Today David and I woke up around 7am. The kids slept a little bit later, but were up by 8am. We unanimously decided (even Indrani) to go for a swim in the hotel pool before heading to the breakfast buffet at our hotel. We went out to the pool and passed the WienerMobile in the parking lot. Of course we dragged them over to get a photo in front of it on our way to the pool.
The #SpeedyWiener had young, college-aged pilots, according to the photographer who stopped to help us take these. He had spoken with the Wiener team last night and they seemed to be keeping their cool about being the drivers of such an awesome ride. Our boys were trying to make sense of a car being the shape of a hotdog, to no avail.
We went to the pool after this and got about 30 mins of swim time before heading to breakfast. Indrani didn't have a great deal of fun "swimming" so we just spent time watching her brothers being pulled around by Daddy.
After eating breakfast, we hit the road an hour or so later than we had hoped and hit another patch of rainy weather. Total drag. But we passed through Buffalo and continued onward towards Niagara Falls for our first sightseeing expedition.
I made maps for the boys to color in as we drove through each state. Here is Dax's map as of today, before Niagara (I pre-colored the lakes in blue marker for them).
We got to Niagara Falls around 2pm-ish and spent a great deal of time at the Park. It was pretty impressive for the boys (and us), and we wanted to be sure they gave it its proper respect. We stopped by Horseshoe Falls for a quick look and photo op:
Then went over to the Maid of the Mist, where we got our requisite blue ponchos and boarded the boat. The boat offered spectacular views and a very close approach to the Falls (to the chagrin of both Phin and Indrani) but we got a family portrait, nonetheless.
Indrani's poncho was enormous on her, so David covered her with his, but she was still not very happy about the whole situation.
(Sita and Phin on the Maid of the Mist)
(It would seem that Phin is not afraid of heights - he is looking down from the Observation Tower)
After spending several hours at the Falls, we chose to have dinner and then head to Portage, MI, our next stop. We went to DiCamillo Bakery, a place David found on either UrbanSpoon or Yelp, but got there and found it not to have a sit down eat-in area - booo! But we did meet this guy right out front:
He had a Corn Snake and showed it to the kids.
We took our chances introducing our kids to Thai food at 'My Thai' across the street. The food was fantastic, and the servers were great. The kids loved the chicken satay and were okay with the pad thai, but weren't super excited about the delicious pataya. The boys loved their mango and lychee juices, and Indrani liked the egg and ocean rolls. Dax took a liking to one of the cute servers, and told her pretty much everything about our trip up until that point.
We got the kids ready for bed in the 'My Thai' bathrooms (PJs, bedtime routine) and hit the road right after. Since we were about 6 hours behind schedule, we knew we were probably not going to make it to Portage, MI until late into the night.
It took some doing to find the Rainbow Bridge to cross over to Canada, but we finally found it and made the Border crossing without much incident (they don't take EZPASS, fyi). Everyone always says that to see Niagara Falls in its full glory, one should view it from the Canadian side, and I have always wondered what they meant. Well, after we crossed the bridge, we got a little twisted around finding our way to the road we needed to take, and ended up seeing the downtown area and it was beautiful. It was definitely more developed on the overlook itself, but it was far nicer. Parks, landscaping, little shops, very walkable. The NY side was more park-like, and definitely a bit of a schlep to get to the Maid of the Mist. The Canadian side had a lot more charm and seemed to allow people access to the view without having to pay for the view.
We got on the right road, finally and drove through Ontario well into the night. At around 9:30pm the sun began to set, which was a beautiful backdrop for our drive through Canada to Michigan. The only hiccup came when the highway was closed. Yes, closed. We took a detour and got back on the highway after the closed-off section.
The sun actually set around 10pm, and we drove on through the dark, until just before 3am. Sadly, because of our delay, we missed a stop that David and I were looking forward to in Sarnia, ON at Albert's Rolling Lunch for "fries under the bridge". Alas, another time.
