Niagara Falls

A big highlight for me on this trip was Niagara Falls. I had never been there before, and spent hours researching and planning where to stay and what to do. I was very excited about it. We left Angola on a Wednesday morning, anticipating the advertised Wednesday night fireworks and light show over the falls. Our GPS unit took us up through Michigan to cross the border into Canada there. We were staying on the Canadian side of the falls after about a 400 mile drive. The plan was to grab some dinner, then check into the hotel and visit Queen Victoria Park for the light show. The park was supposed to have the best view of the falls. Then, the next morning, we were going to cross to the US side for the Maid of the Mist boat ride and to walk the Cave of the Winds at the base of Bridal Veil Falls before continuing on to Toronto that night.

Funny how things don't work out the way you plan them, isn't it?

We arrived at the hotel with no problems. There were a billion people everywhere, it seemed. Once we had everything in the room, we decided to find a spot for dinner. Franz didn't want to deal with parking somewhere, so he decided we should walk. There was surely something just around the corner. We loaded Jackson up into the stroller, which he quickly tired of, and set out into the very, very muggy evening. I am a poor judge of distance; very poor. But, I can say this. I don't usually sweat. Lucky me, that's how it is. We walked such a distance in the direct afternoon sun, that I had back sweat. Ick.

We finally found a suitable restaurant, and couldn't figure out how to get inside. Seriously. Ridiculous, I know. We ended up cutting through a parking lot, where an employee of the hotel in which the restaurant was located (That was part of our problem, we didn't realize the whole thing was attached. The signage for the standard chain restaurant was all free-standing.) walked back in with us from his car to take us up a service elevator and lots of back hallways to the restaurant. Not very direct. Once we got there, we had to stow the stroller in a corner. Can you tell it was not a relaxing experience for me?

We ordered our Italian dinner, and waited a long time for it to arrive. Might sound mildly inconvenient for the average traveler. For the traveler with three small kids who've been cooped up in a car all day, it could really put you over the edge. I should mention that our table was next to a huge open window overlooking the sidewalk and street on the ground floor. Still hot. Great people watching though, and the location of the table proved there had to be a better pattern of ingress and egress than the one we followed, even if we had to exit through the window itself.

So, when dinner arrived, Jackson, who typically skims off everyone's dinners, would not eat anything except marinara sauce. The girls had chicken and a side of spaghetti, which was served with an exceptionally scant amount of sauce as it was. Finally, after exasperating ourselves trying to get food past his "ejector tongue" we gave up and ordered a bowl of marinara sauce for him. Not kidding. He loved it.

I won't discuss the walk home, with the exception that we did locate the front entrance of the restaurant, thereby making the experience a little less frustrating. Otherwise, same distance / same temperature. When we arrived back at the hotel, no one - including me - felt like going back out to a park. We checked out our window view, and being able to see the mist rising from the falls, concluded that we would also be able to see the fireworks when they went off, and maybe if we were lucky Jackson would already be asleep by then.

The kids turned their immediate attention to the in-room jet tub. The girls dove in for a bubble bath romp, and Jackson squealed around the room. He would run and dip his hands into the bubbles, pull them out, and run around shaking the bubbles off all over the place and shrieking with delight. We put him in once the girls were done and Franz got some pictures of him enjoying his bath, too, but none of them could be deemed public viewing material, as he has become enamored of a certain region of his body whenever he is unclothed.

The disappointment began in earnest when the advertised time for the fireworks came and went, with nary a light in the sky. (We had double checked this with area vendors, who assured us of time and place.) Finally, we gave up and fell asleep. The next morning, when we asked about the fireworks, we were told that they hadn't held them. No one knew why, but it was probably the third time that summer, that the schedule fireworks just hadn't happened.

