Day Three: 7/21/14

Day 3: 7/21/14 - - Danny's Birthday!

Miles:  6

Birthdays: 1

Wake-up call:  7:38 in the form of the Canada Pacific train rolling through about 20 feet away.

Breakfast:  Pancakes, berry compote, sausages

Let's get the most important thing out of the way first:  after three years, I have perfected the camp coffee system!  I used to get up, get water, heat up the stove, boil water and whip up a quick Starbucks Via instant coffee.  Invariably, the minute I took my first sip someone would be up.

Flash forward to today.  I now have a super intense looking thermos which I fill up with boiling water while I'm making dinner.  The water's still extremely hot the next morning and works perfectly with my camping press pot.  

So here I sit with my piping hot coffee and several more cups in my coffee sippy cup, happy as can be.

We woke refreshed on Day 3.  Some of us (one of us) slept through the roaring train that makes its way past the "budget" campsites at 7:38.  It's pretty cool to have a train rumble through in the morning.  It was nice not to have any pressing engagements after two days of hard driving.  Since we've seen all the attractions on both the New York and Canada side of Niagara Falls in previous years, we knew our favorites did not require an entire day's worth of touring.

After a relaxing breakfast, time on the bouncy pad and a quick connection to the outside world at the WIFI hot spot, we headed out...to lunch at the campsite. Yes it was a lazy day. 

It was also baking hot. We huddled in the sliver of shade our econo-site provided at midday. This is the first time we've been to Niagara Falls where we weren't chilly.  The kids got to make good use of their spray bottle/fans which were just the ticket.

After a quick bus ride, we were at the Falls.  Grace and Danny had two very specific things in mind.  They love the 4-D movie about the making of the Falls which comes with snow, rain, earthquakes and lots of water.  Because it was sweltering outside, the kids and I decided to forgo the complimentary raincoats.  It was great fun anticipating the cold wind and driving rain and splashes from the falls.  We felt like old pros among all the other tourists quivering under their ponchos.  Afterwards we headed, shivering, back outside to dry off and walked out the door into...rain!  The winds had shifted and the mist from the falls was raining down on us.

Still, we warmed up quickly and our reward for the sudden rain was seeing beautiful rainbows over the waterfalls.  We all agreed that it was a fitting way to say goodbye to Niagara Falls.

But wait...not so fast...the kids still had one more memory they wanted to relive.  We headed to Golly Lolly to purchase two giant jawbreakers about the size of small oranges.  The only saving grace is that they come on sticks so the level of gross is kept to a minimum.  The rainbow photo speaks volumes about the kids' priority on today's visit.

Back to the campsite where Danny rode on the hay wagon while I made dinner: spaghetti and meatballs and edamame and, most importantly, s'mores for dessert.  We sang Happy Birthday to Danny over  sticky, gooey, chocolaty deliciousness.

At one point in the evening Danny came back from the gift shop with a tube of six glow sticks which he had purchased for $2.  I sent him back immediately because I had packed a tube of 100 glow sticks ($6).  He said he wanted to exchange them for the stuff you throw on the fire to make it change colors.  Ha!  I had packed a dozen of those as well.  A very satisfactory payoff to planning ahead!

We watched the really cool, almost hallucinatory, color changing fire until we couldn't keep our eyes open.  By the time Grace and I got back from brushing our teeth, the birthday boy was passed out cold.

Tomorrow: a cold breakfast and a birthday surprise!