Niagara Falls, NY
Rolled into 4 mile Creek Campground on the shores of Lake Ontario - beautiful spot with big open campsite spaces. It’s known as 4 mile Creek as it is where the British staged their troops and planned their attacks on the French at Fort Niagara - which was four miles away up from the creek. For the record, the British won and then the American forces took it away from them until 1813 (War of 1812), when the British had it for another year and we finally took it back for good.
Of course, the main draw here was Niagara Falls (you’ll find a couple pictures below, as well as a link to the video Owen made, which is probably quite a bit more engaging than my journaling). A highlight for us was Cave of the Winds, where we had the opportunity to stand on the “Hurricane Deck” which I am quite sure is what it would be like to stand in a hurricane!
Hi everyone Owen here and I will put a link here for my Niagara Falls video but if you just want to go to my Channel click here and if you want to see my Niagara Falls video click here.
Here are a few more pics on Tom’s Facebook page.
One of our favorite finds here was Sanger Farms, thanks to a Yelp search. Ever since COVID, Friday nights have become a traditional pizza night for us. While we’ve made a couple of them back at the campsite on the Blackstone, it’s also been a good excuse to search for a new pizza spot. We were originally going to go to the Main Street Pizzeria in Youngstown, which is a charming, historic town on the water. But due to the extremely sticky and dirty tables, flies, and the very sad-looking pizza, we made a diversion. That’s when Yelp told us about Sanger Farms, a couple miles out of town.
This is a family-owned place, with a family farm that has been owned for decades. The matriarch of the family was known for her baking, and instead of selling pies on the roadside as was customary at the time, she would invite people into the barn. That idea took off and now the farm has a cute cafe that is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We tried their pizza and it was fantastic! Owen had a frozen cherry slushy made from the cherries on the property (they have an orchard too) - that was heavenly. We also stocked up on a few groceries - fresh peaches from the orchard, zucchini and eggs. There might’ve been a few baked goods in there too - the store was chock-full of cookies, pies, butter tarts, breads and bars.
We met the owner, and when we got to talking to him, we found out some really neat historical data points. We learned that the land on their property had been taken over by eminent domain during WWII for the Manhattan Project, and had been mined for materials, which eventually turned into a pond when they hit water. When they were doing renovations on the barn (where the cafe and store now stand), they discovered a crawl space that had beds and a few utensils in it. At first, it was thought that it was part of the Underground Railroad, but a historian was called in and they learned that this was an area where the women and children were evacuated to (probably from the Fort Niagara/Four Mile Creek area) when fighting was taking place. Super interesting! I loved this stop.
We also visited the Fort Niagara museum and tour, which we highly recommend. The buildings are well-curated, with furnishings and artifacts from when it was a working fort. They also do daily demonstrations where they fire both muskets and cannons, and the “actors” are dressed accordingly. Owen really liked this part! One of the neatest things IMO on display was a portion of the American flag that was captured by the British in 1813 as a war token. Over time it ended up a British man’s home (not sure of the connection back to the lineage) until it was purchased by the Fort Niagara in 1993. The fort did see some Civil War activity but ceased to operate in the early 1900s. It’s a beautiful spot, overlooking Lake Ontario and over into Canada.
We visited Sanger Farms (again) for lunch - great sandwiches! And more cookies. Campsite neighbors were really friendly here, and we definitely seem to be the people that are farthest from home. A lot of the people camping here are from the area (or within New York) and are always great sources of information for places to see and things to do. We wrapped up our final day by jumping into the cool waters of Lake Ontario and enjoyed a very distinct and gorgeous sunset from the beach - one not to forget.
Sunset over Lake Ontario
People met along the way: We finally introduced Owen to the movie “The Perfect Storm” and the next day, met a retired helicopter pilot from Vermont that used to fly that same route as portrayed in the movie. How weird. We also met Naomi and Tom Fleming - from Alexandria, MN (where Laurie’s parents live and where we spend a good majority of vacation time). They sat right in front of us on a trolley ride and starting chatting it up. They knew my uncle Bob, and have good friends that live on Lake Ida - where my parents live. Crazy how these things happen.
Hiccups and hangups: Tom clocked his head on a low doorway at the Fort (soldiers weren’t as tall I guess). He has a nice bruise as a result (not new for him - also happened in Lima, Peru). We also decided to leave a day early as we had miscalculated the route down to our next stop. We had about 7.5 hours of drive time and that was to much to do in one day. We decided to hit a Harvest Host stop in DuBois, PA as a midway point.
Dates of stay: August 5 - 8, 2021
Grateful for: The discovery of Sanger Farms, the warmth and friendliness of their staff, amazing food and the historical points of interest