That's alot of water, eh?

Today: Niagara Falls, ON, Canada

Jaron is feeling much better and rarely mentions his ear. I think we caught it before it got too bad.

I got up and hiked around for a good place for breakfast. There's a Perkins restaurant at our hotel, but it's a sit-down place and we're looking for quick. It seemed like the choice was between Burger King and Tim Horton's, so I went for the place I had never been.

I got up to the counter to order, but realized I didn't bring the cash with me, so I tried to use my Visa debit card. To my surprise, the girl behind the counter said, "we don't take visa". Wow. Welcome to Canada, eh? (stupid american) :)

Not being able to buy breakfast, I went back to the room and picked up Melissa and the boys, who were now up. We all headed over to Tim Horton's for breakfast (with money).

After breakfast, the first order of business, of course, was getting to the falls. We were within walking distance (and the truck was in the parking garage with no other public parking evident in this tourist zone), so we walked down to the falls. The first glimpses we got were from quite a distance, but it was beautifully powerful, even from afar.

We were actually closer to the American falls when we hiked down - and they're not nearly as awesome as the Canadian falls...

American falls:

Canadian Falls:

We walked for quite a long time, stopping to take pictures along the way.

the little blue dots are people walking up/down beside the American falls.

We decided not to do the boat rides nor the "walk behind the falls" because people were just packed in like sardines and were all wearing tarps/panchos. It seemed like a great combination of heat, sweat, odors, and pushing. Ick.

We stopped by the park and saw some little black squirrels. They were not afraid of people - and neither were the seagulls. Mine. Mine. Mine.

There were some trees that seemed to be "droopy" in the park. It looked almost like someone had cupped his hand over the top of them and kept them from growing very large.

We let the kids run and get some energy out while we strolled through the park. Getting away from the crowds was a blessing and the park was nice and shaded for the most part.


After the park, we had to walk back up the hill to get to our hotel. The whole area was very touristy and over-developed. The contrast between the street and the park was stark.

I took the boys swimming in the afternoon for a couple of hours (that's way more fun than watching water fall) and they had fun.

I got a dinner recommendation from the hotel concierge, and we ate dinner at Capris Italian restaurant. It was good and was a very nice place. The plan was to eat dinner and then go to the IMAX to watch the niagara fallas movie, but we missed the last showing. Instead, we looked at the various contraptions on display that people had used to go over the falls. People are crazy.

We were going to go back to the falls at night to see them lit up and take pictures, but the camera battery died and it was a long walk back to the hotel, so we just went back.

Luckily, the hotel plays a kids movie every night in the "common courtyard" area, so the kids caught the last half of that movie while Melissa packed up and then we went to bed. Lots of walking and fun - all in all, a good, tiring day, eh?