God bless America

In 1996, ten years ago, Toni and I took our second great road trip. We were headed to Maine, but decided to traverse through Canada instead of up New England ("Up New England!" I guess that's also how I'm feeling right about now.)

First night, Niagara Falls. Young lovers, Niagara Falls. Cool. I'd only ever been to the Canadian side, twice before, with my family. Mom was big on taking visitors there, people from other countries for example, and my participation would be an after-thought.

In fact, the first time I ever glimpsed Niagara Falls was the last time we took Canada to Maine, in 1976. We drove past it. Dad was trying to make time to Toronto and figured we could just spot it through the windows and keep going. I'm not making this up.

Mom's excursions were day trips, with garden tours and lunch at the Skylon. Big fun for a twelve year-old. So picture this - I'm 28 years old, Toni and I walk from our B&B up to the Falls after dark. It's all lit up in that tacky way they do that, with the changing colors. But I'd never seen that, so approaching it, by foot, after walking by all these houses, and seeing the Falls at night all lit up, pretty impressive. We watching it for a while, talk, and then she asks if I want to head up Clifton Hill. I say, "what's that?"

And she leads me up the Hill from the Falls, and it's a freaking carnival! A toursit-trappy, haunted housey, putt-putt golfy fun yard! I thought Niagara was all natural wonder and clocks made out of flowers, but now - it was like one of those dreams where you open a door in your house, and there's this part of your house you didn't even know was there, and there's gumball and pinball machines, and there's a party going on and it's all really, really fun!

So Niagara was stunning beautiful, and now it was also stupid fun, too. We had a late dinner in a family restauarant and then went into their Ripley's or something. It was a gas.

Then we celebrated New Year's 2001 there. You know about that. Calvin was with us, he was very with us. It was bitterly cold, but we took him on a horsey ride, and watched the Falls and we were happy and in love and going to have our first baby. We went to the aviary and I made a wish in a fountain that didn't f*cking come true. We haven't had occasion to be back.

I occured to Toni that we could be here for the Fourth on our way home. I naturally thought, great! Canadian side! But because Justin made me feel so God damn guilty - okay, no, because they've gotten serious about pre-existing border crossing laws - and with make them stricter on January 1, 2007, now you need "proof of citizenship", a driver's license not good enough, next year you must have a passport - we decided not to risk and wasted time or hassle and just see it from the American side.

I'd always heard bad things about the American side. I mean, you can tell from the Canadian side that the view must blow. And one of my favorite episodes of This American Life is all about Niagara Falls, NY, and what a ghost town it is. Now there's a big casino ... in the middle of a ghost town.

Well. Goat Island is also a state park. "The oldest state park in the U.S.," they say. And it is, a nice, American state park. Just as there is on the Canadian side, there's alot of dumb stuff here, too. But it isn't within viewing distance of the Falls. There's picnic benches and large lawns and a great pedestrian track, and you can't get a car near the Falls (not like the Canadian side, where you can drive right past it.) Sure there's a restauarant and a gift shop, but only one of each. And a big-ass statue of Nikolai Tesla, I had no idea that was there.

America did right by the Falls there. What is so totally unfair, is that not only do the Canadians get the better view (though some sights on the American side are still grotesquely beautiful) but they totally f*cked up ours with all their sh*t. I swear, there are five new high rises on the far side of the Falls, and certain old ones, the Motorola tower and the Skylon look really dated and hideous. And you see the cars over there, right by the Falls. I used to look at the poor old Americans on the other side and think, there isn't much there there. Just trees and bushes and tourists.

And wouldn't that be nice?