August 04, 2005
Niagara Falls Trip (long!)
We went to Niagara Falls, from 7-28-05 to 8-2-05 and had a blast! Left about 9:30am on Wednesday morning, after dropping Jasmine off at the kennel, and running one errand. Drove around Chicago and through Illinois, to Cleveland. Called my Cleveland friend and made arrangements to meet for supper. She walked into the place. I knew it was her, even though, we had never seen each other, except in pictures! Had a yummy chicken salad. Then she took us on a tour of downtown Cleveland. Got to see the lakefront, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an old ore tanker, and the ball fields!
On Thursday, we left Cleveland to drive to Niagara Falls! As we pass Fredonia, New York, around lunchtime, we stop to eat, then look up another online person, that I know there, from my ER newsgroup! LOL! She was surprised and excited. I got a tour of her husband's vet office and got to meet DH and the kids! That was cool.
Finally, onto the Falls. We take the Peace Bridge, into Canada and then right to the north of us, we see the Niagara River and to the south, Lake Erie! We also see the Skylon Tower and a few of the taller hotels! We get all excited.
We get off the QEW and drive into Niagara. As we go past the side streets, I'm looking out the window, looking for a glimpse of the Falls. One Murray Street, I get my glimpse and look totally like a tourist as I yell, "There they are!" and point! Yeah, what a doofus, huh?
So, we check into the hotel, unload the suitcases into the hotel room. The room I booked on the internet, turned out to be a room right off the street, so she gave us a room, more off the street, that was bigger, and had a fridge! We went to the grocery store and bought drinks, then! It was handy!
The hotel manager, told us to take the first left, when we went down to the Falls for the first time! We end up taking a path through the woods, down a STEEP hill! Yikes! That was a challenge. Then we finally see the Falls. They are gorgeous! We are already being misted! There are tons of people down there, too! As we walk in front of the falls, everywhere we look, we see rainbows! It was great! As we get closer to Horseshoe Falls (Canadian Falls), we start really getting misted. Our glasses get speckled and we see little drops on our clothes! We see the Maid of the Mist boats packed with people wearing blue raincoats and we look forward to our turn on the Maid! We took lots of pics, saw other people taking lots of pics/videos, and heard countless foreign languages being spoken! Then we start the trek up the hill, on a sidewalk now, and realize that the hill is BIG! YIkes! Then, when you think it can't get any worse, it gets steeper! We thought we were going to die! We go somewhere for supper, watch some tv, and then go back down to the Falls to see them lit up at night! That was pretty! They have spotlights on one of the buildings, that point to each waterfall and then change all the time, too. We trek up the hill once more and go to bed!
In the morning, we hang out in the hotel room, waiting for Sarah's friend and her mom to come. They had a wait, on the bridge, so it took them longer to get there. We all walk down to the falls together, take pictures, and talk. Then we decide to walk up the hill on the Clifton Hill side. Clifton Hill is noisy, gaudy, crowded and quite the experience. What I notice is that the hill is quite as steep as the one near the Casino a few blocks over! We eat at Wendys, and then play some miniature golf! After some relaxing time in the hotel room, we go to Wolfgang Puck's for supper. I have pumpkin-stuffed ravioli. YUMMY! After supper, we go down to watch the fireworks by the falls, trek back up the hill and get ready for bed.
On Saturday morning, we drive to the Whirlpool, a nature place, where you can walk along the Niagara River gorge, and Niagara-on-the-Lake. NOTL is where the river flows into Lake Ontario. They have little shops and a walkway along Lake Ontario. I bought some cute Christmas ornaments there. We say goodbye to Sarah's friend and her mom and go back to Niagara Falls. We go back down to the Falls, find an observation deck near the MOTM, take some cool pictures up there and go back to the hotel room. We walk back to Wendy's for supper that night and appreciate that our hotel is nowhere near Clifton Hill! Saturday night is CROWDED on Clifton Hill. We also buy our souvenirs that night.
Also, on Saturday, Gary and I go to a laundromat! We sure had enough dirty clothes, by that time! I forgot my book, so that was kind of boring! LOL!
On Sunday morning, we have breakfast at a yummy little place near Clifton Hill, then go buy our Adventure Passes! The person at the window tells us that we should go on the MOTM now, since it's not that crowded yet. (that was our plan all along!) So, we get our tickets, trek to the elevator, take the elevator down, and get in line! We are already wearing our cute blue ponchos, as we wait. It's finally time to get on the boat. I take a picture of someone's group and they take a picture of us! Then the boat starts to move! WE only get slightly misted by the American Falls and think that's not so bad. Then we get close to the Horseshoe Falls and instead of being misted, it's like a rainstorm! LOL! We got sooooo wet! In the 9am bright morning sun, it's hard to even look up to see the Falls, since it was almost blinding! We cover our eyes and still try to see the water coming down on us! Despite the poncho and that I had it tied around my neck, I can feel water getting my shirt wet! LOL! My shoes got soaked. MY shorts got soaked! LOL! Okay, we really made no effort to stay dry though! We wanted to get wet. We were also way in the front of the boat! During the day, they pack people on the boats, like sardines! Our boat wasn't nearly that crowded! Then we turn away from Horseshoe Falls and go back to the dock. It was over with way too fast!
