There Is No Wealth But Life

Last May when Josh and I went on our epic road trip I planned for us to stop by Niagara Falls. But it turned out that we needed to drop one of my sisters off at the Detroit airport in the afternoon, so we did not get started back East until late in the day. I still hoped that we could stop at least briefly, but as the day dragged on and traffic became a reality it began to be obviously stupid.

For some reason that I can no longer remember (but which may have involved crazy border agents and insanely long lines waiting to cross both ways), we had decided to not drive through Canada. So Niagara was a solid hour out of the way. Josh was absolutely exhausted and so as we approached Erie I made the decision for us: we were going to skip Niagara Falls for this trip. I explained to Josh that I did not even really want to go.

I had just gotten the idea in my head once that he should see the falls at some point in his life and I wanted to visit all the great American natural wonders together and so I had put “visit Niagara falls with my husband” on my blog list since we had lived in New England at the time I made it and it seemed reasonable then but obviously I did not really care much about my list and we were so very tired and… I didn’t get to finish my rambling explanation because Josh said something like “Oh! I didn’t realize it was on your list. We’re going.”

I tried to explain that I really was fine with not going and that not only are the falls not that impressive, I was not even keeping up with my 101 in 1001 list. But Josh responded that it must matter at least a little since I had remembered that it was on my list, and he was going to help me cross it off.

So we headed north.

Josh slept as I thought of how crazy it was, though perhaps the really crazy thing was how wild I felt on this jaunt to nowhere at a time of night when all the restrooms seemed to be closed.

I was worried that they’d turn off the lights by the time we got there since it was close to midnight, but it was all bright and touristy, even though there was barely anyone around. Thankfully Josh’s terror of heights caused him to find the falls most impressive. He proclaimed it pretty, wished that there weren’t so many buildings and lights, and wanted to leave fairly quickly since he found the whole thing wooze-inducing in his exhausted state.

We proclaimed the side-trip a success, and I mentally crossed another item off my blog list.

Then we drove to New Hampshire, and almost a year later I wrote a post about our adventure.

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