out of the tin box and we thought we were ready to go.

We drove down Rainbow Boulevard and over Rainbow Bridge, paying the $3.50 toll. Then pulled into line for the Canadian border check. We waited in line for about twenty minutes, then pulled up to the agent's booth. She asked a whole bunch of questions and didn't seem to like it when we told her we lived full-time in an RV. She asked twice where the RV was; where our mailing address was; why did our jeep have Washington plates?

Then told us to pull into the parking area. Another agent met us there and asked to look through the car. He did a rather cursory look through it without taking anything out, then told us to go inside the building.

Once inside we waited in line for 25 minutes; when we got to the front of the line, the agent told us to get into the other line for immigration (it was a l-o-n-g line extending the length of the building with people three and four deep in line and every chair along the wall filled. When I asked the agent what we were there for, he got very snotty and said, "You're coming into our country. We can make you go through immigration just like your country does!"

So we get in the long line. There are five computer stations here, but NO agents. Finally one woman comes and starts processing people. She calls them up, takes their passports and tells them to go sit down (though there are no empty chairs) and she'll call them when she's ready. She processes three groups of people, then gets up and leaves. In the meantime, there are anywhere from three to five agents in uniform standing in the back of the room talking. Occasionally one would walk up to a computer station, get a coffee cup or a water bottle and walk back out.

This is a small portion of the line as we got closer to the front (I was a bit hesitant to be taking pictures even with my cell phone.) I counted 78 people in the line!

Finally another guy and then another came out and started processing people. TWO HOURS after we had arrived, we finally got called to the desk. The agent barely glanced at our passports, asked us how long we were staying and told us we could leave... Absolutely no explanation, no paperwork, nothing!

 We drove along Falls Boulevard and got some good glimpses of the Falls. We were going to park and take a closer look, but the parking area was a long walk from the Falls and they were charging $20 to park. So we decided just to go to dinner instead. This is the Skylon Tower with a revolving restaurant WAY UP there on the top!

 Can you see the little yellow elevator going up the side?

We had an okay, but very pricey dinner while we watched the Niagara and Toronto communities go by. After dinner we went up another story to the Observation Deck and got a couple of pictures of the American Falls --

And the Canadian Horseshoe Falls lit up at night --

After our earlier experience,we were a little concerned about going back through the American customs. There were three lanes open when we arrived and we waited about fifteen minutes for our turn. As more cars arrived and the lines got more then five cars deep, they kept opening more lines. By the time we got to the front of our line, they had six lines open!

The agent asked us how long we'd been in Canada and if we'd bought anything? He noticed the hitch on the front of the Jeep and commented that we must have left our RV in the US, then wished us good evening and sent us on our way...

Along the Tumiami Canal

We went for a drive today along the Tumiami Canal on Highway 41 with a detour along the Loop Drive (which turned out to be closed partway through the loop so that we had to back track...). Part of the drive was in the Big Cypress National Preserve. I was quite surprised to see so many air plants in the trees --

 I know that some of these are in the bromeliad family, but that's about as much as I know about them!

I've often seen them in conservatories and plant stores, but never in the wild --

There were many of them in bloom --

The whole area was pretty swampy with lots of waterways. These water lilies were plentiful --

We thought we saw a Great White Egret off in the sawgrass, but when I looked at the picture and saw the beak, I realized that it was a white Ibis --

Tucked way back in the trees was this Little Blue Heron --

 This picture is a good shot of the swamp. You can see the cypress trees with lots of cypress "knees" (the short portions sticking up in the water...); air plants; and even an ibis --

Here's a Great White Egret and a White Ibis hunting together --

And then we saw a whole mixed flock of the white birds -- plus a Double-crested Cormorant drying its wings. It was early in the afternoon, but they may have already been gathering for their night's roosting --

We caught this gentleman relaxing on an old cypress knee at a house along the canal --

My Kind of Day

Today was a good day! I slept in until after 7:30; had fresh sweet California strawberries, yogurt and granola for breakfast; washed a couple loads of jeans -- and hung them on the line; followed Forry down to Jamul Automotive to pick him up after he dropped off the brown pickup for an oil change; had a leftover hamburger patty with avocado slices for lunch; then read for a while and took a nap!

About three o'clock we decided to get a little more ambitious and went to look for birds and flowers. We went up Barrett Smith Road where I have been intrigued by this eucalyptus tree which was so badly damaged by the fire, but just keeps on putting out green leaves:

Many of the burned bushes are the same way. The tops may be burned and dead, but the leaves are coming from the bottom:

It seems as though everytime we are out and about, we see different flowers. Today we saw some datura:

Some lupine:

And this little beauty blooming along the road -- I have no idea what it is:


We drove on over to Otay Lake where we saw snowy egrets, mallard ducks, coots, California gulls, and trees full of double crested comorants:

We were puzzled by the comorants at first, because we had not seen them in breeding plumage before. They now have impressive -- almost an inch long -- white tufts on their black heads.

We went on into Eastlake and had a wonderful Mexican shrimp dinner, complete with a shared piece of flan.

My kind of day!