The next morning, we got a late check-out approved so that we could see the sights without having luggage and racks hanging off the back of the car in highly populated areas. We set out for the US side of the border. On the way, we noticed the Canadian entry point for the Maid of the Mist was completely blocked off by police cars and tape for some kind of special event. It didn't seem accessible. In fact, we had to re-route just to get to the bridge to cross. As we drove over, I snapped some beautiful pictures of the falls.

This is a picture of the Canadian skyline next to the falls.

I zoomed in on a Maid of the Mist tour. Doesn't that look exciting? Look how many people are packed onto those two decks!

Across the bridge, we had the option of diverting one direction for the boat ride and another for the Cave of the Winds. We randomly selected the Cave of the Winds. We paid the $10 parking fee and looped around the small island a bit before we ended up back in the same parking lot and finally located the entrance. We grabbed the diaper bag, the small stroller, the camera, the kids, and set out.

As we waited in the snaking admission line, OCD Franz kept glancing nervously at the people heading down to the falls in their plastic ponchos and velcro water sandals. Finally, he voiced his biggest fear (the one that was drowning out all other thoughts, by then): "I am NOT putting nasty wet shoes on my feet that came off of somebody else's!" "Well," I offered helpfully, "if they even carry size 13s, I doubt they're a real popular size." It took all my coercive powers and no small amount of physical force to keep him from bolting for the car. He was very relieved, and you will be too, to learn that the shoes were actually brand new. He had a lengthy monologue with himself about how they surely couldn't afford to provide new shoes to everyone for the price of the admission, but finally came to terms with it, and the family could move forward.

We were handed child and adult sized yellow ponchos, and somewhat size-oriented plastic velcro sandals and shown to a large room lined with benches for dressing. It was very hot out, but we obediently donned the plastic coatings and instantly began to feel like we were walking around in individual saunas. We shoved our shoes into plastic bags to carry with us. I did not put Jackson in his giant kid-sized poncho yet. I feared the meltdown that was already flirting with his sanity as he looked around at the close-pressed crowd of yellow plasticky people, crinkling loudly in the echoing cement room.

We followed a short trail to an elevator that would take us down to the level of the base of Bridal Veil Falls. We were warned that everything would be soaked. My little stroller is a very nice one that I didn't want to "walk away" while we were occupied, so Franz folded it up and slung the carry-strap over his shoulder - under his poncho. I had the backpack diaper bag with the camera shoved down into it on my back under my poncho. We shoved Jackson into his poncho, grabbed our plastic shoe bags, and pressed into the elevator with the crowds.

Once we reached the lower level, and walked out the underground tunnel to the base of the falls, the mist had significantly cooled the air, which was lovely. We followed a red painted wooden walkway with a winding staircase going up and down and around the rocks and water. Apparently, they removed the walkway every winter, paint and seal it, and re-install it every spring. The amount of work that would entail is staggering. The deluge of water was incomprehensible, even up close. It was roaring loud and unmeasurable in quantity and speed. We were all awed, even Jackson! It was, hands-down, the best part of our time there, and exceeded my expectations for that activity.

After ascending to the top and peeling off our protective layers (the stroller on Franz's back had pulled the poncho tight and high, resulting in soaking the bottom half of his shorts), we realized we might not make the check out time if we tried to take the boat ride on the American side of falls, due to border crossing times, which are always a gamble. We decided to go check out, then take the ride on the Canadian side. They both show the same tour anyway. Well, the border crossing into Canada took far longer than the earlier pass that morning. We barely made our hotel deadline after inching across the bridge. So, we loaded up the family circus and headed for the waterfront on the Canadian side, only to realize:

- the entrance was still blocked off by police cars and tape
- the park out front was crawling with a bazillion people
- there was no parking anywhere
- the temperatures had risen steeply and it was miserable outside
- the number of people on the visible boats was greater than it had been that morning, by far
- Jackson was ready for a nap

After two passes by the area, I grudgingly agreed that it didn't look as if the Maid of the Mist tour would work out on this trip, and Franz, feeling the pull of the open highway, didn't need to think about it further. We were off.