2004 Niagra Falls

On the flight into Buffalo, the pilot was able to arrange a nice fly over of the falls on our landing approach. I was not expecting great views, and almost did not even get my camera out and deal with swapping lenses but it turned out to be a fantastic view. Plus we wound up flying out and then back over the falls a second time! *** If you look closely in the rapids upstream from the falls, about 3/4 of the way across and down, you can see barely see a barge that got stuck in the rapids back in the early 1900s (going from memory on what we read). It has been stuck there ever since.

Good shot of the "horseshoe" part of the falls, Canada is on the left/top.

The American falls.

The second pass over the falls gave a good view from the front side.

Airports always have lots of neat things to photograph while waiting for the mandatory post-flight bathroom visits.

Launching site of the mandatory "Maid-of-the-Mist" boat ride.

"If anyone can breath or move their arms, please notify the nearest attendant so we can get a few more people on board"

Technical note - the next couple of pictures are from a cheap (but waterproof) disposable film camera.

It was definitely a different perspective on the falls seeing them from water level.

The boat goes pretty much to the center of the horseshoe... you are surrounded by roaring water and tons of mist.

After Maid-of-the-Mist, we went back to the hotel so the kids could do their favorite trip thing... swimming. I walked back down to the park opposite the falls and did my favorite trip thing- photography.

What trip would be complete without tacky miniature golf? I dominated, actually beating par at one of these things (probably for the first time in my life).

Wait are we in Gatlinburg??? We walked up and down Clifton Hill which is pretty much the Canadian/Niagara Falls version.

This ought to bring back some memories in about 30 years... this is the year of "American Chopper" on the Discovery channel and "OCC" paraphernalia was everywhere, including these pretty nifty (and expensive) miniature versions of their theme bikes.

This place also had miniature guitars (the other "big" thing of this year for us).

Terrible picture but it is the memory that counts... we had been going in and out of stores and at the bottom of Clifton Hill we had started off towards the falls when Gina noticed a black stuffed dog hanging off of Ryan's backpack. Apparently it got hooked on his pack while walking around in the store. Not wanting the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to come after us, we quickly headed back to find the store it came from and returned it.

This one looks much better full size where you can more easily see the person standing in the third pool of light.

On our second day we were greeted with... rain.

Looking for interesting shots while we hide in a storefront when it *really* started to come down.

And they all laughed when I put my Maid-of-the-Mist garbage bag, I mean poncho, on... Now who is dry and who is wet (and who is also wearing their Maid-of-the-Mist bag).

Waiting for the "People Mover" (bus) to come and move us to the Butterfly Conservatory, a nice dry indoor activity.

By the time we got to the botanical gardens and butterfly conservatory it had stopped raining which worked out nice... everyone else was still hiding inside so we could walk around the gardens almost completely by ourselves. Very impressive gardens.