With the company checkbook you quick on the draw

[austin_dern]

I would admit without serious hesitation that we made a few strategic mistakes in figuring how to tour Niagara Falls, given that we were going to be there on foot and were not taking any of the tour packages or crossing into any alternate countries. Prime among them is that we did not have any particular plan for what to do when we unexpectedly weren't going on a cruise and weren't buying any sort of tour package because it was getting on in the afternoon and there are people still in those lines, now, six months after the fact. I took the objective to be to simply see all of the interesting things that could be seen without breaking a sweat, which was a modest challenge as it was an extremely hot day. My mother, it turns out, was thinking more of looking over the falls, verifying they were still falling, and finding someplace good for dinner.

The second mistake is that we split up: initially, into the groups of my father and my mother's college friend, as one unit, and then my mother and I as the second. After a few minutes walking back towards where the falls were first noticed by Europeans, my mother announced she would be walking over in that direction, towards the Niagara River, and my left me with my father. Then my father left to find the college friend. So I went around, looking at what I might see, and taking quite a few pictures. I moved in the direction my mother had indicated, trusting that I would either catch up to her or see her when she turned around and went back. This would be another mistake.

You may have noticed the next strategic mistake, and that would be in the things I did not have: a hand phone, and a particular time to be in a particular place. While I haven't got a watch, I can use my camera for that purpose, and if we had any sort of agreed-on spot, such as ``by the visitors center entrance over there'' then a rough appointment could be made and reasonably kept. And then there is the mistake of everyone else, apparently, forgetting an important fact about my personality when I see something interesting.

Trivia: Erastus L DeForest, statistical analysis for an insurance company, in 1876 developed the first known method of ``artificial random data'', as a method of adjusting data to account for errors of observation. Source: Randomness, Deborah J Bennett.

Currently Reading: Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into The 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body, Neil Shubin.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I took the objective to be to simply see all of the interesting things that could be seen without breaking a sweat, which was a modest challenge as it was an extremely hot day. My mother, it turns out, was thinking more of looking over the falls, verifying they were still falling, and finding someplace good for dinner.

This would be what a visit to Niagara falls would likely be with my Mother, but she's seen them at least ten separate occasions, and furthermore, has over the past few years become less of an exploring vcacationer as a 'Sit and enjoy this one beach' vacationer.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

After many visits to the same spot it's natural to fall back on just checking that they're still there. I was surprised my mother was thinking of such a short trip, though, considering she is a world traveller and likes going to see things, and that she didn't have nearly as much experience in seeing wonders of the world the previous time she'd seen the falls.

But then my mother would also really rather have a vacation based around sitting somewhere comfortable and reading, which makes her habit of going all over the world all the more mysterious.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I can understand sitting somewhere comfortable and reading as a part of a pleasant vacation, but that's as part of a follow-up to about 8 hours of solid tourist frenzy that one tries to pretend is non-stereotypical tourist frenzy.

Maybe she just enjoys reading in good light.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

The good light may be important. Her living room somehow manages to be perpetually dark regardless of whether it's two in the afternoon on the sunniest day of the year with the lights on, so going somewhere else is advisable.