Power falls

Magnet #1149 - Niagara Falls State Park

Huh. Well if you have to go to the restroom, don't visit the Niagara Falls State Park site. I'm just sayin'.

This magnet's from my sister and BIL's trip up there - I swear when I end up there, I'm there for like a couple of hours - if that - then I'm out. But, I haven't seen the falls lit up at night, so maybe that's one point for trying to go back to Niagara for more than a quick pitstop?

The first Niagara power plant went online in 1894, and was built with the help of tycoon investors such as Morgan, Astor and Vanderbilt. Nowadays, Niagara Falls is one of the largest sources of hydroelectricity in the world - serving five power plants between the United States and Canada. It's hard to imagine today because we take our electricity for granted, but going from one lightbulb to lighting millions upon millions of homes truly must have been the marvel of the day.

Picked this magnet today, because we've only just now gotten our power back this evening, after heavy storms knocked down a couple of trees down the road. Of course, there are whole countries out there whose power supplies aren't enough for their population, so they're constantly browning out, or rationing their power. So, really, I dunno why I get so cagey when we lose it for more than a few minutes. But I do!

It's actually kind of funny, you'd think it was the end of the world, the way I was sucking down every ounce of power on my cell phone, Tweeting and FBing and texting - just trying to suck every ounce of entertainment from that poor thing before I was exiled to reading by candlelight a la Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Although, if it were a real emergency, man, I would totally fail at survival, because I didn't ration the power on the laptop or the cell at all.

Ooops.