Day 6: Niagara Falls, ON & Niagara Falls, NY

As most of you can tell, I'm writing this update waaaaaay after the fact. In other words, you'll have to forgive me if this isn't as interesting as our previous posts.

This morning we awoke knowing that today was our last day in Canada (for now, anyway). Honestly, we'd already seen and done almost everything we'd set out to. Aware that today was going to be a really long day, we stayed in bed until the very last minute. You see, our flight departs from Buffalo, NY at 7pm, arriving in Orlando near midnight. As usual, our first piece of business for the day was to get some food. Since it was already 11am, I proposed eating at the Hard Rock Cafe. For those of you who don't know, Steph and I almost always have a meal at Hard Rock in whatever city we're vacationing in (hard rock=guitars=us). Everytime I walk into a Hard Rock, I try to read the plaques for every piece of memorabilia I see in hopes of finding one of my favorite bands. The Hard Rock in Niagara Falls, Ontario had instruments from two of my favorites. First, we have an early 80's keyboard used by Depeche Mode.

The other find is a guitar used by Trent Reznor, the brain behind Nine Inch Nails (HR misspelled his name).

Just down the plaza from Hard Rock was a large Hershey Store. Here's a picture of Steph standing in front of an indoor waterfall at the Hershey Store.

After acting all tourist-like for awhile, we made our way back to the car. While walking, I took pictures of the two casinos Steph gambled at (Roulette) the day before. The first casino, Casino Niagara, was the more casual of the two.

Pictured here is the newer, fancier Fallsview Casino located just up the hill from Horseshoe Falls.

Back in the car, we decided we might as well begin making our way across the border back into the U.S.. I was interested in getting a view of the falls from the U.S. side, so we set out for the Niagara Falls State Park (of NY). First, however, we had to drive across the bridge and through a border crossing. As we were crossing the bridge we noticed that there was a walkway that ran along the bridge as well. Steph and I found it interesting that you could walk along a 'pedestrian crossing' between Canada and the U.S., but then again, not everyone has a car to drive. After crossing back into the U.S., we parked the car and began walking back across the bridge toward Canada. Here's a picture taken from the pedestrian walkway along the bridge.

Notice the flags representing the border on the center of the bridge. The view of the falls and Niagara River as a whole was outstanding from the bridge. This walkway gave us the chance to take a great photo of the entire river, including both sets of falls, downtown Niagara Falls, Ontario and the four Maid of the Mist ships. Hey dad, can you believe we were simultaneously standing on the edge of the U.S., and the edge of Canada!?

On the left side of the picture is a platform that resembles the edge of a bridge. This is a viewing platform that is part of the Niagara Falls State Park, which is where we were heading next. The park itself was very nice. It stood in sharp contrast, however, to the rest of Niagara Falls, NY. All I could think about was how much nicer it was on the Canadian side. Anyway, our quick visit to the park in NY gave us a chance to read about the history of the falls and take a couple of pics of the falls from the U.S. side.

Seen at the forefront is American Falls, and at the rear is the far right edge of Horeshoe Falls (and a bit of the Canadian cityscape). Our last stop before making our way to the airport was a quick stop at Seneca Casino. This is the only casino in Niagara Falls, NY and it is owned by the Seneca Nation (a group of Native Americans with reservations across western NY. Now, I mentioned that this was a quick stop, and there's one main reason: SMOKE. It was like walking into an early 90's bowling alley during Tuesday night's 'pizza & beer' league. I guess we've been spoiled by our smokeless state of Florida. Oh, by the way, smoking is illegal in any indoor establishment in Canada, including casinos. See, mom, even you can enjoy the casinos in Canada. . . they're smokefree.

Honestly, there is so much more that I could write about from this trip. We've taken some great pics of a lot of random stuff, so over the next few days I'll do a post with pictures and little anecdotes from our trip. Until then . . .