The North Door

On the last weekend in April the peach trees are in blossom and the cherry blossoms are just peeking out of the buds with the intention of coming to full bloom next week.

After picking up our guests at the St. Catharines bus terminal Saturday afternoon, we drove them to Niagara-on-the-Lake just before 5 PM. Most of the shops along Queen Street close at 6 PM. The Old Niagara Bookshop on King St. closes at 7 PM.

On the drive along Niagara Stone Road, I pointed out the many wineries, antique stores, and restaurants. The road (from the QEW) is the one most used by those visiting Old Niagara.

(The other two, less frequented routes to NOTL, are the Niagara Parkway http://www.niagaraparks.com/heritage/ along the Niagara River and Lakeshore Road from St. Catharines. The first is mostly parkland, the second has many orchards and vineyards, all three routes different in their own way.)

I let my wife and the two guests off at Greaves Jams & Marmalades. Most stores along Queen Street are open but the Niagara Apothecary has not yet opened for the season.
http://www.niagaraapothecary.ca/

Usually I parked at the back of Simcoe Park and across the street from 17 Byron St., The Rectory (1858), the house used by Christopher Walken in the movie The Dead Zone. My car was parked where Martin Sheen held his political campaign rally in the same movie. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Zone_%28film%29
The Dead Zone is based on a Stephen King novel, and, like The Shawshank Redemption and Carrie, it is one of Stephen King's most popular movie adaptations.

Immediately, I went to the bookstore and spent some time browsing through the books. Then I walked to the back of the Courthouse and paid a visit to the new washrooms previously located in the basement of the Courthouse itself. The new building is an ugly concrete-block construction, although it provides much more room.

The guests were still in the jam store! They came out a little later with very heavy bags filled with mini jars of jam: peach jam, cherry jam, orange marmalade, crab-apple jam, rhubarb raspberry jam, and so on. (Their luggage was about 40 lbs. heavier when they left us Monday morning.) http://www.greavesjams.com/

Their next destination was the Christmas Store. I took the two bags of jars back to the car trunk. I put the seat back and fell asleep for 30 minutes. When I woke up, I walked back up to Queen Street. Where had my wife and guests disappeared to after all the stores had shut their doors for the evening?--Later I learned that they had stopped at the Angel Inn to check for the ghost of Captain Swayze in the basement. http://www.angel-inn.com/

I returned to the car and drove down to the Gazebo at the Queen's Royal Park where you can look across the mouth of the river to Fort Niagara. The Gazebo was built for The Dead Zone and is the location of a grizzly murder in that movie. Somehow, now almost 25 years later, it is a very popular place to take photos, and is used for wedding ceremonies. Are the wedding couples aware of this history?

Then I drove down Queen Street and back to my parking space where I planned to do a little reading. Just as I started chucking over the first page in a book of stories, my wife and the guests arrived back at the car.

The next morning, we drove up the Niagara Parkway, on the way passing Fort George, the Riverbend Inn, Inniskillin Winery, the 200-year-old McFarland House, the many beautiful homes and numerous views of the River, and arrived at the "little church" just before the village of Queenston.

By the guest book in the Living Water Wayside Chapel, this little church is very popular. I walked across the street and took a picture of the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge spanning the Niagara River gorge. This is the place where Niagara Falls began 12,000 years ago. Over that time the falls has moved 11 kilometres up the river to its present location.

Next we visited Brock's Monument at the top of the Escarpment with a beautiful view of the lower Niagara River. I always thought that the general was wagging his finger at the Americans: "And don't come back!" But no, he's holding a Wii wand.

Finally, we came to the Floral Clock. It was built in 1950 by Ontario Hydro and was model after the floral clock in the Princes’ Street Gardens in Edinburgh. Behind the clock is the big hydroelectric plant and reservoir. A canal takes water from the river above the falls through the city of Niagara Falls to this location where electrical power is generated. http://www.niagaraparks.com/heritage/siradambeck.php

The chimes in the clock tower can be heard every 15 minutes on the quarter hour.

We continued our journey to Thundering Waters.