Well, I screwed up again.  I try to do my videos so that I can schedule them for Monday and Thursday at 8 AM.  We had a great weekend in Niagara Falls even though it was raining most of the time.  The boys were wet and muddy most of the time but I’m not against mud.  But I split the weekend up into the three things that we did and a tour of the campground.  Four different videos.  We went to a dog trial, and we toured Niagara Falls, and we visited Lockport and the Erie Canal.  Those four videos should have covered the next two weeks while I go camping.  That way I don’t need to worry about uploading a video when I come back  Sunday night to show Monday morning.

But apparently I screwed up and when uploading the last video I actually hit “Publish Immediately”, so it actually published on Friday instead of the next Thursday.  So now I’m an entire week behind instead of all week ahead.  Well it’s a good thing we are working around the house this weekend, will find something to video and load up.  And I hope anybody who saw the videos bunched together in one week enjoys them, because we certainly enjoyed making them.  Quality isn’t the best, but rain does that to a production !

There really is a lot of impressive things around Western New York and the Niagara frontier.  If you can overlook the thousands of high tension wires and chemical plants, there is a lot of history

for that area.  I was sorry to see that the weather was so cold and wet so we did not get to go down and see some of the big boats that sail the Great Lakes.  Last year I had a biker stay at my house who was coming from Vermont and going to Lake Erie who was a tall ship’s rigger.  She was an extremely cute young lady of about 24 and was riding a fully loaded touring bike in a wind whipped blizzard in early April 2015.  For a while after staying at my house she kept sending me information on what ship she was on as she went from Lake Erie to Baton Rouge and on to Houston.  But I have not heard from her in a while and though I have sent her a few emails I haven’t gotten a response.  I believe a lot of the people I meet in my travels or on their travels are a lot like seeing a shooting star.  Those people are very interesting and fascinating, but they are only a fleeting moment in your life.  I think memories are the greatest treasures we have, more so than any materialistic things we own.  So go to wondrous places, and cherish the memories !

So the trip to Niagara Falls was a great hit as far as we’re concerned.  We didn’t over do with any drastically big hikes or crazy adventures.  Both of the boys and I had a great time and are eager to get back out for another trip.  When we got back we were so psyched  we went for a hike of 2 miles on the canal trail, and afterwards  I noticed because Caesar drags 1 foot, he had worn his toenails off and was bleeding at the tips of his toes.  Poor little guy I’ll have to buy him some booties to wear so he doesn’t drag his toes on the concrete and stones.  We did go out  to the dog park (Which is mostly grass) and practice some with the drone, and Caesar wore some infant socks three layers thick, but he actually wore through the tips of those.  Oh well, he has always been a challenge.

So just a few notes on the actual Niagara Falls $20 tour video.  The Scenic Parkway shuttle goes from the actual falls all the way north to Fort Niagara.  And it stops at the devils hole, the whirlpool, the New York power Authority Hydro plant, the gorge visitors center, and of course the falls.  So that’s quite a deal if you decide to take in all those things over the course of a weekend because some of those parking lots get very full after 10 AM.  Remember. for the video,  I’m there during the off-season on a cold and miserable wet weekend.  The other tidbit I’ll tell you is that about two blocks away from the scenic Parkway I found two grocery stores that sell pretty good food.  These are full-size supermarkets and they have deli’s and bakeries and sandwiches and salads, and cooked chickens and all sorts of things that make a touring camping trip a lot easier than having to cook and clean at the campsite.  As most people know I use paper plates and plastic utensils, so not having pots and pans to clean either is really nice.  The food joints around the falls and the other attractions are pretty expensive as you would expect.

One of the other  attractions I’ll throw out  is the Niagara casinos.  I’m sure they’re a lot of fun for somebody who wants to stay inside and gamble but I would expect they are not the best casinos being that they are in the middle of such a high rent tourist attraction.  About an hour away from Niagara Falls mostly East and the little South is the Genesee Country Village.  I was going to do a video on it but it was not open for the season yet and so wasn’t really available for me to get around and do a good video but it’s a very large museum village.  It reminds me a lot of colonial Williamsburg.  My understanding is that they relocated something like 35 original farmhouses and authentic colonial buildings into this large area that now you can walk around in and see what the world was like in the 1800s or 1700s.  The other attraction that’s about 50 miles from Buffalo right off the New York State Thruway is Darien Lake, which is both a state park and next-door a huge amusement park with roller coasters and thrill rides and they have a wave pool that is supposed to be quite amazing.

Well that’s the blog for today, I need to get in here more often and give you more details on my videos.  The problem with this one is that I did the videos three days ago and now I’m trying to remember what I wanted to say in the blog.  If I was smart I would probably do the blog while camping because I can do that on my notebook.  Editing the video on the notebook is extremely painful because it’s very slow.

But anyways thanks for reading my blog and I will have more to come.  Stay tuned to the Vlog on YouTube because that’s my primary base.  I try to post on Facebook when I do a video and when I’m out camping someplace, and I tweet once in a while.  And I just signed up for an INSTAGRAM account.  So maybe I’ll be taking more pictures with my cell phone and posting them on Instagram because I guess that is the only way you can do Instagram.

Alright,  I have to proofread this and then post it.  Stay safe folks, I hope to see on the road..  Rick, Caesar, Dakota