One year later, a very different Niagara Falls

 February of last year, Rick and I decided to take a road trip to Niagara Falls. We really weren't intending to do much more than drive around but when we got there it was a ghost town. Nothing was open, there were few cars on the streets and no pedestrians. We ended up parking and walking beside the river and the falls and had it to ourselves.

This year.... much different.

Last year I got some wonderful, ice encrusted, pictures,but our recent days of rain

have cleared any ice off the surrounding trees, You can see some on the trees are iced on the U.S. side.

No ice meant that I just had the Falls to play with when taking pictures

Luckily

they are very photogenic

as was a very co-operative rainbow

that I took tons of pictures of.

Usually a large cloud of mist obscures most of the rim but this day the mist stayed low, perhaps because of the cold or the strong wind.

The rapids in the river break the ice into smaller chunks that, once over the falls, form gently swirling whirlpools that look like cobblestones.

We walked

until opposite the American Falls

I played around with forcing focus

The ferris wheel was operating (Clifton Hill had some activity) as was the zip line down into the gorge (would have been a very cold ride)

Rick said when he worked for Otis, he serviced the elevators on the outside of the Skylon.

It was not "pre-pandemic crowded" and many people wore masks but it did feel strange to see the crowds and to dodge around a bit to keep a distance.

After paying for parking ($20 this time, we found a free spot last year) we drove down river, stopped to look at the Whirlpool Rapids (Rick worked on the cable car here too) and got on the highway at Lewiston.