Mini!Ten (and EGT) Go to Niagara Falls
Aug. 22nd, 2010 06:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
earlgreytea68When you go to Niagara Falls, you go absolutely crazy and take, like, seven gazillion photos of water going over a cliff. I mean, seriously, that's what you do. I am not a big nature person, but even I thought the waterfalls were very cool, and we saw those waterfalls from EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE VANTAGE POINT.
Am I getting ahead of my story? Possibly.
Mini!Ten, Youngest Sister, Mother, Father, and I set off from Rhode Island on Sunday morning. The drive from Rhode Island to Niagara Falls (we were staying on the Canadian side) takes about eight hours, and the plan was to keep switching off drivers, which worked pretty well. My mother took the first shift, because she gets easily lost, and so she was the one driving when we PASSED A CAR ON FIRE. I've never seen anything like that, unless you count the movie ride thing at MGM Studios. It was a car, in the middle of the highway, engulfed in flames. We passed so close to it that the heat billowed into our car. We have no idea what caused this strange occurrence, but it was the most exciting thing Youngest Sister saw on the entire trip.
I, acting in the Papelbon role for the family, took the last shift into Canada. The thinking was that this was the hardest shift, because it involved directions, and, since my natural driving habitat is Boston, I am the least likely to be fazed by having no clue where I'm going. However, driving in Boston is much easier than driving with my family. During my portion of the drive, we had the following conversations.
[upon seeing a sign pointing us to "Niag Falls"]
Youngest Sister: Wait. That's taking us to Niag Falls. I don't think that's the right way.
Me: I think they were just abbreviating it, to fit on the sign.
Youngest Sister: It didn't have a period.
Me: I really don't think there's a Niagara Falls AND a Niag Falls here.
Youngest Sister: Well, they should really use periods if they're abbreviating stuff. That's confusing.
[She's right. That is confusing. BASIC RULES OF GRAMMAR, PEOPLE.]
My Mother: We're looking for I-90.
Me: I-90. That's the exit I need?
My Mother: Yes.
Me: Huh. Are you sure? I thought we were just on I-90.
My Mother: That's what the directions say: I-90.
Me: Huh. Okay. That's weird.
[We drive for a little while]
My Mother: Oh, you know what? We're looking for one-90. Oops.
Me: Oh, my God. You would be the worst person to be on "The Amazing Race" with ever.
My Mother: Hey, that billboard looked like Joe Garagiola!
Youngest Sister: Who?
My Mother: He used to announce baseball games. Is he dead?
My Father: Could someone pay attention to the driving, please?
[My Father is long-suffering.]
[Youngest Sister is reading aloud descriptions of the towns we are passing, from the AAA book]
Youngest Sister: This town has a number of attractions, including a museum of Victorian dolls, as well as Noah's Ark.
Me: I wonder what's in the museum of Victorian dolls.
Youngest Sister: Never mind that. NOAH'S ARK.
My Mother: You don't have to go 80, you know. You could go 70.
Me: We'll never get there if we only go 70.
Eventually, eventually, we got through customs, got settled in our hotel rooms (our rooms were AWESOME, complete with electric fireplaces AND Jacuzzi tubs), and then walked down to have the World's Most Expensive Dinner at T.G.I. Friday's. And then we walked down to the falls. We took pictures. We looked at each other. And we thought, What are we going to do here for two more days?
The answer was: LOOK AT THE FALLS MORE AND MORE AND MORE. No, seriously, you do not know how many different ways you can look at falling water until you go to Niagara Falls.
In the morning, we got up and had the World's Most Expensive Breakfast at Denny's. Then my father decided we should take a bus tour. This was the best idea ever. It saved us the stress of having to plan the outings ourselves, and was well worth it. Even if the bus driver spent a lot of time telling us about how the falls generate electricity. I do not understand science. Nobody in my family understands science. The bus driver went on and on, about canals and water diversion and tunnels and dams, and at one point my sister looked at my mother and asked, "What are they building the canal for?" and my mother replied, "I have no idea what he's talking about." Which pretty much sums up the entire understanding we have of the relationship between the falls and electricity.
