Niagara Falls

I visited Niagara Falls last week with my family.  Apparently, not many people travel from Virginia to Niagara Falls, because there isn't anything like an interstate connecting the two.  We travelled on seven interstates:  70, 80, and 90, 76, 81, 86, and 99.  If we had taken the directions prescribed by Mapquest, we would have add 66, which would have given a nice symmetry to the numbers (70, 80, 90; 66, 76, 86).  Ninety-nine is actually kind of interesting, because it is the highest-numbered interstate.  I didn't know it existed before this trip.  The longest stretch of one road was US-219, but we had to make a dozen turns (more or less, depending on what you count as a turn) just to stay on it for about 130 miles

We were unable to go in the Cave of the Winds because it was closed for reconstruction, but we did ride on the Maid of the Mist -- which we re-christened the Maid of the Deluge, because "mist" did not do justice to the amount of water we were covered in.  It was a little too cold the day we visited:  the temperature dropped from 80 on Wednesday to 40 on Saturday, but the boat ride did not open until Friday, so we had to take it when it was on the cold side.  We considered ourselves fortunate to have avoided the thunderstorms that were predicted, not that we would have noticed much difference in the amount of water that ended up on our clothes.

We took what is probably the shortest trip ever into Canada.  While crossing the Rainbow Bridge, we saw a sign for an aviary that was right on the river, so we went there.  As a family of bird-lovers, this was the perfect place for us to spend an afternoon.

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