After a night's rest in Great Falls on the Canadian side, the next morning before the mist had cleared, I drove up the Rainbow International Bridge. There are very few tourists on the bridge in the morning, there are not many vehicles in the US customs, and it seems that tourism has not yet fully resumed.
Exit customs and head straight to go to go to Goat Island, a rocky island suspended on the cliffs on the right bank of the Niagara River, completely divided by the rushing river on both sides, and is the perfect place to take a big waterfall cruise and watch the scenery of the upstream river and the opposite bank. The park is free for tourists, and the parking lot is paid by card, and the parking fee is not expensive.
Coming out of the island, I drove away from the Great Falls and headed for Buffalo, 30 kilometres away. Buffalo, while it seems to be a small area, is not large, and there are not many new high-rise buildings in the city.
Later, I looked at the Buffalo data and learned that the Buffalo-Niagara Falls Metropolitan is the second largest city in New York State, with a population of more than one million.
I was anxious to go to Buffalo to buy a U.S. phone card as soon as possible so that I could provide google maple navigation. At the AT&T Shop in the city center, the salesman brother recommended a Premium Plan for me, 5G/4G network, 15GB of traffic, phone calls, as long as $45 a month. In hindsight, this choice proved to be very good, the AT&T network in the United States, Canada coverage is very good, the signal will even be better than the WiFi network of many hotels, after returning to Canada, the card still continues to roam to support me through the month of travel.
Downtown Buffalo is located at the confluence of Lake Erie and Buffalo River, once an important port in the interior of the eastern United States. The Erie Canal, excavated in the early nineteenth century, connected Lake Erie with the Hudson River in New York, making Buffalo the largest grain transshipment port in North America, and subsequent railroads promoted the development of the local steel, machinery, and automobile industries.
Three large warships are moored in the harbor of Buffalo, which are reached from the Atlantic Ocean via different canals through the St Lawrence Seaway. It was the construction of this new sea lane that allowed Atlantic ships to reach Lake Superior directly into the westernmost part of the Great Lakes, and the convenient shipping system led to the traditional industry of Buffalo began to migrate and spread to the surrounding areas of the United States and Canada.
Anchored close to the dock was the hull 246 submarine, USS Croaker, which served in the Pacific Fleet in 1944 and first sank the Japanese cruiser Changliang in the Yellow Sea of China, and later sank Japanese supply ships and freighters in the East and South China Seas, and participated in the U.S. counteroffensive operation on Luzon in the Philippines until the mid-sixties.
The largest warship in the dock was the USS Little Rock, which entered service at the end of World War II and did not participate in major battles. During the Cold War, the Little Rock was converted into a guided-missile cruiser and was not retired until the seventies. The smaller warship next to it was the destroyer USS The Sullivans, which entered service in 1944 and was named after five Sullivan brothers between the ages of 20 and 27 who were killed by a Japanese submarine in the Battle of Guadalcanal.
The military port has been designated as the "Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park" (Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park), and in addition to three warships, there are fighter jets, helicopter gunships, and armored vehicles on display. Since I was undergoing internal repairs at the time, I was not able to get on board to visit.
The United States and Canada have a tradition of honoring fallen soldiers, and this naval park is next to Veterans Park, which contains sculptures and monuments.
There are such monuments in cities and towns in the United States and Canada, on which the names of those who sacrificed their lives for the country in their communities are engraved.
The grass around the monument is covered with national flags, which feels very solemn and spectacular.
There is a large dockyard on the dock in the city center, and the tall factory building contains an antique wooden boat under construction. As I stood outside the door and looked around, an old man warmly invited me inside and explained in detail to me the origin of the 100-meter large inland river cargo ship under construction.
It turned out that Buffalo was brewing a commemoration of the century-old canal navigation, and this wooden boat was modeled on the same cargo ship that was at the navigability ceremony that year, and was built entirely by craftsmen as volunteers with traditional materials and methods. After the elderly's meticulous explanation, I understood how the craftsmen measured and corrected the keel with the naked eye and by hand, without the help of modern laser measuring instruments.
With the process of deindustrialization, Buffalo has gradually transformed into a service economy based on health care, tourism, logistics, and education, and there are almost no pedestrians in the city center. But the traditional industrial advantage has not been completely lost, Tesla's factory in New York State is located here, but after all, this is still a drop in the bucket, it is difficult to make up for the loss of the entire industrial system.
After visiting the dock, I left Buffalo and headed for Harrisburg, 450 kilometres away, through the countryside and mountains, which took more than 5 hours by car. I had booked the hotel and tried to get there before dark.
To be continued...