As it happened, thanks to the labor of the Fair and Industrious Trudy, our full day at Niagara Falls included three things for which we needed rain slickers.
1. Under the Falls
On the Canadian side, they have tunnels that lead into the rock to several places behind the falls.
They give you yellow rain slickers, and you walk down the long, sloping tunnel with damp walls and floors toward the rumbling sound in the distance. As you descend, others returning from the far end have smiles on their faces and wet hair (for those who didn’t pull up their hoods).
At the end of the tunnels are holes seven feet tall that evidently emerge from the rock face of the cliff directly into the heart of the falling water. It falls in swirling sheets, and there is of course too much water there to see beyond. And the rumbling is now a crashing splashing sound, and the ground below you and the rock above and beside you is shacking and pounding. And the air is pulsing.
And your face is all wet.
2. Maid of the Mist
They tell you not to worry where you stand, that they will spin the boats so everyone will see everything. Well let me tell you it’s categorically not true. Pay attention to where you stand!
“Let’s stand over here!” I said to Trudy, and we stood on the starboard side. But when we approached the base of the American falls, the captain didn’t turn the boat.
“So let’s stand over there!” I shouted, and we shuffled in our blue slickers over to the port side where the mist from the American Falls and the afternoon sun coming down from the Canadian direction lit up a rainbow that must have been 270 degrees. We screamed in glee with all the other kids.“Now let’s go over here!” I shouted to Trudy, and she laughed at me.
“And now let’s go over there!”
And so it went. We screamed in glee with all the other kids as the boat surged so far into the mist of Horseshoe Falls that it was hard to hear anything other than the pounding water and hard to see for the spray of water in your eyes.
The boat stayed there, pointed bow-first into the falling water for what seemed like a very long time. And we stood here and there and here and there and got wetter and laughed and screamed in glee with all the kids.
And our faces got very wet.
3. Niagara’s Fury
When the animated feature was over, the far wall opened into a huge, black, round room with water dripping from the ceiling and wet floors made of metal grating with water somewhere beneath. Covered in our blue rain slickers, we shuffled in.
The lights went dark. An ice-cold breeze started blowing. And then bright white lights came on above us and snow was falling. Real snow! Blowing in the cold breeze, falling from somewhere up above.
Then a screen lit up with a video of snow and ice and white mountains. And all around us was the sound of howling wind. And real snow! And then the ground started rumbling and the snow and ice on the screen started falling and the ground shook.
Now the sound of melting snow. Drops of water all around us. On the screen. Falling from above. It came faster and then the sound of crashing thunder and falling rain and water streamed onto us from above and the lights flashed white and the ground shook and more water rained down on us.
Trudy and I were laughing so hard we couldn’t stand up straight. And we would duck our heads as the falling sheets of water fell from above soaking the row of people in front of us to the bone.
Then the water stopped falling and the screen around us showed the Niagara River and the rapids. We were flying down the course of the river in big sweeping arcs from one wall of the canyon to the other, leaning to one side and then another. And then we came to the edge of the falls, to the very edge where the pastel bluegreen water drops into the abyss and white mist rises up from the floor of the gorge. And the crowd screamed as we went over the edge with the water.
And our faces got very wet.