Small world: My friend Manlio from graduate school was on the Canadian Maid of the Mist at the same time that we were on the US Maid of the Mist! And a friend from high school, Ali, had been there the day before!
The #SpeedyWiener had young, college-aged pilots, according to the photographer who stopped to help us take these. He had spoken with the Wiener team last night and they seemed to be keeping their cool about being the drivers of such an awesome ride. Our boys were trying to make sense of a car being the shape of a hotdog, to no avail.
We went to the pool after this and got about 30 mins of swim time before heading to breakfast. Indrani didn't have a great deal of fun "swimming" so we just spent time watching her brothers being pulled around by Daddy.
After eating breakfast, we hit the road an hour or so later than we had hoped and hit another patch of rainy weather. Total drag. But we passed through Buffalo and continued onward towards Niagara Falls for our first sightseeing expedition.
I made maps for the boys to color in as we drove through each state. Here is Dax's map as of today, before Niagara (I pre-colored the lakes in blue marker for them).
We got to Niagara Falls around 2pm-ish and spent a great deal of time at the Park. It was pretty impressive for the boys (and us), and we wanted to be sure they gave it its proper respect. We stopped by Horseshoe Falls for a quick look and photo op:
Then went over to the Maid of the Mist, where we got our requisite blue ponchos and boarded the boat. The boat offered spectacular views and a very close approach to the Falls (to the chagrin of both Phin and Indrani) but we got a family portrait, nonetheless.
Indrani's poncho was enormous on her, so David covered her with his, but she was still not very happy about the whole situation.
(It would seem that Phin is not afraid of heights - he is looking down from the Observation Tower)
After spending several hours at the Falls, we chose to have dinner and then head to Portage, MI, our next stop. We went to DiCamillo Bakery, a place David found on either UrbanSpoon or Yelp, but got there and found it not to have a sit down eat-in area - booo! But we did meet this guy right out front:
He had a Corn Snake and showed it to the kids.
We took our chances introducing our kids to Thai food at 'My Thai' across the street. The food was fantastic, and the servers were great. The kids loved the chicken satay and were okay with the pad thai, but weren't super excited about the delicious pataya. The boys loved their mango and lychee juices, and Indrani liked the egg and ocean rolls. Dax took a liking to one of the cute servers, and told her pretty much everything about our trip up until that point.
We got the kids ready for bed in the 'My Thai' bathrooms (PJs, bedtime routine) and hit the road right after. Since we were about 6 hours behind schedule, we knew we were probably not going to make it to Portage, MI until late into the night.
It took some doing to find the Rainbow Bridge to cross over to Canada, but we finally found it and made the Border crossing without much incident (they don't take EZPASS, fyi). Everyone always says that to see Niagara Falls in its full glory, one should view it from the Canadian side, and I have always wondered what they meant. Well, after we crossed the bridge, we got a little twisted around finding our way to the road we needed to take, and ended up seeing the downtown area and it was beautiful. It was definitely more developed on the overlook itself, but it was far nicer. Parks, landscaping, little shops, very walkable. The NY side was more park-like, and definitely a bit of a schlep to get to the Maid of the Mist. The Canadian side had a lot more charm and seemed to allow people access to the view without having to pay for the view.
We got on the right road, finally and drove through Ontario well into the night. At around 9:30pm the sun began to set, which was a beautiful backdrop for our drive through Canada to Michigan. The only hiccup came when the highway was closed. Yes, closed. We took a detour and got back on the highway after the closed-off section.
The sun actually set around 10pm, and we drove on through the dark, until just before 3am. Sadly, because of our delay, we missed a stop that David and I were looking forward to in Sarnia, ON at Albert's Rolling Lunch for "fries under the bridge". Alas, another time.
Small world: My friend Manlio from graduate school was on the Canadian Maid of the Mist at the same time that we were on the US Maid of the Mist! And a friend from high school, Ali, had been there the day before!
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