Rambling stories

I'd been climbing over boulders all morning, in thin canvas Mary Janes and a pink skirt, once flowing, now drenched in mud.  Maybe I should have known when I reached the iron staircase descending hundreds of feet to the river that this was not the “park” my colleagues insisted I visit on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.  Maybe I should have changed my shoes, but honestly, present me with a fearsome stair plunging into the unknown and I'll take it. At once. No questions asked.

Once down, I congratulated my coworkers on their taste.  This was no park, but a fairy citadel, where I followed dainty slate stairs among mossy pillars until I found a path.  Utterly alone in the early morning (excepting two distant fishermen), I'd follow it, turn a corner, and see the falls in all their splendor.

Hours passed.  Maybe I should have known, when the path started threading in and out of existence between big rocks that... Oh, heck, of course I knew, but now it was a challenge. I'd crossed New York in one night.  I'd slept in my car.  I'd thought Niagara would be a graceful end to my adventure, but this was so much better than graceful. 

I was amazed at how remote the place felt. It was otherworldly, especially when the path met the river: fast, full-throated, churning blue-green and white; above it, tree-topped cliffs rising higher than
imagination; and, flying white over the water, calling over the voice of the river, endless circling gulls.  

Hours.  Wet.  Hungry.  And finally, out of path.  I reached a place where the next step meant a sharp drop, hard to retrace.  The line between adventure and lunacy blurred.  I decided to turn back. 

To accomplish this, I had to hike up my soggy skirt.  Needing both hands to climb back up the path, having no pockets, I tucked my camera into my shirt.  This is how the fishermen found me, marching into the same crevice I was struggling out of.  I looked up, hand still down my blouse, covered in mud. I don't know which of us was most startled. 

They led me out, jumping fearlessly down the drop that almost made me retreat.  The stair at this end was wooden, slanting up through green-gold woods to the tame, paved surface.

After a morning spent seeking them, I didn't get very close to the falls. By car, they were minutes away, but after one tour bus-obstructed glimpse I turned aside and headed for the highway.  It's easier to pick out notes of the river in the rush of tires over pavement; easier to remember the cries of gulls.