Canada & USA (12 July - 19 July)

I'm writing this in Toronto airport as we wait for our flight home from our most recent trip - a quick visit to Canada (for Niagara Falls) and the USA (for a family reunion).  We'd kept this one quiet as we wanted to surprise the American family and also my Dad who was going to the reunion.

Last trip to the US we'd planned on heading to Niagara, which was somewhere Kristine has wanted to go for ages, but we weren't able to make it.  I promised Kris we'd make it there one day, so we decided to couple it with visiting the reunion.

We flew Copenhagen to Toronto, Canada in a single flight and then picked up our hire car and drove to our first destination - The Scottish Inn at Niagara falls. The inn was comfortable, but a little run down (but then again it was also quite cheap for the area). We had a single room with 3 double beds and a sofa bed, so the kids took turns with a different child on the sofa bed each night.

It was fairly warm on arrival, but very humid with rain threatening, in fact they predicted thunderstorms for our first night.  The time difference between Canada and Sweden is 6hrs so when we got the apartment at around 4pm it felt like 10pm.  We knew that we had to push through to about 7 or 8pm or we'd struggle to get settled in the new time zone, so we went for a walk down to the Canadian side of the falls.

The Canadian side also houses Clifton Hill, an amusement centre and Midway arcade.

Niagara Skywheel

We spent a little time wandering around the area and checking the souvenir shops for badges for our collection and checking out the amusement areas, like the dinosaur golf at the base of the Skywheel:

Dinosaur Minigolf

T-Rex and the volcano

Ever wonder what expression a stegosaurus would make if you hit a golf ball up its butt?

Baby T-Rex

The Burger King where we stopped for diner - as recommended by Frankenstein's monster

After dinner we walked down and checked our the falls from the Canadian side. The Falls consist of three separate falls - The American Falls, The Bridal Veil falls and Horseshoe Falls.  They were formed by glacial melt from the last ice age and water from the Great Lakes heading to the Atlantic Ocean.  168,000m3 of water flows over the crest every minute when the Falls are at their highest flow rate.

First view of the Falls - closest is American Falls, the Bridal Veil is the small fall on the right.  Horseshoe Falls is the one on the furthest right of shot.

American Falls & Bridal Veil - Bridal Veil is the small one slightly separate on the right

American and Bridal Falls

American Falls

Horseshoe falls generated a LOT of mist, making it very hard to get a decent photo

Horseshoe Falls

Hornblower sailing in front of the American and Bridal Veil Falls

There were two boat cruises around the falls - Hornblower (from the Canadian side) and The Maid of the Mist (USA side). It was possible to tell the difference by the free-issued ponchos the passengers wore.  Hornblower gave out red ponchos and The Maid gave out blue.  We ended up doing the Maid of the Mist on the second day - both did the exact same route but the Maid was cheaper for us.

Us in front of the Falls

American and Bridal Veil Falls

Cameron doing with "Waterfall Dab"

Tom in front of the Falls

Group Waterfall Dab

By the time we finished on the Canadian side of the falls we were ready for bed - a quick dinner and then a drive to a nearby grocery store to pick up supplies and we all crashed early.

Our plan for the second day was to take the Rainbow Bridge across to the American side of the falls, but it was raining, and oh man was it raining.  The downpour rivalled Bergen from our Norway trip (Pupletts in Bergen).  We've been in Sweden long enough not to let a little rain stop us (even though this wasn't a LITTLE rain) so we geared up and headed to the Rainbow Bridge.

There was a little confusion with the kids initially as they'd heard the term "Rainbow Bridge" used to describe the passing of a pet - "Buddy has gone over the Rainbow Bridge", which led to some interesting questions.

Rainbow Bridge - the bridge between USA and Canada

Rainbow Bridge

It cost 50c (two quarters) each to cross from the Canadian side to the US side (it was free the other way) and we also needed to pay for a temporary VISA (we had the ESTA visa waiver but this was extra) for $6 each.  So it took a while to get all the papers sorted, while we dripped all over the office floor.

Just a little bit wet

On the bridge is the International Boundary Line:

Border Crossing

Kris pulling the kids back across the border

Observation tower from the Rainbow Bridge

The American Falls behind the tower

Our first stop was the Maid of the Mist, where we got given free rain-proof ponchos.  But that point we were so soaked that it just kept the water in.  The boat went under both sets of falls before returning and letting us climb the observation tower.  It was raining so hard that it made it difficult to take any decent photos:

Poncho-ed up and ready to go

With all the rain we were worried that the Falls were going to get wet!

Bridal Veil Falls

Base of American Falls

American Falls

Horseshoe Falls

The base of Horseshoe Falls:

Base of American Falls

Bridal Falls:

After the Maid of the Mist we headed up the Observation Tower and walked up to the top of American Falls:

Top of American Falls

Looking down from the Observation Tower at the exit to the Maid of the Mist

There was a lot of mist rising from the falls

Fog settling in over the Canadian side

Us at the top of American Falls

The river leading to American Falls

Edge of the Falls

When we'd finished at the Falls we headed back to Canada and our apartment to dry off.  That night we went out for dinner at TGIF and got a decent night sleep.

The next morning, Kristine was up early and headed down to the Falls before we all woke up to try to get some photos of sunrise over the falls.  Unfortunately the cloud cover stopped that, but she got some decent shots:

Falls at 5am

We were just waking as she came back and so we set our plans for the day. We were going to head to the Canadian side at the top of Horseshoe Falls, then head up to the Whirlpool north of the falls and then finally have some fun with the Midway entertainments.  We were hoping to catch the fireworks over the falls, but since that was at 10:00pm we'd missed it every night so far (damn jet lag).

