Niagara Falls…It’s Big Unless You’re Over 12 Feet Tall

We went to Indianapolis last week to work at a trade show.  We do this every year, and generally take a weekend before or after to see the country around the show’s location.  This year, we decided to take our vacation after the show, so it’s more than a weekend…we’ll be gone two weeks!

 

After leaving Indianapolis, we went east to Washington, PA to visit with some of Curtis’ family.  The next morning we headed north for Niagara Falls.  We drove the big, lumbering RV through Buffalo and crossed the Niagara River on I-190 onto the south side of Grand Island.  So far so good.  After crossing Grand Island, we drove across the Niagara again.  The bridge was narrow and tall; Curtis was focusing on the road and told me to check out the view.  Which means no one was watching the signs.

 

We came off the bridge and took the exit for Niagara Falls just as the GPS said…and noticed too late that there was a low clearance bridge ahead!  It was only 12’ tall and the RV is 12’8”!  Crap!  What do we do now?

 

We went around the clover leaf and pulled over onto the grass right before the bridge; we actually had to pull up over a curb to get off the road.  We’re stuck!  We can’t go forward and we can’t back up an exit!  Feeling like total idiots, we called the Buffalo Police Department non-emergency number, who transferred us to the New York State Police.   While we were waiting for the state trooper to arrive, we watched a tour bus come off the ramp, move over to the left-hand lane, and clear the bridge with room to spare. Hmmm… we not any taller than that bus! But the sign says TWELVE feet ZERO inches, so I’m not losing an air conditioner on a bridge.

When the trooper arrived, he told us that the clearance on the left hand lane was actually 13’4”…plenty of room!  The trooper was a real trooper and blocked traffic for us. We pulled back off the curb, and shot across three lanes and were on our way. Curtis even let the air out of the suspension to give us a couple extra inches just in case. Disaster averted!

Parking for big, lumbering RV’s is free at the Aquarium of Niagara Falls.  We parked there and walked back to the waterfall.  We went out on the observation deck, got some great pictures and a jumping photo. We then took the elevators down to the river level and got some more photos.  We had forgotten to grab our passports when we left the RV, so we did not cross to the Canada side.  We just headed back to the RV and back to Buffalo…just in time for rush hour traffic.

Enjoy some of the pictures we took below.