Yes I know, it’s been a while since I posted anything on the blog. I have no excuse except I needed a break, so I took one, and ended up spending a lot of time knitting socks during the evening instead of blogging, so Stephanie, Jonathan and Mathew all have a new pair of socks now 🙂

We left Thermopolis and slowly drove East towards Niagara Falls and Montreal, we stopped on the way in Cheyenne WY and camped at the military FAMCAMP, where we met with some good friends; Peggy and Frank and Buster and Joy, we spent one night there and were on our way the next morning.

We really enjoyed our stay at Kenesse Lake Preserve, near lake Erie, the area features dozens of covered bridges, so we took a ride and found a few of them, it felt like a treasure hunt.

From there we made our way into Niagara Falls. I was not too excited about going there, I remembered going 30 years ago and I was not impressed back then, there was a lot of tourist crap and my impression was not too favorable. Doug wanted to go so we went, and I was pleasantly surprised. The area changed a lot in 30 years, there is still a lot of tourist traps but they are mainly confined on one street. This time I really enjoyed the visit.

We took a ride in the Maid of the Mist and got soaked, that was a lot of fun, we also went down the tunnels behind the Canadian Falls, we saw the fireworks and light show at night, it was great.

There are two sides to Niagara Falls, the American and Canadian side, the American falls although higher (180 ft compared to 170 ft)than their Canadian counterparts are not as spectacular, but don’t get me wrong they are a sight to be seen. The Canadian Falls are also known as the “Horseshoe Falls”, because of their shape.

American Falls

Canadian Falls (Horseshoe Falls)

It is quite amazing to think that 4 of the Great Lakes empty themselves in the Niagara river, go down the Niagara Falls and then turn north and fill Lake Ontario, which in turn empties into the St. Lawrence River and finally into the Atlantic Ocean, wow, that’s a lot of water!

The Falls we see now are a tamed version of the original ones, there are 2 Power Plants up river who take a lot of the water that goes over the falls, actually, they regulate the flow so well that if you want to jump the falls in a barrel like some people did, they can stop the flow and there would be no water going over the falls, so you would not be able to jump. The erosion is also controlled nowadays, otherwise the Falls would travel back about 1 foot a year.

The Skylon Tower and the Green Bear

Sometimes inspiration strikes and we don’t think too much, we just feel something would be fun, so we go for it. Dining in the Revolving Dining Room of the Skylon Tower was one of those ideas, where we totally forgot that Bear is afraid of heights and I am motion sick.

The dining room offers a spectacular 360 degree view of the Niagara Falls area, problem is, it is high, and it moves….

So we get there and take the elevator up, and the elevator operator starts explaining how fast we are going up and how high, and Bear is facing the wall, with his hands over his ears, screaming ‘I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want to hear it’, so the guy waited until we were off the elevator to continue his little story for the rest of the folks in there…

Then we were assigned a table and I realized that I was moving backwards, which made me totally nauseated, so I asked Bear if he would change place with me, and he agreed, being the gentleman that he is, but he was not looking like he was feeling too good himself. Anyway, we ordered our food, which was fantastic by the way and then we saw two ropes coming down on the window right besides where we were sitting, the ropes were dangling and we were really wondering what was going on, until we saw the window washers…. Here they were suspended about 600 feet in the air, washing the windows. All the time we were there Bear was trying not to look outside, but he couldn’t keep from looking at the window washers, and that is when he turned green…. We quickly made our way to the elevator and left the premises… it was great, we are glad we did it, but we will never do it again.

Rainbow Bridge as seen from the Skylon Tower. It joins Canada to the United States.

Ropes coming down besides bear on the other side of the windows….

Window Washers

Family time in Montreal

After Niagara Falls, we spent a few days in the Lake George area and then arrived in Montreal. This part of the trip was more about spending time with my family and my friends. We celebrated mom’s 80th birthday on September 2nd, we had a great party and I saw aunts and uncles I hadn’t seen in a long time. Spending time with my sisters was a real treat.

I reconnected with friends, Nicole which I met in 8th grade and Eva, a dollmaker friend. I went to her studio on Thursdays to work on some dolls and saw some of my sculpting class students, it was really fun to immerse myself into the dollmaking world again.

Then, of course, last but certainly not least, my daughter Stephanie and her husband Jonathan and my precious grandson Mathew (who just turned 3 on September 16th), what a character he is! We went apple picking on my last day in Montreal, and he figured out he could climb trees, the first one he tried was too big, so he found a smaller one and made it to the top, with no help, and we could not help him go down either, he had to do it by himself, he wants to do everything by himself, he struggles until he gets it, he is just so adorable!

We finally had to leave and it is a heartbreak every time, but that’s the choice I made…

Mathew up the apple tree

Hershey PA

What a sweet town this is (pun intended). Hershey is the home of the largest chocolate factory in the world, it employs over 2, 000 people and is in production 24 hours a day. They make 25 Hershey bars a second and countless amounts of Hershey kisses.

Mr. Hershey was born in 1857 on a dairy farm. His family was poor but his father had a lot of ideas that he tried to implement, unfortunately, he never made any money with his ideas, but he taught his son how to think outside the box and not to be afraid to try things. At 15, Milton S. Hershey started working as an apprentice for a candy maker, and by the time he was 19, he thought he was ready to venture on his own. He borrowed money and started a caramel company, which went bankrupt a few months later (the high price of sugar was his downfall). Not deterred by the experience, he borrowed more money and tried again, and failed again. He then went to see his aunt, and she mortgaged her house to finance his new attempt at creating a caramel company, this time, a few days before he went bankrupt for the third time, he received a gigantic order for his caramels from England. Instead of declaring bankruptcy, he asked the bankers to loan him more money to expand his operation. A few months later, he was not only out of risk for bankruptcy, but the company was thriving. Since his caramels were not selling in the US, he traveled to England and found out that they were buying his caramels and dipping them in chocolate before selling them. He came back and started producing chocolate. He then experimented with adding milk to his chocolate recipe, a thing he had done with his caramels, to make them softer and more chewy, after a few years, he finally introduced his renowned milk chocolate to the world. He sold the caramel side of his company for 1 billion dollars and concentrated on making chocolate.

