Niagara Road Trip, Day Five: Flowers and Butterflies

So today is our last day in Niagara Falls. We did get a whole extra day that we didn't plan for, but it still doesn't feel like we've been here long. Today we did some non-Falls-related activities and went to the Floral Showhouse and the Butterfly Conservatory. Lots of pretty pictures were taken! Here are just a few...

Here's a sign for the Floral Showhouse...


A turtle in a little pool inside the Showhouse...


There's a little baby turtle in this picture (though he looks just as big as the larger turtle in the previous picture because the camera is zoomed in)...can you find him?

Here are some of the plants that were growing in the showhouse...





Me in front of a statue in the hydrangea display...


Shane with the hydrangeas....


Another pretty flower...


A cool looking tropical bird (there were others but they were hard to take pictures of)...


And here are some pictures from the Butterfly Conservatory...




A butterfly landed on Shane's shoulder...


...twice...


No butterflies landed on me because I got all flinchy and spastic whenever they got close. I didn't mean to! I just get nervous about bugs...even if they're pretty and I wouldn't mind if they crawled on me.

There were some poisonous frogs on display too...they were in a little aquarium...


After leaving the Butterfly Conservatory we jumped aboard a shuttle and headed back to our hotel to chill out for a while. Later we're planning on going to Johnny Rocket's for an early dinner and then we'll take a stroll over to the big ferris wheel that's supposed to give you a very nice view of the Falls. I am determined not to let my fear of heights get the best of me.

Tomorrow we'll be heading out early to begin the long drive home. It's been a really wonderful vacation...we were so unbelievably lucky at just about every turn! I hope anyone reading has enjoyed the stories and pictures!

Niagara Road Trip, Day Four: Soaked

Last night before we went to sleep Shane told me not to spend a lot of time on my hair the next morning...and boy am I glad I listened to him. Today we took a ride on the Maid of the Mist and went to Journey Behind the Falls to get an up close view of the Falls. And we got completely soaked. They warn you that you're going to get wet at both of these attractions...they even go so far as to hand out free ponchos...but it's impossible to really understand how drenched you'll get until you experience it. The mist from the Falls can hardly even be considered mist...it's more like rain. And it's so windy and chilly the closer you get...I'm so glad it was a hot day! I can't imagine what the experience would be like in colder weather. Here are some pictures from our day...

A sign pointing us in the right direction...


Me in my stylish, blue Maid of the Mist poncho (just like the ones Jim and Pam from The Office were wearing when they got married on the Maid of the Mist!)...


Shane looking fancy in his poncho...


Me near the U.S. Falls (there aren't any closer than this because it was too windy and there was too much water to take pictures)...


Now this next picture is a scary one. Somehow, Shane got stung by a bee while we were boarding the boat. This was particularly never-wracking because when Shane was little he was ALLERGIC to bee stings. I was so concerned he'd have an allergic reaction that I tried to make him get off the boat before it left the launch but he insisted he'd be fine. And indeed he was. Still...for a while there it was very scary!


Here's a picture of some stairs near the U.S. Falls that we could see from the boat. Look how close you can get! You're practically IN the Falls!


These are the horseshoe shaped Falls on the Canadian side...


Me and Shane aboard the Maid of the Mist...


Before heading over to Journey Behind the Falls we had a very nutritious "lunch" at Tim Hortons (we've been very healthy on this trip)...


Here's us in a tunnel literally behind the Falls in our lovely yellow Journey Behind the Falls ponchos...that's a whole lot of water falling at about 40 mph behind us...


After Journey Behind the Falls we walked up to Clifton Hill where there's a bunch of touristy stuff...souvenir stores, "4-D" movie theaters, wax museums and whatnot. Actually, during our travels around town we have come across at least 4 haunted house attractions. It's completely bizarre. After that we returned to the hotel to wash up then went and had a lovely Italian dinner at a restaurant called Mama Mia's in the casino across the street. Now we planning on chilling out for the rest of the day. AAAhhhhh. And we have another full day here tomorrow instead of going home like we originally planned!

Niagara Road Trip, Day Three: A Perfect Day

Today really was a perfect day. Despite the fact that most of it was spent driving and I am now completely exhausted, so many wonderful things happened. It started when Shane got an email on his Blackberry saying that the administration at work decided to give us all the day off on Friday so that we'd have a four-day Memorial Day weekend. Shane and I weren't originally planning to take the whole week off...but with Friday off now all we'd have to do is take Thursday. So we both got in touch with our bosses and were both given permission to take Thursday off too. YES. And since we didn't need to be back anymore we decided to add another night to our stay in Niagara Falls. Amazing...

And then, on top of that, we have this completely awesome room to stay in for the next few days. Here's a picture of Shane taking a picture of me through the sliding window things that open up to the whirlpool bath in the bathroom.


Here's a picture of me taking a picture of Shane from inside the bathroom.

Here's just a portion of the breathtaking view from our room...


Here is the other part of the view....


Here's Shane and I looking all fancy before we headed out to our "nice dinner"...

And then after dinner we spent a little time in the casino across the street from our hotel. Normally, I wouldn't be thrilled about this...I don't exactly love it when Shane gambles, though he can, of course, do as he pleases...but he won $155 Canadian tonight (about $145 in US currency)!