BUT. Look at the pretty pictures! LOOK HOW CLOSE MINI!TEN GOT TO THE FALLS. Seriously, the mist is so intense that it blinds you. It's like being in a storm. A lot of the pictures came out entirely white, because it's just mist. The cameras were so wet, in fact, that I was scared we were breaking them (my mother's did break, with the lens getting stuck open because of moisture, but it was okay once it dried). I have this great picture of my sister taking a picutre of my parents, and my sister's face is all scrunched up just with the effort of trying to open her eyes long enough to SEE what she was doing. By the end, we could barely take pictures at all because of all the water droplets on the cameras. But, anyway, here's a selection:
We went from being right on top of the falls to being way above the falls, in this observation tower thing:
Then we went to the Butterfly Conservatory. I had never been to a butterfly conservatory before. It was kind of amazing. There were so many butterflies, we were scared to open our mouths for fear that they might fly in there. And butterflies are not good at staying still. So, here are the best photos I got of them:
After the Butterfly Conservatory, we went on the Maid of the Mist, which I think is actually required. It was pouring outside by this time, but that didn't matter so much, because we had ponchos on, and we were being engulfed by so much mist that we could only tell it was raining from the umbrellas open on the shore. I have no photos from the Maid of the Mist journey, because I opted to take video instead. Suffice it to say that my video is a lot of white, with me saying, "I can't see anything" and my sister saying, "This country is crazy" (this was our theme of the trip).
The next day the sun came up, which greatly improved my opinion of Niagara Falls. We stopped first at the rapids down-river from Niagara Falls, which are the most dangerous rapids in the world, or something.
My sister had this conversation with a random woman and her kids at the rapids:
Little Boy: So are we under the falls now, Mom?
Mother: Yup, we're under the falls.
Youngest Sister: No, actually, the falls are up the river a little way.
[Youngest Sister while telling this story afterward: DID SHE SEE ANY WATERFALLS AROUND HER? HOW WAS SHE CONFUSED ABOUT THIS?]
Mother: Oh, they are?
Youngest Sister: Yeah, we just drove from there.
Mother: Ah. You're staying up there?
Youngest Sister: Yeah.
Mother: Where are you from?
Youngest Sister: Rhode Island. Where are you from?
Mother: Oh, I'm from here, it's just my kids have never seen the falls, so we're doing all the tourist stuff.
Youngest Sister tells us this story later, which resulted in this conversation:
My Mother: She's lying.
Me: Why would she lie?
My Mother: How can she be from here and not know where the falls are even located?
Me: I don't know.
My Mother: She's probably a Russian spy, deep undercover.
There's a Buddhist temple opposite the rapids.
After that stop, we drove out to this town called Niagara-on-the-Lake. If you ever go to Niagara Falls, I highly recommend you take the drive out to Niagara-on-the-Lake. It's a beautiful drive, and the town is unbelievably charming. Niagara Falls is geared toward families, and it's kind of crazy. If you don't have small children, it can be overwhelming. But Niagara-on-the-Lake is geared toward adults, and we spent a lovely few hours darting into shops and bakeries.
The drive to Niagara-on-the-Lake is dotted with wineries. The Niagara region apparently makes some of the best ice wine on the planet. I don't really like ice wine, but my mother does, so we stopped at one of the vineyards and did some tasting. I did a blind tasting of white wines and guessed every single one of them incorrectly. Clearly, this indicates to me that I do not drink enough wine and need to drink more.
That night, we decided to go back to the observation tower, so that we could take (terrible) pictures of the falls illuminated at night. This required us to wait for the shuttle to show up, so my mother, sister, and I were sitting on a bench outside the hotel, waiting. A tour bus pulled up, and we watched a huge number of people file off of it. Then the bus driver did a check to make sure everyone was off, came out, and, for some reason, started talking to us (New Englanders view all occasions of being spoken to by strangers as extremely suspicious).
Bus Driver: What are you doing?
My Mother: We're waiting for the shuttle to take us to the observation tower.
Bus Driver: Oh, yeah. The tour director wants me to take the tour there tonight, but I don't think that sounds like a good idea. We just got here, I think we should take the night off. I'll drive back over the border and get dinner.
My Mother: Oh.
Bus Driver: Well, have a good night.
[Bus Driver walks into hotel]
My Mother: He's lying.
Me: Why would he be lying?
My Mother: I don't know. But he's going to drive over the border in a tour bus, by himself, to get dinner? He's lying.
Me: Why would everyone here be lying?
Youngest Sister: This country is crazy.
Anyway, after our second brush with a Russian spy, we went to the observation tower, and I took many, many very bad night photos.
