Abner Serd

Author | Humorist | Storyteller

Day 27: Lockport, NY to Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

From the Canalway Trail to the side of the road

And so we come to the end of the first leg of this 3,300-mile walking/storytelling/book tour. After a full day by the side of the road, I was in a cranky mood. Didn’t have much interest in sightseeing, at least on the US side. But some sights simply refuse not to be seen — as, for example, the view from atop the Rainbow Bridge:

Niagara Falls, as seen from the pedestrian bridge

I made it across the pedestrian bridge and into Canada fairly easily. But Kirsten, who drove across, had to wait in line four hours. I guess walking has its advantages, from time to time.

The Falls are impressive, and I look forward to seeing more of them tomorrow. But nothing — nothing — prepared me for the full-on carnival that awaited on the other side of the border:

No single picture can capture the kitsch. It goes on for blocks and blocks and blocks. There are midways, arcades, a ferris wheel, a roller coaster, wax museums, and haunted castles featuring Dracula, Frankenstein, and zombies. There are beer gardens, roadhouses, souvenir shops, money changers, and of course, a casino. It’s all great fun, though after walking through about thirty city blocks’ worth of abandoned, burned-out buildings on the US side, climbing up Clifton Hill on the Canadian side is like … well, like stepping out of the desert and into Las Vegas.

Tomorrow I take a scheduled day off. After that, no telling what the next eight to ten days will bring. I expect lots of farmland. I expect camping to be a challenge, given the apparent scarcity of wild spaces. Beyond that, we’ll just have to see what comes.

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