{"id":9323,"date":"2019-08-12T20:01:31","date_gmt":"2019-08-13T01:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.anniee.net\/?page_id=9323"},"modified":"2025-06-21T08:06:40","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T13:06:40","slug":"travelogue-niagara-falls","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.anniee.net\/?page_id=9323","title":{"rendered":"Travelogue: Niagara Falls"},"content":{"rendered":"

August 2019<\/em><\/strong>
\nWhere We Stayed:\u00a0 Hampton Inn (American Side)<\/em><\/p>\n

The third leg of our August vacation was Niagara Falls.\u00a0 It’s a MUST-SEE, right?!\u00a0 RIGHT.\u00a0 But I cannot impress upon you enough:\u00a0 see the falls from the Canadian side and skip right over the American side.\u00a0 More on that in a bit.<\/p>\n

We drove from Cooperstown to Niagara, which took about 4.5 hours.\u00a0 We arrived in Niagara early afternoon and were immediately disappointed.\u00a0 Niagara Falls, NY is sad, blighted, and just plain creepy.\u00a0 We chose to stay at a Hampton Inn because Hamptons are predictable and clean — and this one was no different.\u00a0 We couldn’t check in upon arrival (we were early) and we didn’t want to leave the car full of luggage parked anywhere (fun fact: Niagara Falls, NY has a very high rate of violent crime).<\/p>\n

So what did we do?\u00a0 We were grumpy, hungry, a little sad that Niagara Falls, NY was so dismal, and we had time to kill.\u00a0 My mom and I visited the Visitor’s Center to get the lay of the land.\u00a0 Then my dad drove us to the parking lot of Niagara Falls State Park.\u00a0 Mom and I got out and walked around and saw the falls.\u00a0 I was underwhelmed.\u00a0 I mean, any gigantic waterfall is cool and impressive but I just didn’t get what all the fuss was about.\u00a0 Our moods were not improving and it was turning out to be the worst day of our trip.<\/p>\n

We were finally able to check in and drop our luggage off around 4pm.\u00a0 It was a beautiful, hot, sunny day and I pretty much demanded that we drive over the Rainbow Bridge to Canada.\u00a0 I had read that the view of the falls was 10x better from the Canadian side — and we had\u00a0hours<\/em> of daylight left in the day.\u00a0 So we went to Canada, lost our tempers about 10 times trying to find parking, and made our way to the pedestrian walkway along the falls.<\/p>\n

Then I saw it: the biggest and most magical rainbow of my life — and a BEAUTIFUL view of Horseshoe Falls.\u00a0 My mood\u00a0instantly<\/em> turned to giddy. Now, it is not surprising that I saw this rainbow.\u00a0 I’m not trying to make this out to be some rare occurrence.\u00a0 Cause mist + sunshine = RAINBOW TIME.\u00a0 I took approximately 500 photos and was on cloud nine.\u00a0 Niagara Falls truly is a beautiful sight to see and I’m so happy that we brought our Passports so we could see it from the Canadian side.<\/p>\n

The Canadian side, it must be noted, is generally nicer more aesthetically pleasing.\u00a0 Beautiful flower beds, luxury hotels, better restaurants, and view of the falls that is 1000x better than what you’ll see from the United States.\u00a0 I cannot recommend driving or walking over the bridge to Canada enough!<\/p>\n

We also visited one of the gift shops and found Smarties!\u00a0 Tim Horton’s!\u00a0 And Hudson Bay goods! Our short time spent in Canada lifted all of our moods.<\/p>\n

We quickly realized that we had one more day left on the trip, but we saw all there was to see of the falls.\u00a0 What were we going to do?\u00a0 The thought of spending any more time in Niagara wasn’t appealing in the slightest.\u00a0 So we looked at the map and say, “let’s go to Cleveland!”\u00a0 More on that in another post.<\/p>\n

Other stray observations:<\/p>\n