And that was our trip to Niagara Falls. The whole time we were there, we were either laying around with nothing to do or RUSHING ABOUT like chickens with our heads cut off. It was a funny sort of trip, honestly, but I am very glad we went and I got to see it.
Am I getting ahead of my story? Possibly.
Mini!Ten, Youngest Sister, Mother, Father, and I set off from Rhode Island on Sunday morning. The drive from Rhode Island to Niagara Falls (we were staying on the Canadian side) takes about eight hours, and the plan was to keep switching off drivers, which worked pretty well. My mother took the first shift, because she gets easily lost, and so she was the one driving when we PASSED A CAR ON FIRE. I've never seen anything like that, unless you count the movie ride thing at MGM Studios. It was a car, in the middle of the highway, engulfed in flames. We passed so close to it that the heat billowed into our car. We have no idea what caused this strange occurrence, but it was the most exciting thing Youngest Sister saw on the entire trip.
I, acting in the Papelbon role for the family, took the last shift into Canada. The thinking was that this was the hardest shift, because it involved directions, and, since my natural driving habitat is Boston, I am the least likely to be fazed by having no clue where I'm going. However, driving in Boston is much easier than driving with my family. During my portion of the drive, we had the following conversations.
[upon seeing a sign pointing us to "Niag Falls"]
Youngest Sister: Wait. That's taking us to Niag Falls. I don't think that's the right way.
Me: I think they were just abbreviating it, to fit on the sign.
Youngest Sister: It didn't have a period.
Me: I really don't think there's a Niagara Falls AND a Niag Falls here.
Youngest Sister: Well, they should really use periods if they're abbreviating stuff. That's confusing.
[She's right. That is confusing. BASIC RULES OF GRAMMAR, PEOPLE.]
My Mother: We're looking for I-90.
Me: I-90. That's the exit I need?
My Mother: Yes.
Me: Huh. Are you sure? I thought we were just on I-90.
My Mother: That's what the directions say: I-90.
Me: Huh. Okay. That's weird.
[We drive for a little while]
My Mother: Oh, you know what? We're looking for one-90. Oops.
Me: Oh, my God. You would be the worst person to be on "The Amazing Race" with ever.
My Mother: Hey, that billboard looked like Joe Garagiola!
Youngest Sister: Who?
My Mother: He used to announce baseball games. Is he dead?
My Father: Could someone pay attention to the driving, please?
[My Father is long-suffering.]
[Youngest Sister is reading aloud descriptions of the towns we are passing, from the AAA book]
Youngest Sister: This town has a number of attractions, including a museum of Victorian dolls, as well as Noah's Ark.
Me: I wonder what's in the museum of Victorian dolls.
Youngest Sister: Never mind that. NOAH'S ARK.
My Mother: You don't have to go 80, you know. You could go 70.
Me: We'll never get there if we only go 70.
Eventually, eventually, we got through customs, got settled in our hotel rooms (our rooms were AWESOME, complete with electric fireplaces AND Jacuzzi tubs), and then walked down to have the World's Most Expensive Dinner at T.G.I. Friday's. And then we walked down to the falls. We took pictures. We looked at each other. And we thought, What are we going to do here for two more days?
The answer was: LOOK AT THE FALLS MORE AND MORE AND MORE. No, seriously, you do not know how many different ways you can look at falling water until you go to Niagara Falls.
In the morning, we got up and had the World's Most Expensive Breakfast at Denny's. Then my father decided we should take a bus tour. This was the best idea ever. It saved us the stress of having to plan the outings ourselves, and was well worth it. Even if the bus driver spent a lot of time telling us about how the falls generate electricity. I do not understand science. Nobody in my family understands science. The bus driver went on and on, about canals and water diversion and tunnels and dams, and at one point my sister looked at my mother and asked, "What are they building the canal for?" and my mother replied, "I have no idea what he's talking about." Which pretty much sums up the entire understanding we have of the relationship between the falls and electricity.
