Saenz Stories: June 2009

NIAGARA

David and I have now been married 5 years… 5 years! Wow… time flies. I think time going fast is much better than time going slow. I remember watching the Nick and Jessica show several years ago and they were celebrating their one year anniversary and both made comments on how if felt like much longer than a year. I am glad we are not in that boat… especially since it didn’t work out for them.

So to celebrate, we went on a trip. Where to go, where to go… we knew for a long time we wanted a Vince free weekend (no offense Vince)… but we didn’t know until the day before exactly where we were going. We love Casinos even though we are not huge gamblers. I love beaches, David does not, although he was up to go to one… but flights to all the fun places were packed. Earlier last week I don’t know what got me thinking about Niagara, but once I found they have casinos, I knew that’s where we were going :)… funny how things make up our minds.

It was a great trip and different from the usual Vegas (although Vegas hasn’t been usual for some time now). After reading reviews on several hotels, we decided that we wanted a room overlooking the falls and decided on the Embassy Suites, partially because of the free breakfast and happy hour – albeit it was only 2 drinks each, but also because of the proximity to the falls and the main new casino. Here is the view of the Horseshoe Falls from our room.

We arrived Friday and went to a NICE steak dinner at the restaurant in our hotel, which also overlooked the falls. This was probably the nicest (non-restaurant week) dinner that we have ever had together. Here’s a picture from dinner, although it is not of us because the one of us didn't turn out... but this is from our table. We found out the next morning that our free buffet breakfast was also served out of this room, so we had 3 meals here.

Friday night we headed to where else… the casino! I had a great night playing roulette and David tried his hand at Casino War… you know, that game you played in Elementary school… or at least I did – maybe why I have a fascination for card games (thanks sisters who used to make me play pick up 52).

Saturday was a gloomy and foggy day… a shame because that was our day to see the sites. After our free breakfast, we headed out in the shuttle bus (bc of the rain) to the Maid of the Mist [a boat that goes to the foot of the horseshoe falls]. Everyone gets poncho’s because you get drenched. I only have phone pictures of us on the boat, but we got this one later of another boat heading into the mist..

After Maid of the Mist we hung out at another Casino where I proceeded to lose all the money I won the day before playing Blackjack... then headed back to our hotel and got our rental car because we wanted to go on a jet boat!

Now I really really wanted to do a wet boat tour... which is an open boat that rides the white water rapids and soaks you. David didn't want to do that. Lucky for him, the only one left going out was a domed boat, so you get the same experience without getting soaked. However, it was rainy and cool so I didn't mind horribly. The domed boat is shown below.

Notice our cheesy Niagara Falls sweatshirts. We took of in the morning in shorts and t-shirts, only noticing everyone else had on longsleeves and raincoats... we're from Texas ya'll, we didn't bring those kind of clothes! So we found a sovenier shop that sold cheap sweatshirts and wore those almost the whole trip.

The boat stopped several times so the tour guide could explain what was around us. We saw a couple hydro plants that produced electricity. During the day, 40% of the water from Niagara is directed to these plants to produce electricity, at night 80% is directed there! They told us they could shut off Niagara completely if they wanted to. Because they redirect water here, erosion from the Falls only happens at the speed of 1 foot per year instead of 3-5 feet. David and I kept imagining the Falls erode to several hundred meters away, what it would look like 1000 years from now!

After our boat tour we had a quick dinner and proceeded to the last of the attractions on our list for the day... Behind the Falls and Niagara's Fury. Behind the Falls is just what it soundsl like, you go in a tunnel below the Falls and are behind the water. Here's me behind the Falls.

We also did Niagara's Fury which is a 4D type movie that tells you the history of the falls and squirts water on you... needless to say, we wore ponchos here and on almost all the attractions. It's a wet place...

We didn't see/do half the things to do here. There is an indoor waterpark for kids. Also MarineLand which is an adventure park. We spent only a little bit of time in Clifton Hill, a kind of carnival like street with a lot to do for kids, including Ripley's Believe it or not, Wax Museum's, something like a LegoLand, & several playareas. We would like to bring our family there when Vince and any future kids are older.

One of the only negatives is the drive from Toronto. If you are flying there, you can either go through the US into Buffalo or into Canada through Toronto. Niagara is only about 70 miles from Toronto, yet the traffic was horrible! It took us 2 hours to get there, probably 1.5 to get back.

All in all, a great memorable trip, more than I thought it would be :).

And here is a random picture of me in front of the American Falls.

I just spent 30 minutes writing a great blog... and lost it all! It was about marathons and losing weight. Darn it.. I'll have to try and rewrite it later.. for now... here was my second post.. I'll save the marathon pics for the next one which I'll try and get to tomorrow.
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Memorial Day Weekend we dipped in the pool for the first time this year! It wasn't cold at all.. I can't wait for the rest of summer. We got a few good shots of Vince in front of the pool. He is pretty careful about not getting in the pool... although he likes to throw rocks in the pool and we'll have to work on that. He is also doing much better on the trampoline.. ever since he fell off, he doesn't get close to the edge! Can't say he's not smart - he learns from his mistakes! I got a couple shots of him putting his chair on the trampoline.