Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

Thursday, September 28, 2023

We woke up in Penn Yan, New York today in the parking lot of Rooster Hill Winery. That sounds a lot worse that it was - ha! Last night, we utilized another free camping location through the Harvest Host program. We’ve used this RV membership program several times on this road trip, but that’s not always the case when we travel. There are fewer participating locations in the West, so it just depends where we’re traveling as to whether we take advantage of staying at local farms, wineries, etc. It was a gorgeous fall morning overlooking the northeast side of Keuka Lake in the Finger Lakes. The sun was shining brightly and the air was crisp.

We were on the road by 9:00am this morning, and made a stop by one of the boat dealers in town for Andi’s work. While Andi had his meeting, Tory, Aden, and I did school parked outside in the RV. By Noon, we said good-bye to Penn Yan and headed west toward Buffalo, New York.

Tory and Aden keep reminding Andi and I that they have garage sale money they earned this summer to spend during our trip. Our stipulation is that the money must be used for an “experience,” so Tory has been researching places to stop along our route. Today she suggested The Buffalo Zoo, but neither Andi or I wanted to stop in Buffalo. We encouraged the kids to keep thinking & promised we’d spend their money doing something fun in the coming days.

In Buffalo, we crossed the USA/Canada border into Ontario. Once again, crossing the border with our RV was easy. Based on our last crossing experience, I didn’t clean out the refrigerator this time. Our meat was frozen, but we still had a ton of fresh produce from our stay at Pleasant View Farms a few nights ago. While it’s not against policy to bring vegetables into the country, the border agent could have seized the refrigerator contents. He never asked about it. The agent was friendly, and seemed surprised by the distance when we said we planned to exit Canada through Sault Saint Marie closer to Michigan.

Our first stop in Ontario, Canada was to see Lake Erie. Andi searched for a public beach on Google Maps and found one near Fort Erie. We pulled the RV into a small parking lot and walked down to the lake to dip our toes.

Lake Erie is the 2nd Great Lake we’ve visited on this trip. Through our studies, we learned that Lake Erie is the shallowest of all the Great Lakes and is surrounded by the most industry. It was strange looking across the lake to see tall city buildings — much different than Lake Superior.

We all waded around in the water, and then Aden disappeared for a few minutes. He returned from the RV wearing his swim trunks. “I’m going in!” he said. Meanwhile, Tory left her mark in beach writings. She has affectionately nicknamed Aden “Bubbles” on this trip in an effort to annoy her brother, and likes to tease him about eating his least favorite food in the world — cheese.

It wasn’t an ideal beach for swimming, so he only took a quick dip. Then, the four of us returned to the RV and continued on to our campsite in Niagara, Ontario.

We didn’t have a reservation, but were able to get a campsite at KOA in Niagara. In fact, there were only a handful of other campers there. Out of all the people that could have been parked next to us, wouldn’t you know the next camper over was from Nebraska? This further proves my point that we meet a Nebraskan wherever we travel in the world.

As soon as we parked our RV in its spot for the night, the four of us hopped back into the Jeep to see Lake Ontario. Lake Erie and Lake Ontario are only 30 minutes apart from each other on this narrow stretch of land near Niagara Falls.

Once again, Andi Googled a public beach in the city of Niagara-on-the-Lake so we could dip our toes into Lake Ontario. This area of Niagara was really nice with a lot of big houses and welcoming neighborhoods. Unfortunately, the lake was disgusting here!

We parked our car in the parking lot at Jones Beach and walked down to the water to check it out. What we found was such a heartbreaking sight. The lake water was literally the color of black sludge, lapping onto the beach. The sand had a layer of green slime outlining the shore. Aden was ready to walk into the water and we all shouted, “No! No!” It was too hazardous to put our bodies into the water here, even our feet.

Instead, the four of us went back to the Jeep and decided to find another public beach for us to wade in Lake Ontario. We followed the coastline to Mississauga Point, parked our car in the parking lot, and walked down to the water. This area was cleaner, but not by much. We dipped our feet into the waters of Lake Ontario and called it good enough for this one — our 3rd Great Lake visited.

Andi thought one reason the water was so gross was because we were downwind of the city of Toronto. Isn’t that terrible though? My heart hurt for all the birds flying around the lake, and for all the fish living in this polluted water. Not to mention, what a bummer to live in the affluent area of Niagara-on-the-Lake and have your lakeshore look like this.

Another thing that’s disgusting is our Jeep! Our poor “toad” pulling along behind our RV has been through the ringer and is definitely in need of a car wash.

From the shores of Lake Ontario, the four of us drove to Niagara Falls. Andi was pretty adamant that he did not want to visit Niagara Falls on this trip. The words “tourist trap” and “big crowds” were mentioned several times when discussing our route. He’s visited Niagara Falls a handful of times for work and didn’t want to go again. However, the kids and I have never been to Niagara Falls and I felt like we couldn’t drive right by without stopping. In the end, we agreed to visit Niagara Falls in the evening when the natural attraction would be less crowded. We also heard that the waterfalls are lit up at night which we thought would be neat to see.

