Niagara Falls

So after 8 hours in the car, which included a few hours of white knuckle driving in the pitch black and pouring rain (DJ was calm, I was the one white-knuckling), we arrived at Niagara Falls on Wednesday night. After I vowed we would never drive the RV at night again, we slept late, and when we woke up, we decided to do the most awesomely touristy thing possible: a 4-hour tour of the greater Niagara Falls area, which included such exciting stops as Goat Island, Prospect Point, the falls themselves, and the required-by-law boat ride on the Maid of the Mist, a precariously small boat that takes you in the scary, swirling water direclty below the falls.

The weather was cooperating in the morning, but by the time we did our tour it was roughly 50 degrees and raining – just the sort of weather one hopes for when visiting icy cold spraying waterfalls. I must say, though, that despite the weather everything was really cool to see, and Roxanne Patricia officially wins the Best Baby in the World medal for both good humor and endurance. This 10-month-old kid was in a backpack for 4 hours in the soaking wet rain (we did have a very cozy fleece-lined rain coat and warm clothes on her, for those dialing Child and Family Services), getting in and out of the car, doing what some would consider boring touristy things, and she literally did not make a peep. In fact, during the Maid of the Mist boat ride, she would smile and giggle every time the freezing-cold spray from the waterfall hit her in the face. Remind me to buy this kid a college education or something.

Roxie was so good that apparently we weren’t the only one who noticed: after we got off the Maid of the Mist, the copious Japanese tourists who rode with us were fascinated by Roxanne and her fancy American-style backpack carrier, and they literally asked us to pose with her in front of Niagara Falls so they could take a picture. I’m not sure if they were doing this so that they could secretly steal our wallets, but I can tell you that somewhere in Tokyo, someone will soon be sitting through a boring vacation slide show that will include a smiling and soaking wet Roxie P.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the pictures yet from DJ’s camera, but I’ll definitely post some as soon as he downloads them. We got some awesome shots of a rainbow over the falls because of the rain, as well as some good pictures of DJ wearing the handsome free sandals and yellow poncho that were required for the “Cave of the Winds” tour.

As we hit the road from upstate New York today, we are heading toward Boston, Massachusetts, to visit my good buddy Jean and her hubby, Jay. We are very excited to see them and to show Roxie yet another city on the mighty RV tour. Look for tales from Boston soon!

P.S. We didn't make it to the cutesy town Niagara-on-the-Lake, but shout out to my buddy Meggan H. anyway for the info. We'll keep it for next time!