We ended the evening watching the Victoria Day fireworks over the falls from the comfort of our hotel room. It was a beautiful, beautiful thing and I don't think we could have possibly planned it any better. :)

Niagara Road Trip, Day Two: Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Despite a forecast for rain, today has turned out to be a beautiful day! The hotel advertised a daily free continental breakfast so we started our day at a time we considered relatively early (we were headed out the door by 9:30 a.m....here's us looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed)...


but were apparently too late for said breakfast which ended promptly at...9:30 a.m. So we wound up having a very healthy breakfast from the McDonald's adjacent to the hotel. Mmmm...greasy...

We then headed out on our voyage to the glorious Baseball Hall of Fame. Here is where we parked (picture taken of Shane's Blackberry so that we'd remember the location)...


And here is the Baseball Hall of Fame (a lovely couple from out West somewhere took this picture for us...Angels fans, just in case anyone was curious)...


The Hall of Fame contained all sorts of wonderful baseball relics...here are just a few of the SEVERAL pictures that Shane took while we were there. This first one is of Babe Ruth's locker...


The is the most expensive and rare baseball card out there (it's worth about $3 million)...


This is a locker full of more recent Yankees stuff (Alex Rodriguez's batting helmet, CC Sabathia's shoes...which are gigantic, the batting gloves Derek Jeter was wearing when he broke the record for career hits as a Yankee, etc.)...


Here is a picture of Shane in Hank Aaron's locker...


And the piece de resistance...only appearing this very weekend at the Hall of Fame...the Yankees' 2009 World Series Trophy...


Ooooo...shiny. Here's a picture of Shane with the trophy...


Here's a picture of me with the trophy (the 3rd attempt...I blinked in the first two)...


Then, surprise of surprises, we ran into Don Mattingly and Derek Jeter! Right in the actual hall of fame where all of the plaques are hung!


Boy, did they look different in person. Shane also took several pictures of the plaques for different players...so I chose one to include in my blog. For your viewing pleasure, the Babe's Hall of Fame plaque.


After that we took a short spin around the gift shop...looked at all the overpriced merchandise ($100 sweatshirts and whatnot)...and then that was that. Doing all of this actually took a lot less time than we thought it would, so we went and grabbed a couple of hot dogs and pondered what we'd do next...

Here's me sipping my lunchtime root beer...


Here's Shane being Shane...


We couldn't really come up with anything else good to do (there's not really a whole lot going on in Cooperstown, NY) so we decided to take a leisurely walk down to Otsego Lake and sit on a bench for a while. Here's a picture of us at the lake...


It was really very nice and relaxing. We then decided we wanted to try to go feed some deer at a place where they said you could do so...but for the life of us, we couldn't find it. So after driving around for a little while, we decided to return to the hotel to relax a bit and then we'll head out to dinner before, you guessed it, watching the 2.5 hour series finale of LOST. Not an action-packed day by any means but it's been relaxing and the weather has been nice so I'm happy.

Tomorrow we embark on the second half of our trip to Niagara Falls! We're actually staying on the Canadian side of the Falls so a trip across the border is in order. I'm wondering if my GPS is actually going to work in Canada...hmmm...well, it'll be an adventure!

Niagara Road Trip, Day One: Going Underground

Vacation! Vacation, vacation, vacation...VACATION! I've been looking forward to this trip for a long time. I needed it. And my brain is pretty fried at the moment due to travel and the yucky headache I have at the moment, so bare with me...this entry may be all over the place.

Several months ago Shane and I decided we wanted to go on a little road trip again but this time we'd be heading North instead of South (like we did last year when we went to Washington D.C.). We planned to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY and then head on up to Niagara Falls. It's been a long road between then and now but we made it and we're on the road once again! Enjoy the photos from the first leg of our trip below...which included a stop at Howe Caverns...these awesome underground caves in New York.

As you can see, we're clearly elated...


Halfway the drive to Howe Caverns, our friend Snoopy decided to ride up front with me.


Before long we reached Howe Caverns...


Even though it's warm out we had to come equipped with jackets because it's only about 52 degrees in the caverns. By the end of our spelunking my nose was actually running because of the cold. Here's a lovely picture Shane took of a wall with several different colors of calcite on it. We had one of those touristy picture-in-a-cardboard-frame pictures taken in front of this wall. They took the picture without an obligation to buy it...but I liked it so we did. I'm such a sucker.


Here's our very own version of a picture of us in the caverns...no cardboard frame necessary...


Here's me at "the bridal alter," which is an area where they actually perform wedding ceremonies underground. The slab in the floor that I'm standing on is a heart shape that was cut out of the rock. Legend says that if a single person stands on the heart, they'll be married within a year. I couldn't push the little kids out of the way fast enough. HA! ;)


(Those kids were quite annoying too...middle school aged boys from the looks of things. You can see one in the background of the picture above. There wasn't a moment that went by without them making ridiculous amounts of noise. And their chaperons were hardly doing anything about it. Sheesh...)

And here is the last part...I think it was called "the winding way" or something like that. It was a super narrow passage way through the rock. Very high...but very...very...narrow. Surprisingly, little old claustrophobic me did not have a complete mental breakdown. Shane was reassuring me almost the entire time though...


(Photos courtesy of Shane and his brand-spanking-new camera. Lovely.)

After leaving the caverns we drove about an hour through the upstate New York countryside (and believe me...that's all there is up here), saw several cows and horses, and are now resting up at the hotel before heading out to see Iron Man 2. :) Tomorrow we're on to the Baseball Hall of Fame...and who knows what else!