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Thursday, July 31

Reminiscences of Niagara

by Mike on Thu 31 Jul 2008 10:13 PM EDT

The Horseshoe Falls at dusk,
as seen from the observation deck of Skylon Tower

On our list of favorite vacation spots and travel destinations, Ontario, Canada is surely in the top three, right along with Greece and San Francisco. For this year's summer vacation, we went to Niagara Falls, Canada. This visit was our third trip to Niagara Falls and our fourth trip overall to Ontario (we visited Toronto in 2005). Thomai and I first visited Niagara Falls as newlyweds back in 1998 and we had an absolutely great time. We returned in 2001 when K. was about 2 ½ years old and it was another memorable experience. Of course, our trip to Toronto was exceptional, but it was a pretty expensive junket and it wasn't in the cards (or in the budget) for us to go back this year, although we would have liked to do so. Because Z. had never visited the Falls, we thought this would be a good time share the experience as a family of four.

We were ready for a huge road trip, having compiled a massive mix CD that included some of our road trip favorites like "The Road I Must Travel" by The Nightwatchman, "Vacation" by the Go-Go's and "Holiday Road" by Lindsey Buckingham. We also added some new songs to the mix, like "No One" by Alicia Keys, which is a new favorite for Thomai and K.

It is probably worth noting that it was pretty sunny on the drive up to Canada and I had to break down and buy a pair of sunglasses at a Pennsylvania K-mart. And -- get this -- they were those huge "over glasses" shades that I joked about last year in my rant about Wal-Mart. Once we were back on the road, it finally hit me that I was 35 years old, wearing gigantic "over-glasses" sunglasses, and driving a mini-van with my 2 kids in tow. So I guess it is official that I am an old guy.

The one and only
Santino Marella

We were a little worried about Stupsi on our first night there, as she had helped herself to a bag of the kids' candy a day or two earlier. But we did manage to get settled and walk down to Clifton Hill, which is one of our favorite spots in Niagara Falls. It is probably one of my greatest contradictions that I love such a kitschy, touristy place like Clifton Hill. The girls were pretty excited to eat at The Rainforest Café and I must say it was pretty decent for a chain restaurant. I was pretty stoked to find the WWE Retail Store right next to the Rainforest Café and we stopped there after dinner. I ended up buying a Santino Marella t-shirt which I will probably wear several times a week for many, many years to come. I had wanted one of these shirts pretty badly for about a month, but I hadn't got around to getting one online. Now, Thomai will tell you that she doesn't like wrestling at all, but I am more than happy to point out that Santino always gets a laugh out of her. I am pretty sure it's because his in-your-face "Italian" character reminds her of some of her more "boisterous" relatives in Greece.

Our first big stop during our stay was the Niagara Parks Butterfly Conservatory. We had never been there before, and it was a tremendously interesting place to see. Thomai took some wonderful pictures there.

Yes, I gave this man $4.

Later in the week, we visited some of our favorite spots on Clifton Hill, including the Movieland Wax Museum and the Rock and Roll Wax Museum. Baby Z. has a bizarre fascination with Elvis these days, and we snapped an hilarious picture of her posing in front of a wax figure of "The King." Later that day, we came across a street performer who was working the Clifton Hill area with his very bizarre "Golden Elvis" routine. Both of the girls were really taken by his act and I ended up giving the guy $4 CDN (or two "Toonies") so that he would give the each of girls a set of gold beads. K. wore her beads for the rest of the trip.

Skylon Tower was a high point (pun intended) for us all and we took some great pictures of the Horseshoe Falls below. I was also pleasantly surprised to find a nice-looking spider spinning an impressive web on the outside of the observation deck screen, a full 775 feet from the ground. The pictures I took of that spider (with the distant landscape below as a backdrop) are some of my favorite pictures from the trip.

Spider web at 775 feet.

As usual, I wanted to visit a locally-owned used and rare bookshop as part of our trip and after looking a bit on the web and in the phone book, I thought Hannelore Headley Old & Fine Books in St. Catherine's looked like a good spot. This place was totally packed with rows upon rows of books, stacked as high as the ceiling in some places. I landed a couple of good finds, including Love and Struggle in Mao's Thought by Raymond Whitehead and a 1968 Progress Publishers book on the Ulyanov Family.

Our last day in Niagara was the busiest of them all, as we didn't want to leave without hitting all of the best "tourist" attractions. We have hit the Double Deck Sightseeing Tour, Journey Behind the Falls and Maid of the Mist on all three of our Niagara trips now and each attraction is a special and unique experience.

For our last big meal of the trip, we went to a ritzy Chinese restaurant called Golden Lotus, located in the über-posh Fallsview Casino Resort. Budgetary constraints prevented us splurging on $100-plus dishes like shark fin soup and abalone, but I did go with the waiter's recommendation, which was the tender pork neck in X.O. sauce. I had never tasted X.O. sauce before and I was a little worried that I wouldn't like it, but it was just spicy enough without completely overpowering the dish. The consistency of the pork neck was unusual, but very intriguing -- somewhere between a piece of ham and a pork chop. The dish was pretty fantastic, overall, as was the entire trip.

Niagara Falls has never let us down and Thomai and I were so happy to enjoy all of our favorite spots with the girls.