The 13th was my last day in Canada. It took me nearly 4 hours to get the 90 miles from where I slept to Niagara Falls. Most of this was due to heavy traffic delays for apparently no reason, but part about 30 minutes of it was spent at the Legends Estates Winery. I stopped off for a tour, but they weren't giving any that day, so I just settled for a tasting.
The girl who was giving me the samples was very knowledgeable about the wines there. I tried 2 white wines, 3 red wines, and a dessert ice wine. I felt mildly special because my 5 Canadian dollars was only supposed to let me try 2 white and 2 reds, so I got a bit extra. I probably could have had more, but I still had to drive the rest of the way to Niagara. As it turns out, I'm not a big wine fan. Although I did like the whites better than the reds. The ice wine was super sweet (hence being a dessert wine) and rather good, but only in very small quantities.
I then made my way to Niagara Falls. The rumors are true, that the falls are much more impressive from the Canadian side. Although the falls were gorgeous, I expected them to be much taller than they were. The way I had it pictured in my head, they were at least 100 feet taller. Again, the roaring falls cascading over the rocks and shooting mist higher than the falls themselves was no sight to joke about, but I guess I just had it built up too much in my mind.
After a few quick pics and some additional introspective lingering, I strolled on down to the casino. I spent the next 2 hours losing 2 dollars. I had 10 dollars left to spend, and the minimum to play poker was 35. I settled for the slots, and had myself a grand ol' time. A nice old lady also instructed me on some of the finer points of deuces wild video poker. I was up 3 dollars at one point, but I quickly lost my gain. After it was clear that was going to be my only winning streak of the day, I quit with 8 dollars left in my pocket.
Seeing as how the rest of Niagara Falls was just one big tourist trap after another, I decided it was time to go back to America where half of everyone was overweight and gas wasn't so damn expensive. I must say that while I was in Canada, I barely noticed any overweight people, let alone any obese ones. Almost everyone was skinny. It was a bit weird going into a Wendy's and everyone being the same (almost) the same size as me.
Anyway, back to America. As I spent an agonizingly long time in line, I finally had my turn with the border guard. I handed him my Canadian visitor's pass they gave me when I crossed into Canada, along with my driver's license. Apparently those visitors passes are very rare, and I didn't realize how lucky I was to receive one until I tried to get back into the US. The border guard had never seen one before, not even heard of them. He thought I forged some random ass document that didn't even exist. He called over his supervisor, who also had never seen one before. But the supervisor said he did recall hearing about something like a visitors pass existing, but couldn't recollect exactly what they were or what they looked like.
I guess it was about to be the end of a shift, because they passed me through. But not before spending 30 minutes looking through all my stuff. They didn't want to spend the extra time or effort interrogating me inside, so they waved me through. The guard and his supervisor were dumbfounded that I travelled all the way from Louisiana and slept in the camper that I have. They couldn't wrap their heads around how anyone would want to sleep in anything so small on purpose.
So after a fairly eventful day, I was back in America. I made a much needed stop by Taco Bell before finding a parking lot for the night. I didn't see a single Taco Bell in Canada, and I was jonesin for a burrito. I love America.
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