BUT. Look at the pretty pictures! LOOK HOW CLOSE MINI!TEN GOT TO THE FALLS. Seriously, the mist is so intense that it blinds you. It's like being in a storm. A lot of the pictures came out entirely white, because it's just mist. The cameras were so wet, in fact, that I was scared we were breaking them (my mother's did break, with the lens getting stuck open because of moisture, but it was okay once it dried). I have this great picture of my sister taking a picutre of my parents, and my sister's face is all scrunched up just with the effort of trying to open her eyes long enough to SEE what she was doing. By the end, we could barely take pictures at all because of all the water droplets on the cameras. But, anyway, here's a selection:
We went from being right on top of the falls to being way above the falls, in this observation tower thing:
Then we went to the Butterfly Conservatory. I had never been to a butterfly conservatory before. It was kind of amazing. There were so many butterflies, we were scared to open our mouths for fear that they might fly in there. And butterflies are not good at staying still. So, here are the best photos I got of them:
After the Butterfly Conservatory, we went on the Maid of the Mist, which I think is actually required. It was pouring outside by this time, but that didn't matter so much, because we had ponchos on, and we were being engulfed by so much mist that we could only tell it was raining from the umbrellas open on the shore. I have no photos from the Maid of the Mist journey, because I opted to take video instead. Suffice it to say that my video is a lot of white, with me saying, "I can't see anything" and my sister saying, "This country is crazy" (this was our theme of the trip).
The next day the sun came up, which greatly improved my opinion of Niagara Falls. We stopped first at the rapids down-river from Niagara Falls, which are the most dangerous rapids in the world, or something.
My sister had this conversation with a random woman and her kids at the rapids:
Little Boy: So are we under the falls now, Mom?
Mother: Yup, we're under the falls.
Youngest Sister: No, actually, the falls are up the river a little way.
[Youngest Sister while telling this story afterward: DID SHE SEE ANY WATERFALLS AROUND HER? HOW WAS SHE CONFUSED ABOUT THIS?]
Mother: Oh, they are?
Youngest Sister: Yeah, we just drove from there.
Mother: Ah. You're staying up there?
Youngest Sister: Yeah.
Mother: Where are you from?
Youngest Sister: Rhode Island. Where are you from?
Mother: Oh, I'm from here, it's just my kids have never seen the falls, so we're doing all the tourist stuff.
Youngest Sister tells us this story later, which resulted in this conversation:
My Mother: She's lying.
Me: Why would she lie?
My Mother: How can she be from here and not know where the falls are even located?
Me: I don't know.
My Mother: She's probably a Russian spy, deep undercover.
There's a Buddhist temple opposite the rapids.
After that stop, we drove out to this town called Niagara-on-the-Lake. If you ever go to Niagara Falls, I highly recommend you take the drive out to Niagara-on-the-Lake. It's a beautiful drive, and the town is unbelievably charming. Niagara Falls is geared toward families, and it's kind of crazy. If you don't have small children, it can be overwhelming. But Niagara-on-the-Lake is geared toward adults, and we spent a lovely few hours darting into shops and bakeries.
The drive to Niagara-on-the-Lake is dotted with wineries. The Niagara region apparently makes some of the best ice wine on the planet. I don't really like ice wine, but my mother does, so we stopped at one of the vineyards and did some tasting. I did a blind tasting of white wines and guessed every single one of them incorrectly. Clearly, this indicates to me that I do not drink enough wine and need to drink more.
That night, we decided to go back to the observation tower, so that we could take (terrible) pictures of the falls illuminated at night. This required us to wait for the shuttle to show up, so my mother, sister, and I were sitting on a bench outside the hotel, waiting. A tour bus pulled up, and we watched a huge number of people file off of it. Then the bus driver did a check to make sure everyone was off, came out, and, for some reason, started talking to us (New Englanders view all occasions of being spoken to by strangers as extremely suspicious).
Bus Driver: What are you doing?
My Mother: We're waiting for the shuttle to take us to the observation tower.
Bus Driver: Oh, yeah. The tour director wants me to take the tour there tonight, but I don't think that sounds like a good idea. We just got here, I think we should take the night off. I'll drive back over the border and get dinner.
My Mother: Oh.
Bus Driver: Well, have a good night.
[Bus Driver walks into hotel]
My Mother: He's lying.
Me: Why would he be lying?
My Mother: I don't know. But he's going to drive over the border in a tour bus, by himself, to get dinner? He's lying.
Me: Why would everyone here be lying?
Youngest Sister: This country is crazy.
Anyway, after our second brush with a Russian spy, we went to the observation tower, and I took many, many very bad night photos.
And that was our trip to Niagara Falls. The whole time we were there, we were either laying around with nothing to do or RUSHING ABOUT like chickens with our heads cut off. It was a funny sort of trip, honestly, but I am very glad we went and I got to see it.
