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!