When you map out a road trip to Palmyra, you notice that Niagara Falls is close-by. And if you have never been there before, you and your girls get sparkles in your eyes that you can actually go to that iconic place. This is the story of our adventure there: The Maid of the Mist and other Niagara Falls beauty. Because man, it is sure beautiful!
To be honest, I kind of expected Niagara Falls to be kind of cheesy for some reason.
But it was not.
It was glorious.
All that water cascading down, the glee of all the kids (mine and my brother Noah and Kristi’s) getting drenched even through all our blue plastic ponchos on the Maid of the Mist boat tour:
Maid of the Mist
Let’s talk about this for a minute. This boat tour was the number one thing my friend recommended when I told her we were heading here. And you don’t have to buy tickets or a tour in advance, you just show up and get on the next boat.
Here’s the view from above after we bought our tickets…see the boat down there below?:
Then we went down this huge elevator to the water level:
(See that observation deck up there at the top? That’s where we took those two paired pictures above.)
Loading in the boat:
The glee of the kids when we got absolutely drenched in all that beauty:
You can’t tell it here but there was a time when it was like we were in the middle of a torrential downpour.
The walk up the side of the hill still in our ponchos, rainbows everywhere glinting in the sun. Grace’s astonishment multiplied my own.
And Lucy’s happiness…boy she sure loved all this!
Observation Deck
Excitement when we got back to the observation deck:
Whoops, we can only see Faithie’s eyes in that pic up there…here we go:
Bridge to Canada
We scrambled around to get to another viewpoint, this one with a view of the bridge that crosses from the USA to Canada in the background:
We basked in it all on the American side, and then headed across that bridge to the Canadian side and checked into our hotel rooms.
This took actually so much brain power and research to get the perfect hotel with the perfect view of the falls. For Noah’s family and for ours too.
I have to admit I think I kinda nailed it at the Niagara Falls Marriott Fallsview Hotel. The view was incredible. Here we are looking out from our window looking back to that American side we had been in the afternoon:
Sunset over Niagara Falls
Grace, Lu and I RAN down to catch the sunset, which turned out to be a much longer journey than expected.
But SO worth it.
Don’t interrupt Lucy when she’s trying to watch the sunset. She did give me a thumbs up though if you can see on the left:
Then we crammed in Noah and Kristi’s rental to get Indian food all squished in a booth together.
There is nothing like one-on-one family time when you have a family as big as ours, and Grace and Lucy adore these guys as much as I do. I loved it but we realized in HORROR that we had missed the firework show over the falls that happens ever night at 10pm while we were eating.
Darn it! We’ll have to find some videos of that show.
We got back to the hotel…all the kids hanging out on one room and N&K came up to ours and we talked deep about Jesus while looking out at those lit-up falls reflecting all different colors below. (Yes, that part was a tad-bit cheesy but I loved it, especially after we missed the fireworks!)
Sunrise over Niagara Falls
Lucy wanted to be sure to watch the sunrise from our window so I woke her up as promised. But I’m not sure she remembered anything about that when she ACTUALLY woke up an hour or so later.
I sat and watched it all by myself after my girls gave it a quick, groggy nod, marveling at Mother Nature.
Journey Behind the Falls
I snuck out and did the “Journey Behind the Falls” all by myself and let the girls sleep.
Anything to see more of that raging water.
It’s pretty cool how you can go down 125 feet to some viewing portals behind the falls as well as a little lookout from the side down below:
You go through here:
To get to this:
Here are the portals behind the falls where you can feel the thunder of the water:
All that water was so mesmerizing.
Mother Nature is so incredible.
From there I went back to rouse the girls, and we packed up and headed for our last stop: Kirtland.
Thank you, Niagara, for sharing all your beauty!
Awesome pictures!! I love seeing the falls. I have been a few times and it is just as awe inspiring every time. You really take beautiful pictures!!!
Thank you Lea!!
xoxo