Niagara Falls...

[pyat]

It's a long weekend, so we took the girls and did the tourist thing in Niagara Falls, which is about a 45 minute drive from here.

First stop was classy Lundy's Lane, home of such attractions as:

You know, the motel/restaurant attached to this sign was pretty alarming. But, I have to confess that getting married in a place where I can get a nice plate of bami goring, free internet, a dip in a jacuzzi, and cuddles afterward by firelight really is my idea of awesome.

However, our actual destination was someplace I've wanted to go since I was 8 years old...



The Flying Saucer, an awesome SF-themed greasy spoon/family restaurant. The all-day breakfast specials range in price from $1.29 (two eggs, hash browns, and toast) to $18.95 for some elaborate steak and fancy egg concoction.


Inside. There were two of these "saucer" sections, attached with a little rectangular dining area.


Elizabeth reacting to the decor, which she described as "things daddy likes."


... she was right. Look, an Omnibot Mark II!


More interior.


Following lunch, we headed for the second tourist trap... Cliffton Hill.


A rather sad and crumbling Italian eatery, built into a house, marks the start of the Cliffton Hill area - or the end, if you're walking up from the Falls. It's all downhill from this point, at least in the physical sense.


I'm pretty sure it's closed.



Yes, it's Dracula's Castle... and Discount Factory Outlet Superstore! Dracula's Castle is perhaps the lamest of spook houses on Cliffton Hill, but the aging exhibits have a certain creaky charm, and retain the power to scare via startlement.


The Count is in direction competition with Dr. Frankenstein, who manages to put on a much slicker show, perhaps thanks to his alliance with Burger King. Or perhaps, the King of Burghers?


A bloodsucking gargoyle and a US currency exhange kiosk. Sort of redundant, really.


Louis Tussaud was Madame Tussaud's less talented brother.


The Rock Legends Wax Museum. Elizabeth was pretty sure this was also a haunted house.


The Ripley's Museum and Monkey Cathedral.


velvetpage and wind-blown Claire.



The highlight of the trip was our ride on the Skyway Wheel, a 200-foot tall ferris wheel with heated, enclosed gondolas. I was able to get some very nice shots of the Falls.


Massive ice structures around the base of the American side.



A tourist tower on the US side.


Horseshoe Falls.


Elizabeth!


Dracula's Castle and Brick City. Brick City sucks, by the way.


Close up of ice.


The last suriviving bit of Pyramid Place, a cool late 70s, early 80s kids park that suffered a fire about 25 years ago.


More ice!


Falls and ice!


Extreme zoom and cropped - the Buffalo, NY skyline.


More ice!


Kissing?? In Niaraga Falls??


View of Cliffton Hill from a height.


After that, we paid $26 to get into "Brick City" which turned out to be single room full of Lego buildings, with a small play area. I was NOT impressed.


Maybe if they'd let me play with the pirate ships.


Giant portrait in Lego. Anyone recognize the painting?



And that was Niagara Falls.


Hey! normanrafferty! Have an icon. :)

Comments

[zenten.livejournal.com]

I miss that strip.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Cliffton Hill?

[zenten.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I haven't been there since high school.

[summerfields.livejournal.com]

That is not what I thought the UFO looked like inside...I thought it was waaay seedier or something.
I remember being afraid to even drive by it sometimes, not because of seediness, but because of the aliens, of course!

[pyat.livejournal.com]

It was cheesy, but fairly well kept, and definitely popular. You might be spooked by all the posters of aliens drinking beer, though. :)

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

I think I had about half of those pirate sets.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

"Had...?"

[relee.livejournal.com]

I don't remember Niagra Falls being anywhere near that nice. I had a traumatic butterfly event there though. They're very sharp, you see.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Did you go to the Butterfly Conservatory?

[relee.livejournal.com]

I fell into an autumn bush next to the whirlpool, I think it was called the Devil's Eye or something. Only, they weren't leaves. It was a bush full of butterflies, and I fell into it. Suddenly there was a storm of them around me, their wings so sharp!

[used_songs]

Elizabeth's coat is super cool! Also, I am desperately jealous about the UFO restaurant.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

If you're ever up this way, Niagara Falls is definitely a place to check out.

[dronon.livejournal.com]

Oh wow... I had no idea any of those things even existed! The couple of times my parents took me to Niagara Falls when I was little, we'd park someplace, look at the falls for about 15 minutes on the Canadian side over an iron railing, and then drive on to wherever we were going (usually Cleveland). I've got no memories of seeing the town at all; I don't think we ever went in. It's like a whole other world.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

It really is. The two big attractions are Lundy's Lane and Cliffton Hill. Lundy's Lane is the down-at-the-heels strip of souveneir peddlers, "Honeymoon" motels, greasy spoons and adult noveltyn shops. It was also the site of a significant battle, and there are a number of museums and really old graveyards, as well.

Lundy's Lane intersects with Cliffton Hill, which is (mostly) slick and modern tourist stuff, ranging from the incredibly cheesy to the actually very cool.

And then of course there's Marineland, the Butterfly Conservatory, the Maid of the Mist, the casinos/hotel strip, helicopter rides, and the tunnels under the falls!

[relee.livejournal.com]

What about the two waterparks they're always advertising on teleomavision?

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

Man, so cool. Real estate is too expensive in this town for that stuff to survive here, so the nearest example (I think) is up by the NH border, next to a nuclear plant.

You take the word lurid, Rickenharp thought, and you put it raw in a vat filled with the juice of the word appeal. You leave it and let the acids of appeal leach the colors out of lurid, so that you get a kind of gasoline rainbow on the surface of the vat. You extract the petro rainbow with cheesecloth, strain it into a glass tube, and dilute heavily with oil of cartoon innocence and extract of pure subjectivity. Now run a current through the glass tube and all the other tubes of the neon signs...
-- Freezone by John Shirley

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I understand New Jersey is really good at boardwalks and roadside strips with this sort of feel. :)

[hossblacksilver.livejournal.com]

Nice pictures.

Pyramid Place makes me think of the former World of Sid and Marty Krofft (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_of_Sid_and_Marty_Krofft). Which I have vague recollection considering that I was only a couple years old at the time.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Fairly similar I'd say, but with fewer mascot costumes. :)

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

It looked a lot colder than our recent trip...

But I now want to eat breakfast at The Flying Saucer!

::B::

[normanrafferty.livejournal.com]

I gave up eating bicycles for lent.

Bookmark that picture of Claire in the Flying Saucer. That's what her face will look like when she's a teenager and you attempt to show off any of your things to her friends.