Then, since we have an hour before Journey behind the Falls, we decide to walk back to the hotel to drop off our blue ponchos, so we don't have to carry them all day. Geez, that was a long walk. We went up Clifton Hill, to the hotel, then down the street and walk (run?) down the Murray St. Hill! Then, we still have to walk across the sidewalk down by the falls, to get to the JBTF. It wasn't too horribly crowded and we were able to walk fast! We get there just a few minutes past our "time", but it doesn't matter. We wait in a line, take an elevator down into the rocks, get to walk down some tunnels. You can already hear the "thunder" of the falls. I think that is cool! We go down two tunnels, where you see the water falling down, from behind. It is cool. All you see is white, but it is still neat. Then, we go out onto the deck. It's right by the edge of the falls, where they come down! While it's not as much water as the MOTM, we still get pretty wet! Again! LOL! This time, we are wearing a yellow raincoat! We took waterproof disposable cameras with us, to take on the MOTM and the JBTF. They are still being developed.
As a sidenote, while we were waiting in line for lunch, we saw waterproof disposable cameras for 17.98 Canadian. We bought ours at Target, in the US, before we left. We paid $7.49 US, a piece for ours! We have one other camera that is weatherproof and we did end up buying one roll of film for that one, so we woudn't have to trek up the hill to go the hotel room, for the digitals. We didn't take the digitals on the wet stuff, so we didn't have them for the drier stuff in the afternoon.
After lunch, eaten under a tent, near the Canadian Falls, we get on the Peoplemover, to to the Whitewater Walk. This is an elevator ride (230 feet in 30 seconds!) down to the bottom of the gorge, to walk a 1/4 mile boardwalk past Class 6 rapids! That water was WILD! It was fun to sit there, on a bench and watch it! People only try to negotiate up to Class 5 rapids. This would be way too rough, for someone in a raft or kayak.
Then we board the PM again to go to the Butterfly conservatory. We have an hour before our scheduled time, so we sit and drink sodas and eventually get talking to some people from Pennsylvania, who were really nice. That helped the last 15 minutes fly by! Then inside, we have to wait for our turn to go watch the video, prior to going into the butterfly room. We walk with someone from Florida. We watch the 6-min video, then get to see the butterflies. That was cool. Our closest museum has a butterfly exhibit, but they don't have the variety of butterflies that this one has! We can't convince any of the butterflies to land on us, but do enjoy watching them!
Then outside to the PM again, to go back to Niagara Falls. We talk to some people from Steven's Point, WI! It's a small world, I tell you! We stop at Clifton Hill and trek up the hill, for what will be our last time! We are glad that it will be our last time on Clifton Hill. You sure go into sensory overload, with music, people and lights!
At the hotel room, we are glad to finally be able to take off our shoes and our damp socks! We have had damp feet, since the morning boat ride. It is now about 4:30 pm. Gary had wanted to go to McDonald's for supper, but it becomes apparent that we might lose our parking space, if we take the car anywhere. So, we have to eat around the hotel. Also, none of us wants to go down the hill again, since we are tired! We try a restaurant near Wolfgang Puck's. They stick us in a corner. No one comes to order drinks, or to take our order. We leave. No one even notices. We go back to Wolfgang Puck's again and have drinks within 5 minutes. They tell us it will be a half-hour to get a table, but it's more like 10-15 minutes. We have another yummy meal. I have butternut squash soup with a basil pesto! Even my 13yo, who doesn't like squash, liked it! Then we go back to the hotel room, to just hang out until bedtime. We know they are having fireworks again, but no one wants to go, because it means walking up the hill again! We do hear the grand finale, though!
On the way home, we drove from Niagara Falls, through Ontario, crossed into the US at Port Huron, MI, then drove up through the middle of Michigan, to the Mackinac Bridge. After we crossed into upper MI, Gary wanted to drive to Escanaba, before stopping. At Manistique (around 10:30 pm), we had been in the car, for 13 hours and we wanted out! So, fortunately, we found a Best Western hotel room, about then, and called it a night! It turned out we were still an HOUR from Escanaba! I know he wanted to get closer to home, but goodness! It was nice to just lay on a bed and watch TV, for a little while before we went to sleep!
In the morning, we drive to Iron Mountain, MI, after getting our toes wet at the TOP of Lake Michigan. Our hotel was right across the street from Lake Michigan. We could see it from the room! It was dark when we had gotten there the night before, so we had no clue! Both Gary and I had been to Iron Mountain as kids, but not since then! I really didn't remember anything, except taking the tour in the iron mine. We didn't do the tour, though. That is a trip for another day. After ice cream cones, we make the final leg of our journey home. It takes 2-1/2 hours to get home from Iron Mountain.
So, it was a fun trip. We come home, though, to find our AC isn't working very well. After six hours of the AC being on, it hadn't made a dent in our 82-degree house! I will be calling someone this morning to see about coming to check it out.
Our dog is very happy to be home. She survived being kenneled. The guy said she was a little bit scared the first day or two, but then settled in, and would be at the kennel door to greet him, when he came to take dogs outside. We washed all her doggie stuff and gave her a bath, since she wreaked of disinfectant, like she did when she came home from the shelter! She is all clean and fluffy now!
