Rainy Niagara Falls

Day 43: Usually when Chad and I go see big landmarks, it’s during the off-season. Spoiler alert: we didn’t see the falls (at first). I was super disappointed, but after a while the falls appeared and everything in the world was good again.

We had a few visitors at our Jetta this morning; good morning geese! An excited Katie and a tired Chad readied the car and we headed out to see Niagara Falls less than 30 minutes away.

The Canadian side is full of tourist places (lots and lots of signs everywhere), but mainly kid based.

I joked that, “maybe Niagara Falls is like the Vegas for small kids?  They have flashy signs and fun things behind all of these doors!”

Chad had visited the Falls before and he found free parking up stream at a little nature reserve. It was a two mile walk to the falls/Rainbow Bridge that connected Canada to the U.S.

Parking: Dufferin Islands Nature Area

Weather: drizzly, wet, cloudy, kinda chilly

While on the walk towards the Falls, we came across at least three large stone buildings that used to be functioning electrical companies using the water to produce power. There was a little hump in the water (man-made) that was potentially still used for harnessing power. (I don’t know, but it sounds cool).

All this water rushing around made us both have to pee. Bad. We walked faster to the visitor’s center. Go FASTER!!

There were a few little falls on the way to the massive drop, the water was aggressive, mean and turbulent. Those rapids don’t mess around.

When we arrived at the main falls, we didn’t even look at it and we ducked hurriedly into the bathrooms. Ahhh. [this would be a great place for a pun or joke about PSI or gallons per second compared to Niagara lol].

Returning to the falls, it was covered by mist and we really couldn’t see it until about 30 minutes later while we continued to walk up the strip. At the end, we decided not to cross over the bridge into the U.S. ($1 per person walking to cross and need ID for U.S. border patrol) and stuck to Starbucks.

On the way back to the car, we walked their nature path while I was jacked on caffeine. Talking 90-miles an hour and walking almost as fast, we arrived at the car in no time.

Setting the GPS to Detroit, Michigan, we drove about 4 hours to see the city. Before getting there, I researched and found a little bakery that had cannolies.. YES! As we pulled off the interstate and drove into town, there were flashing lights and sirens from three different police cars, one ambulance and two fire trucks. Yes, angels? What are you trying to warn us about??

We pulled into the bakery, stepped inside (famished having not had breakfast) and they verified they are a cash only store. NO! Ugh, I knew I should have called. We were saving the $5 bill for tolls in Detroit and we weren’t willing to hassle with the ATM to buy a $2 pastry. Lame. Maybe it’s a good thing….. maybe they were bad cannoli haha.

I tried again. Detroit is known for their special deep-dish pizza and Coney Hotdogs (maybe more, but these are a little more interesting). Routed to get hotdogs in downtown Detroit, the map directed us to take the underground, under-the-water tunnel to the U.S. Say, what?

We crossed the border through Windsor, Canada and almost handed our passports to the toll guy. Lol. So, we don’t know what we are doing haha. $4.75 Canadian toll. See, it was a good thing we didn’t have cannoli. We needed that $5 bill.

The tunnel was pretty cool and Chad spotted a few wet spots on the wall. “It better not break, I don’t think you and I are that good of swimmers to beat the rushing water and hold our breath that long.”

We made it back into the U.S. with no issues!  The boarder patrol guy was SUPER chill and told us he saw a brown bear in Virginia, Minnesota on his first day there for a job interview.  Wow. On to hot dogs!  After looping around the block and not seeing parking, Chad parked in the 15 minute parking and I hopped out to get two hot dogs. One from the original Coney hotdog restaurant 'American Coney Island' and another from the fall-out brother’s restaurant 'Lafayette Coney Island'. 

We liked the one that tasted good. No kidding, eh?  [From Lafayette because their chili was better.]

The pizza was pretty good (how can it not if your really hungry?), but pizza is kinda pizza.  Some crusts are thicker than others.  This one happened to be thick.  Apparently, the pizza guy made the wrong pizza half and the waitress had a new 4 piece fetta remade.  Free pizza is good pizza! Thanks Buddy's Pizza!

To set ourselves up for success in the morning, Chad chose to drive 4.5 hours towards Chicago and we arrived at Cracker Barrel, Merriville, Indiana at 12:30 a.m. Now only an hour drive from downtown Chicago, we would crush it in Chicago in the morning.