Admittedly, we are not late-night people, so I was a little worried how we’d stay up past dark. We decided to go to dinner first, and then walk down to the falls. Andi suggested going to a Japanese BBQ (one of those places where you cook the meat right at your table) and we agreed that sounded like a fun place to eat tonight. It’s interesting how the kids are becoming more aware of pricing on this trip. Tory about fell out of her chair when she saw that the all-you-can-eat price for one person to eat at this Japanese BBQ was $59.

Eating at Niku Japanese BBQ was sort of an experience though. Our very friendly waiter explained how to cook meat on the grill inside our table, and then we all enjoyed cooking (and eating!) beef, pork, chicken, seafood, and veggies cooked over the fire. My favorite way to eat the meat & veggies was wrapped in a lettuce leaf with garlic and kimchi. Even the desserts were all-you-can-eat. Tory ate four squares of cheesecake! I’m not sure Tory ate $59 dollars worth, but Aden sure did. He loved the experience.

Our waiter suggested leaving our car parked at the restaurant and walking down to see Niagara Falls a few blocks away. So, after dinner we walked about 10 blocks to the Clifton Hill neighborhood. Clifton Hill is Niagara, Ontario’s major tourist promenade near Niagara Falls. Touristy stores, restaurants, neon lights, and entertainment line the street on both sides. Aden was in awe! “Is this what Las Vegas looks like?” he asked.

Tory insisted on wearing shorts and a t-shirt this evening, but now that the sun had gone down it was a little chilly outside. The four of us popped into one of the souvenir shops lining the streets and purchased a sweatshirt for Tory so she didn’t freeze. Since Tory got a sweatshirt, so did Aden.

Next, Tory and Aden decided they wanted to spend the money they earned at our summer garage sale at Ripley’s Believe It or Not. It was a nice change of pace letting Tory and Aden take the lead for our evening activities. Andi and I would have never picked to go to Ripley’s, but it was actually really fun. The four of us laughed — A LOT.

We learned that Mom and Aden can roll our tongues — Dad and Tory cannot.

All the optical illusions were fun. The kids were hoping there was a funny room where our size and shapes were distorted, and there was. There was also a black tunnel with spinning colors — that one gave us all a belly ache.

We spent a solid two hours at Ripley's, and then walked down the street to the waterfalls around 9:00pm. Before visiting, I was surprised to learn that the waterfalls are open 24/7 but once we got there I realized there’s not really a “park” or “entrance gate” into the falls. We simply walked down the strip of shops, restaurants, and entertainment venues lit up in neon colors and there was Niagara Falls displayed in front of us. We could see the waterfalls from the city sidewalk. Honestly, this made the waterfalls feel a little anti-climatic. I was bummed I forgot to bring our “big camera” to take pictures of the waterfalls but now I realized I wouldn’t have taken very good pictures anyway — too dark and too far away.

It was hard to take in our surroundings in the dark, but the waterfalls themselves were lit up in colors. We snapped a few pictures on our iPhones and that was it. Back to the entertainment strip we went. We walked by an arcade and Andi said each of the kids could have $20 worth of tokens to play games, so we went there next.

Arcades are stimulus overload x 1,000 for a parent — so loud, so many blinking lights, and a maze to keep track of your kids. Andi and I split up and he walked around with Tory while I followed Aden. Aden burned through his tokens pretty quickly playing the high striker game testing his strength and ball toss. Tory is always much slower in splurging, so she had quite a few tokens left at the end. Andi asked if he could use some of her tokens to play the ball toss and ended up with a really high score. Tickets started printing out of the machine and they kept on coming. I’ve never seen Tory so happy! The machine could have very well been printing actual money, she was so delighted.

Our restaurant waiter told us that Niagara Falls lights off fireworks every night at 10:00pm, so after the arcade Andi suggested we ride the Ferris wheel to watch them from the sky. There was no line at the ticket counter on the street, so we quickly purchased tickets and walked down the sidewalk toward the entrance. Unfortunately, there were about 20 people waiting in the queue when we got there. The line hadn’t been visible from the street! A few minutes later, we heard the big booms of the fireworks going off in the sky but we couldn’t see them from our position in line. Bummer! We really messed up the timing of that activity.

Nevertheless, we still got our turn to ride the Niagara Sky Wheel. It was actually a really long ride — 15 minutes in total. It was neat to see Niagara Falls lit up in lights and to look down on the action-packed street below.

By now it was 10:30pm and all four of us were running out of steam. We stopped by the public restrooms and then walked back to our car. This sign in the bathroom directing people to wash their hands cracked Tory and I up — a “loonie” is a Canadian $1 coin. It’s so funny traveling in Canada because it feels exactly like being in the USA until you encounter something insignificant (like this sign) and remember you’re in a different country.

Andi reminded the kids to “stay close” as we walked back to our car parked in the restaurant parking lot. There were quite a few bums and people on drugs walking around the streets. No one bothered us though. Fifteen minutes later, the four of us were back in the Jeep heading to our campsite at KOA Niagara Falls.

Tomorrow, we’re heading north toward Lake Huron. Excited to visit our 4th Great Lake.