Falling Water

As today was predicted to be the mildest of our visit to Buffalo, we loaded the dogs in the car and headed up to the falls. Niagara Falls, that is. The state park on the US side of the river was more bustling than we expected, despite the fact that the observation area overlooking Horseshoe Falls was closed due to the eight inches of ice and snow still covering it. We walked the path that loops Goat Island, taking in the American Falls and being awed by all the ice chunks still floating down the Niagara River; it was a full 10 degrees cooler down by the water. 

Over in Canada, people strolled the well-manicured formal gardens that make up their river walk, and as usual, it seemed so strange to peer into another country, perhaps even more so these days. Our fellow tourists were also an international bunch: we heard many languages spoken as we shared the views with them, and I wondered what the border experience was like these days. 

Of course, the falls themselves remain as amazing and transcendent as ever, unmoved by our human struggles. Watching millions of gallons of aquamarine water plunge over the precipice is somehow both humbling and elevating. As Charles Dickens wrote in 1842, "It would be hard for a man to stand nearer to God than he does there."