Niagra Falls

Josh's baseball team got to play in a tournament in Cooperstown, NY in June so we decided to turn that trip into a mini family vacation. We flew into Buffalo, NY a few days early and drove up to see Niagra Falls. 

We wanted to stay on the Canadian side so we had to get the boys passport cards. Good thing we planned ahead. 

We woke up Wednesday morning, drove out the airport, boarded the bus, and flew to New York.

We spent the first late afternoon/evening just walking around the falls and the area around the hotel.

View from our hotel room

For dinner that night, we had booked a buffet dinner at the top of the Skyline Tower. We had to take an elevator on the outside of the tower to get to the restaurant. The restaurant was on a floor that rotated around so everyone had a good view of the falls every once in a while. The boys loved the buffet. 

We made sure we had a falls side room view in the hotel. At night they light up the falls. It's pretty neat to see.

The next day we did the tourist activities. We started with Journey Behind the Falls. 

They give you fun yellow ponchos and you get to tour the tunnels built behind the waterfall itself. It has information about how the tunnels were built and even goes all the way out to right behind the water. 

There is also a deck where you get up close and personal (and wet) with the water fall. 

Then we made our way over to the Hornblower Niagra Cruises to take a boat directly into the falls.

There we got nice red ponchos and boarded a boat to drive into Horseshoe Falls. 

It was as wet as you would expect. Think standing in the rain wet. The boys loved it. 

After the boat, we made our way up to Clifton Hills where they had all kinds of entertainment to keep us busy for a while. 

We played Dinosaur Adventure Mini Golf, rode the Niagra Skywheel, ran through the Big Top Amazing Mirror Maze....

..and drove on the Niagra Speedway.

It was a "barrel of fun".

After the baseball tournament, we headed back to Buffalo to fly back to Colorado. We spent the day seeing Niagra Falls from the American side. It has a beautiful state park and a different view of the falls and the river that feeds into them. 

We also had to stop and eat at the Home of the Original Buffalo Wings, the Anchor Bar. We found out they were created on a whim when the owner needed to feed her son and his friends when they unexpectedly showed up from collage. Check that off the list.

It was a fun family vacation.