Over the top – Niagara Falls

May 29

We had decided to stay an extra day or two since we were having so much fun visiting the Cavalier family in Rochester, but Foster’s one caveat is that we plan something to do.  Visiting Niagara Falls has been on my list for a while, since I vaguely remember visiting as a small child.  My sister had to remind me that we went with our grandparents.  Since it was only about a 90 minute drive, we planned to go on Thursday.  The weather was a little cloudy to start out, but got beautiful not long after we arrived.

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We crossed to the Canadian side and drove to the Skylon Tower to get the view from on high.  We had to get tickets first, and then went through one of those green screen photography areas.  Later we looked at our shots and the one where they photoshopped us into the barrel going over the falls was hilarious, but the price wasn’t funny at all!

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I had decided to take the GoPro along with us and shoot video of our trip. The video is a little long, but there are some very interesting shots (video not loaded yet).

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Skylon Towers  was a great intro to the falls area since we could easily see both the American falls and the Horseshoe falls from the tower.  We talked about what we’d like to do and decided to walk down to the falls on the Canadian side, then go back to the car and take the American side boat tour called Maid of the Mist rather than the Canadian boat since the Maid of the Mist seemed to go farther into the pool in front of the Horseshoe Falls.

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We stopped for a quick lunch in the nearby casino and both had poutine which had a perfect melty texture to the cheese.

The sidewalk and visitor area overlooking the Horseshoe Falls area provided a great view.  The water had a really cool green tinge to it as it approached the edge of the rocks

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We managed to find our way back to the American side and got waved into a cheesy tourist parking spot, and as directed walked inside for our “free map” and free hard sell on the guided tour.  It wasn’t a hard decision to conduct our own tour, since the guided tour was more than four times the cost of the Maid of the Mist tickets, and everything else was free within the state park!

Once we got our tickets, we crossed to the tall elevator and rode down to the loading area.  I ran the GoPro, getting some great shots as we got onto the tour boat and went into the mist.  I really appreciated the free rain ponchos that they give out as part of the fare, since the mist from the falls was literally raining down onto us when we got all the way into the depths of of the falls.  It was a pretty spectacular ride.  The force of the water created a lot of mist and whirlpools at the base of the falls.

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After the ride was over we walked to the viewing area on the American side and got some more good shots.  The day was so beautiful we continued to walk upriver until we came to a bridge that overlooked rapids that lead up to the American falls.

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A great day!  Look in the Photo Gallery for more shots from Niagara.