When we arrived at Niagara Falls on Saturday afternoon and walked into our room for the first time, this is what we saw:
This is what our hotel looked like from the outside:
Our view was AMAZING!! We walked around to check out the area and were really surprised at how touristy the streets by our hotel were! It was like being at Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge...you know haunted houses, wax muesums, Ripley's Believe it or Not, etc.
Our first full day at the falls, we took a guided tour of the area and made a few stops along the way. Here's the bus that we rode:
This bus actually came from England. Cool, huh?This is a picture that Luke took out of the window of the bus. This is the oldest church in Niagara Falls, CA. I think the tour guide said it is an Anglican church.
On the tour, we learned a lot about the history of the town. Here's another picture Luke took of the wall of one of the power plants:
Our first stop on the tour was for a ride on a Spanish Aero Car. This took us across a section of the river that had some pretty big rapids (although you can't really tell it from these pictures).
Our next stop on the tour was at a floral clock. Each year, they make a different design out of plants. The clock says: Niagara Parks.
Our third stop was at what is called "Walk Behind the Falls." An elevator takes you about half way down the side of the falls. When you walk out, you are literally standing within yards of the edge of the horseshoe falls. Then, there are tunnels you can walk through with portals that are actually behind the falls. When you're behind the falls, it really doesn't look like much; just a white sheet of water pouring down.
At the last stop on our tour, we took a ride on the Maid of the Mist. These boats take passengers of people out to the falls all day long. There are boats that leave from the American and Canadian sides.
First, we went by the American falls:
Then, we went by the horseshoe falls:
The tour was definitely our favorite part of the trip and well worth the money we spent on it!
That night we ate dinner at The Rainforest Cafe. We weren't too impressed with the food, but the atmosphere was really cool inside the restaurant.
Apparently, I am going to have a baby frog!Our second day there, we drove to a little town called Niagara on the Lake. It was a really cute place with lots of shops. Not nearly as touristy as where our hotel was. The drive there was really nice. There are lots of vineyards and old houses along the way.
Here is a picture of us by Lake Ontairo. Now we have both see 4 of the 5 Great Lakes. If you look in the background of the picture on the other side, you can see the American Fort from the war.
On our second day there, we also took some time to lay out by the pool and just relax. That night, we ate at a restaurant at the top of another hotel where we had a view of the falls from our table (sorry, no picture to show you).
One more thing, then I'm done. Each night from 9 pm -12 pm, they light up the falls with different colors (and on Sunday night there were fireworks). It was really cool.
We couldn't get a really good picture of the Horseshoe Falls at night because of all the mist that comes up in the middle of the falls.
This was an awesome, relaxing vacation! We are both SO glad that we took this trip! Hopefully you weren't bored with too much information as you read this post! We just did so much cool stuff, we wanted you to be able to see some of the stuff we did!