Parking by the falls was very expensive (and full) so we ended up going a little further south than expected and came across the Niagara power building.  Niagara Falls is home to many hydropower stations that create power from the power of the river and falls.

The building itself was very impressive:

Niagara Power Building

Even before the water reached Horseshoe falls it went through a series of rapids and mini-waterfalls for the hydroplant:

Hydroplant

Rapids at the top of the Falls

Kristine's artsy shot

Top of Horseshoe Falls

Panoramic of the top of Horseshoe Falls

Panoramic of the top of the Falls

Horseshoe Falls

Panoramic of the Falls

More Waterfall dabs

Kids at the top of the Falls

Alana and Horseshoe Falls

Kids at the Falls

Horseshoe Falls

Us at the top of the Falls

Horseshoe Falls

Our next stop was to be the Whirlpool downstream of the Falls, but we ended up stopping at Souvenir City, a big souvenir shop near the Whirlpool.

Souvenir City

Inukshuk

Information on the Inukshuk

Over the Falls in a barrel

The Niagara Whirlpool was formed about 4200 years ago when the rushing water from the Niagara River is forced back on a tight turn.  It is slowly increasing in size as the area erodes.  The water enters theWhirlpool at speeds up to 9m/s.

The Whirlpool

Whirlpool

Cablecar over the Whirlpool

Details of the Cablecar

In and Out of the Whirlpool

Log stuck in the Whirlpool

After the Whirlpool we headed out to the Midway Arcade and purchased a Clifton Hills Entertainment Card - it gave us entry to a few different attractions, but the ones we were most interested in were the Mini-golf and the Skywheel.  (We also got 5 tokens for the arcade, a simulated Wild-West mine-cart coaster, entry to the Movie Wax Museum, a zombie shooting game and a shooting ghost train.)

It was threatening to rain so we did the Skywheel first:

Skywheel

Skywheel Dab

Looking down the arcade over the Dinosaur Golf

American and Bridal Falls

Horseshoe Falls

All the Falls

Next we went to the arcade and rode the Wild West Coaster:

Wild West Coaster

 and the Ghost Train:

Then we cashed in our 5 tokens each.  The kids had a ball playing the coin drop game and winning tickets.  We ended up buying extra tokens so they could keep going.  In the end they cashed in the tickets for slinkies, rubber dice, toy cars and other small toys (they could have bought for an eighth of the price of the tickets, but they had fun earning them)

Tom earned a stack of tickets and named himself the "Ticket God"

Ticket God

Tickcet Counting Goddess

 Next we visited the Movie Waxworks:

Cam with Ironman

Mr T Pitying the Fool

Tomas with the Obamas

Mr Gump wouldn't share his chocolates

Austin Powers

Brendan Fraser vs trhe Dilophosaur in some weird version of The Mummy

Alana and Harry Potter

The Simpsons looked a little off - Lisa's hair took over her neck and Homer's legs were super short.. Oh and Marge looked about 12.

The best and worst character from Starwars I

Yoda

Thriller

Pirates of Niagara

The kids had the choice between the Dinosaur Minigolf and the indoor Wizards Glow in the Dark golf.  They chose the Wizards one as, in Tomas' words "We could see ther Dinosaur one without playing, but we can't see the inside one unless we play it"

Wizard Minigolf

Tom finishing up the hole

Wizard: "It was this big!"

The dragon

Final Scores:
Par - 42
Cameron - 88
Alana - 87
Tomas - 81
Kristine - 63
Keir - 58

The last ride was the Zombie Attack ride and 4D movie:

Zombie Attack

Cam shooting himself in the face

Our final stop was back to the top of the Falls to watch the fireworks and to see the Falls lit up at night:

Lit up Falls

Kids at the Falls

Fireworks over the Falls

That eneded our time at Niagara.  After the fireworks we headed back to our hotel to pack and sleep.  The next day we left early for our 5 hour drive to the USA.

We arrived at our accomodation around 2pm - we were staying at a place we found on AirBnB, Peaceful and Convienient, Brooke's place.  It was great - they let us drop the bags off early and then we headed off to surprise Dad and Jo at the family reunion.  We weren't sure if the suprise had held as a few people in the US knew about it (to make sure everything was in place), but it worked and they werent expecting us:

Surprise!

Our US family (my Dad's Dad's side)

Playing Cornhole - the idea is to throw the bean bags onto (or through the hole of) the opponents board

It's up there somewhere...

Missed

Besides spending time with family, we got some shopping done at the outlets and visited Bronner's Christmas Centre again (First Bronners visit):

Steins and glasses

This endless row of ornaments makes my eyes unfocus

Everyone needs a Nacho ornament

Or sloth

or Chewbacca Lights

or a pickle ornament

or to let the world know you love chicken nuggets, fries or Mac&Cheese

We then headed into Frankenmuth to check out the secondhand bookshop.  We ended up buying about $150 of books -  its hard to find cheap books in English in Sweden.

The Frankenmuth Covered Bridge

Overall it was a great trip.  We arrived back in Sweden at 9am, but our luggage was so slow coming out that we arrived home around midday.  The kids all had naps and eventually went to bed around 9pm.  They woke up at midday the next day.