August 31, 2022

Canadian Niagara

Marnae blog, Our Adventures, Our Story, Uncategorized

Day 2:

We woke early got ready, had a nice breakfast all together with the Pierces and said our goodbyes.

We drove to the border and crossed into Canada. The boys laughed a little at their own surprise at how much it looked the same. Sam asked our border agent his name – it was Mark Casagrande – Jeff was pretty worried about getting through (like for weeks) it was a simple process – I almost wished they’d looked into the car for all we made sure we didn’t take in due to the Avian Flu, but we were all relieved at the ease of the process. The Arrive Canada app we downloaded made it a breeze. We just needed to follow the steps to upload our vaccination cards and passports. In Canada we stopped at Tim Horton’s – we had to try the famous donuts, they were worth it. Mine was a sour cream cruller. Ben had a Reece’s, Sam had a cinnamon roll and Jeff’s was a pretty little sprinkles glazed donut. On the road we had a view of Toronto from far away several times, which is on my list to visit at some point, but not on this trip. After several hours of driving, we arrived at the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. It was pretty commercialized. We were greeted by a giant Hershey’s store. We drove around for a long time looking for parking before we finally overpaid for an exposed spot on a hill that made us very nervous. The streets were lined with touristy gift shops. The views were nice once we arrived at the park by the falls, however. We walked and played catch. The falls weren’t quite what the boys imagined, which was interesting to hear. They were wider. They had expected bigger, as in taller. We crossed the border back into the US over the Rainbow Bridge and found our campsite at Four Mile Creek State Park. It was a great spot on Lake Ontario with really nice neighbors and lots of space. We soon discovered some friends had been there the night before, what a small world. Our camping neighbors on one side had lots of tips about the campgrounds and the area and were happy to share. They were also baseball fans so Jeff gleefully chatted away with them. The people behind us from Minnesota were a family of five who are spending the year traveling the country and we all became fast friends. The kids rode bikes together, played on the playground, and had several games of baseball/german bat ball. Our neighbor our other side brought us kindling and newspaper, helping me build the fire when I was having some trouble keeping it lit while Jeff and Sam were off making more friends with some people from Germany and NY. We talked to some people with a bloodhound named, Tandy, and later met some people swimming in the lake with their pug. We ended the night watching a brilliant sunset over Lake Ontario with the skyline of Toronto in the distance.