Aliens in the Apple

Magnificent Niagara Falls

Franci 10 Nov 2011 Being tourists Family Jaunts out of NYC Nature

After our 3 nights in the Adirondack mountains, we drove to Niagara Falls. The scenery on the way was beautiful!

Crossing the border into Canada.

We arrived on a cold, windy, overcast afternoon, but didn’t know whether the weather would clear up over the weekend, so decided to brave it and go look at the falls regardless. It was impressive, to say the least. Such a great body of water tumbling down a cliff was incredible. I must say I always thought the Niagara Falls would be taller, but even if they aren’t very tall, they’re still huge in width and volume.

Ben, of course, had to fray my nerves. At least he didn’t do it in a spot that was too dangerous!

On Sunday we drove in to Toronto to attend church. We really appreciated the sermon — it was a very good message from the book of Judges on Gideon. I took few pictures in Toronto, and we didn’t get anywhere near downtown, but I took this picture on our way, with Toronto’s skyline in the distance across Lake Ontario. Now, I have played around with the lighting in the photo, but the sky really was very dramatic!

We stayed in the small town of St Catharines. St Catharines is only about 20 minutes’ drive from Niagara and is a much more affordable, and much quieter place to stay if you want to visit the Niagara area. On Sunday evening we had a very nice sunset view from our window.

On Monday morning the weather had cleared up and so Ben, Marica and I braved The Maid of the Mist.

We all had to don blue raincoats which we were thankful for — if we didn’t have them we would have been totally soaked!

Hey look, a photo of me! I need some botox.*

The American Falls:

Approaching the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side:

Some of the Horseshoe Falls:

There were some neat rainbows from all the mist in the air.

It was such a great experience seeing the Niagara Falls, and we feel blessed to have seen them.

From Niagara we continued on our loooong drive to visit our good friends, the Tysons. But more next time!

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* I was kidding, okay?

Comments (7)

Lillian 10 Nov 2011 at 3:30pm

That rainbow is really cool! And notice that it’s much lighter under the rainbow than over the rainbow. Cool refraction, as God made it. Lillian

Brenda 10 Nov 2011 at 4:56pm

Nice! That’s one place I’ve never been. It’s on my list though! Maybe next time we go to the States, we should try a side trip there.

Hannah 10 Nov 2011 at 5:04pm

Isn’t the sound of the falls just amazing?! Did you do everything from the Canadian side or visit the American side, too? There’s an island you can cross over to between the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls, and you’re surrounded by water and sound. (Good place to view the night light show, too, which is more spectacular than you’d imagine.)

Franci 10 Nov 2011 at 5:50pm

We did everything from the Canadian side. We didn’t have much time there, so we just looked at the falls from the side and took the boat tour. For some reason, I don’t recall the loud sound. I’m sure it was there, I just don’t remember it!

Michelle Kloosterman 10 Nov 2011 at 6:05pm

Glad you are enjoying your time touring! Pete had a summer assignment at St. Catherine’s URC while at Mid-America. We enjoyed visiting the falls and the surrounding area that summer. It is all so beautiful! We still laugh about our first visit to the falls because Jessica and Rebekah, ages 3 and 2, were more excited about the big buses than the falls. ; ) Don’t forget to go to Tim Horton’s for your morning tea!

Franci 10 Nov 2011 at 7:34pm

Oh Michelle, I’m not nearly onto it enough to blog about things as we are doing them! This happened about 3 weeks ago! :-)

Eva 16 Nov 2011 at 8:33pm

Franci, I really like the photo of the American falls with the birds in the foreground; also, good shot of the Canadian flag with the falls in the background. Hope I make it back there again one of these days; certainly impressive nearly 20 years ago, but I’m sure I would appreciate it equally or more as an adult. (Maybe your mental image that the fall would be higher is because you saw old photos; afterall, it’s always shrinking — haha. …Did you visit the museum there that showed the fall frozen?)