I left Lockport, NY, this a.m. and headed west on Upper Mountain Road to the Lewiston Queenston bridge to Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, a little over 30 miles. About six miles of this route near Lewiston, NY, was through the Tuscarora Indian Nation (pop. 17,412), a Native American tribe and First Nations band government of the Iroquoian family, with members today in New York and Ontario, Canada.

Shown below is the point of no return heading to Canada. The designated lanes did not include any reference to bikes or pedestrians, so I took one of the lanes for cars rather than a truck lane and had to wait only about 10 minutes to talk to a customs officer. His only question before waving me through was how long I planned to be in Canada. I told him about six days.

This is what the Niagara River looks like from the bridge.

I took this photo of the bridge later in the day from Niagara Falls, Ontario.

I didn’t know much about Niagara Falls before my visit, other than it was where my parents had their honeymoon in the 1950s. I learned that Niagara Falls refers to a group of three waterfalls in which the Niagara River drains water from Lake Erie into Lake Ontario. Niagara Falls has the highest flow rate of any waterfall in North America and is an international tourist attraction. There is quite a crowd of tourists here, and I heard many languages other than English spoken as I walked along the roads above the river. This photo shows the American Falls and the smallest of the three waterfalls, Bridal Veil Falls.

And this photo shows the largest waterfall, Horseshoe Falls, also known as the Canadian Falls, which is at the international border.

This photo was taken from the tenth-floor window of a restaurant (please excuse the glare) and shows all three of the waterfalls.

As this monument explains, Niagara Falls started out a lot smaller than it is today when the glaciers began to recede about 12,000 years ago. But it is about to get smaller again. I’ve read that due to constant erosion, in about 50,000 years, Niagara Falls will have eroded the remaining 20 miles to Lake Erie and will cease to exist.

Speaking of honeymoons at Niagara Falls, I was curious to know more about why this became such a tradition. According to online accounts, Niagara Falls has been called the Honeymoon Capital of the World, and this role began in 1801 when Theodosia (daughter of U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr) and Joseph Alston traveled from Albany to the Falls on a Bridal Tour with a number of servants and nine pack horses. Three years later, two other illustrious newlyweds, Jerome Bonaparte (younger brother of Napoleon) and his wife Elizabeth Patterson, also spent their honeymoon there.

And speaking of traditions, my route in Niagara Falls, Ontario, once again followed a bike trail, for about six miles, and, once again, I found myself getting lost on the trails–just like I did in Rochester. You may think this was user error, and you would probably be correct. This time, however, my Chief Navigator Trudi was able to locate me on Find My Friends and inform me that I was going the wrong way. This was just after I had happily cruised to the bottom of a long downhill stretch that I had to climb again. I saw a nice park bench after this ordeal and decided it was time to rest and have a snack. It was a beautiful bench, but sadly, I saw that it had been installed in memory of someone else’s navigator, Anna Elizabeth Douglas, “Wife, mother, friend, lover, navigator.” A good reminder to treasure those we love, especially those who help us make sure we don’t lose our way.

A couple other reminders came up in signs I saw that day. First, this homemade wooden sign in front of a house on the Upper Mountain Rd. in NY: “If You Stand for Nothing You Will Fall for Anything.”

The sign below reminded me that pianos are beautiful, sure, but their real beauty is in the music they make, not in serving as a silent showpiece for folks who see one sitting in the corner of a hotel lobby.

I’m taking tomorrow (Sunday, 8/6) off and then on Monday will be back on the bike, heading for Port Colborne, Ontario.