**Starting off our fun day, warm and dry!**

It's much closer than we thought, and I had been asking for a Niagara Falls trip as a gift from Pauly for about two years now, haha! In true Paul spirit, he couldn't land on the perfect Groupon Deal with weekend availability, so it never happened. Although, he had good intentions, I did have a few printed off groupon vouchers at one point which I did not choose from. Then the whole Cleveland year made travel logistically messy and we were on a very tight budget living in two places.

With some patience and a little rash decision making, i.e. Booking a hotel without looking back, we were on our way to Canada! We drove after work, so found ourselves checking into the hotel to quickly set up the little man's crib. He was a trooper, but would rather stay up and party with us. This forced Paul and I to hang out and chat by the light of our phones under the covers, just like sixth grade bible camp.

Saturday morning we woke up, enjoyed the free hotel breakfast and walked across the road to the rapids called White Water Walk. You take an elevator down into the canyon and arrive on the side of fast moving white water rapids. Paul read all of the signs about the old days when people use to walk the tightrope across the rapids and take a barrel down the rapids. There were many dare devil stories and very few ended with fame - most of them ended with injury and even death. We definitely held on to the railings and didn't want to slip and fall. The rapids were pretty interesting, and the photos of course never do it justice. It became pretty obvious why trying to traverse the rapids is outlawed. This stop was the perfect first stop on our day at the falls. After looking around a bit more we got on the bus to the falls.

We did this virtual reality of the falls, where we were sprayed with water and a movie was playing. We weren't sure how Drew was going to like that, but it ended up being odd, wet and kind of weird. We were pleased that it was included with the adventure pass and that we didn't shell out money for it... hah, it was kind of odd, but another piece of the Niagara Falls adventure. We also walked behind the falls while it was raining really hard. You can walk pretty far behind and then jump out at a few look out points. Drew decided this was the time to take a nap, so he was like hauling around a very tired sack of potatoes! After walking behind the falls, we decided to wait out the rain by eating in the restaurant that overlooked the falls. It was a great view and some pretty good food too!

Our final destination for the day was to ride the boat. We were in the off season so we didn't have to wait too long. We all put on our ponchos again and headed aboard. This was probably our fourth time putting ponchos on that day. Drew was an all time professional at this point. The boat took us past the American falls and then into the horseshoe where you really were able to experience the mist and power of the national landmark. It was amazing. We were soaked and blown around with the wind, but we had a great time. After the soaking, we retreated to our hotel for the night for a swim and snacks. It was a great day!

Sunday we got on the bus again to go down to the falls one more time to take it in - the bus was free so we thought it couldn't hurt to go for a walk and enjoy the views a second day. We walked along the side and enjoyed the constant views and hum of the water. From there we traveled up to Niagara on the Lake and looked around. We did some window shopping and just a little real shopping, but we stopped and had a great lunch. We walked down to Lake Erie and then hit the road back to Pittsburgh. It was a jam packed travel weekend, but a darn nice one at that! I'm so glad we finally decided to make the trip. Hopefully we can return with our parents in tow soon!!

Niagara Falls Weekend

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