Niagara Falls

Gas prices in Ohio spiked up to $3.19 so we decided to pack up, throw some cash at Big Oil and drive to Niagara Falls for the weekend. Here are some highlights.

The trip began Friday around 12:30 after Chris’s math class and 2 (ACK!) potty accidents from Ellie. After getting everyone in clean clothes and the car, we started out with only a brief stop to feed Moira. Then it was a straight drive until we reached Kirtland, where we stopped to use the facilities and take this adorable picture of Moira:


I can’t believe I took such a good picture!

Back in the car and through the rest of Ohio and all of Pennsylvania, then things got exciting halfway through a stretch of toll road in New York farm land. Here’s the good news: I fit in the back seat between an infant car seat and a toddler car seat and just the sight of Mom and a few Cheerios kept the girls happy until a stop for dinner at a neat Denny’s restaurant between the North and South bound toll roads. Ellie especially liked the bridge crossing the road and having breakfast foods for yet another meal. We got back in the car and tried unsuccessfully to start a movie on our portable DVD player. The radio/clock fuse blew in our car a week back and then immediately blew again when Chris replaced it and if it hadn’t been for this trip we might not have realized that the same fuse that goes to the radio also goes to the cigarette lighter. Turns out someone with little fingers had been stuffing pennies into the cigarette lighter when I let her “drive” while I unload groceries. I fished the pennies out of the lighter and said a prayer of gratitude that those little fingers didn’t get shocked.

After some creative exit taking, we finally made it into Canada around 8:30 and into our hotel room by 9. Chris really outdid himself with the hotel room. Since we’d forgotten swimsuits, Ellie amused herself with an extra long soak in the Olympic sized bathtub. Moira watched herself in the mirrors:

The next morning we slept in until 7:15, got ready and headed down an incredibly steep bank towards the falls:

What, you say? There’s no wheel on that double stroller? Why yes, you are correct! We were walking and then all of a sudden there was a wheel rolling down in front of us. It jumped a few bumps in the path, then went flying over the edge and into a small ravine. Here I am with the captive wheel:

There’s a lovely path near the river, so we strolled along with about half the population of Japan, pausing periodically to snap pictures.

These falls are on the American side:

These falls are on the Canadian side:

Here are Ellie and I where 52 cubic gallons a second take the plunge 48 meters to the whirlpool:

Moira wisely decided to stay in the stroller:

After that we rode an elevator down to the base of the falls. Chris took this picture of me with the girls:

And then we broke the language barrier to exchange photos with a nice Japanese tourist:

We traveled through a tunnel halfway across Horseshoe Falls in our yellow souvenir plastic ponchos and watched the water pound down. It was cool in a give you nightmares type of way. After that, Moira napped in the stroller while we walked back along the river and Ellie stopped periodically to climb up on the retaining wall and look for her imaginary friend, Alicia, who was 1) swimming in the river, 2) wearing a life jacket, and 3) a mermaid.

By this time we were getting tired, so we had lunch near the hotel, stopped at a free museum to see all the things people have ridden over the falls in and then headed back to America and the 6 hour trip home. Everyone (except our driver Chris) napped for a while and we stopped in Northern Ohio for gas and new fuses. Lo and behold, the DVD player worked and after a while I climbed back into back seat for a Charlotte’s Web sing-a-long and Cheerio-fest.

We’re all a little tired from our vacation—especially Ellie who is devastated we didn’t ride on the Maid of the Mist boat. We’d planned on the boat ride, but vetoed it since she’s terrified of the blender, blow driers, and the vacuum, and getting up close and personal with 50 bazillion tons of rushing water is a lot louder than all of those things.