He and his wife Kathryn were great benefactors to their community, founding the Milton S. Hershey school for orphaned boys, which is still open today (although it accepts boys and girls now). Since Mr. Hershey was childless when he died (1945), he left his fortune including 77% of the the controlling stocks in his chocolate company to a fund, which is responsible for administrating and paying for the tuition, living expenses and other needs of the students in his school. The school accepts children from 4 to 16 years old, who are doing well academically but are in financial hardship. They teach from Pre-K level up to 12th grade.

Hershey Factory, notice the lamp posts on the street look like Hershey kisses.

How sweet is that!

We are leaving tomorrow, on our way to North Carolina.

We left Cody and drove about 80 miles south-east to Thermopolis WY. The town is home to the world’s biggest hot spring. In 1896, a treaty was signed by Chief Washakie of the Shoshones and Chief Sharp Nose of the Arapaho, at Wind River Indian Reservation headquarters in Fort Washakie. The tribe sold the parcel of land (almost 10 square miles) on which the Hot Spring sits, to the United States for $60, 000 worth of cattle and food supplies. Chief Washakie stipulated a portion of the water had to remain free to the people. In 1899, the Wyoming legislature set aside the park and one quarter of the water from the Big Spring to be free for public use.

So, to our delight, we went to the State Bath House and soaked for about 20 minutes in 104F, undiluted, 100% pure mineral water, for free!

Bear soaking in mineral water

That’s not all there is to do in Thermopolis, there is also a world class dinosaur museum, where you can see rare specimen that can only be found in Wyoming or in only a few other places in the world. You can also observe workers cleaning bones and piecing them together. If you feel like it, there is a “dig site” tour available, where you can go visit a dig site and even try your hand at finding fossils.

Talk about stepping back in time, we found this little A&W diner, where you still have to order your food by picking the orange phone from the wall, like it used to be when I was a kid. We really did get a kick out of that, the diner was also attached to a bowling alley, so we played a game, Bear discovered he can still play bowling, I found out I can’t LOL LOL. 😀

Then we went to see Legend Rock, which is about 20 miles west of Thermopolis. You have to obtain a key and a permit in order to be allowed to go see it. An archaeological survey found there are about 283 pictures on 92 rock panels. The oldest work dates back 10, 000 years while the newer ones were carved after the arrival of the white man.

There were more things to do in the area, but we needed to move on, so we left with a promise to come back one day and finish our visit.

We left Yellowstone National Park and headed toward Cody, the town Buffalo Bill Cody founded in 1896.

There is a lot to do in Cody, they have a world class museum, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. It encompasses 5 different museums; the Buffalo Bill museum, the Whitney Gallery of Western Art, the Plains Indian Museum, the Cody Firearms Museum, the Draper Museum of Natural History and also the McCracken Research Library.

Artifact in the museum of Plains Indians —————————————————– and in the Buffalo Bill museum

It takes at least 2 days to go through all the exhibits.

There is also a Trolley tour which takes you all over town, while a guide explains the history and shows you just about everything Cody has to offer. Combined tickets for the trolley and the museum are available.

The first night, we went to the movies, we were tired and decided that we had done so much sightseeing in Yellowstone, we deserved a break. To our delight, we ended up at the Cody Theater, built in 1936, it still has the “art deco” feel, only one show room, one movie only and they specify that they won’t play the movie unless at least 6 people show up, it was like stepping right back in time.

Bufflalo Bill’s Irma Hotel, named after his youngest daughter and built by the man himself in 1902 is still in business today. It also features the original cherrywood bar given to him by Queen Victoria, we had lunch there, the food was great (especially the bread pudding with whiskey sauce) and the prices were reasonable.

The cherry wood bar inside the Irma Hotel

From June to September, Monday to Saturday at 6PM, there is an Old West performance by gunfighters in the street next to the Irma Hotel.

Tecumseh’s Trading Post Old West Miniature Village and Museum offers a 7, 000 sqft diorama depicting scenes of the Old West, like buffalo hunts, Indians communicating with smoke signals etc. etc. etc. Portrayals are historically accurate.

The Old Trail Town actually sits on the original townsite as laid out by Buffalo Bill Cody.

Old Trail town

It contains an impressive collection of buildings moved there from less than 150 miles away but all of them have an historical significance.

It also features artifacts from the period and a cemetery where famous (or infamous) people of the Old West have been reburied like Jeremiah “liver eatin” Jonhson, made famous by Robert Redford in the movie Jeremiah Jonhson.

The grave of Jeremiah Jonhson

The Buffalo Bill Dam also merits a visit, although we didn’t have time to do it, but we saw it on our way down from Yellowstone. (We had to spend some time washing the motorhome, because the road we took from Yellowstone park to Cody was under construction, so by the time we arrived in Cody, we couldn’t even see the color of the coach, we were covered with mud 🙁 …

Downtown there are a number of galleries featuring work from local artists.

Cody is the Rodeo Capital of the world, and every night during the summer, you can go to a rodeo, they call it “Nite Rodeo“. That’s what we did for Bear’s birthday and we had a lot of fun.

In short, Cody is a fun town to visit and has a lot to offer.