As mentioned previously, we spent our First Anniversary in Buffalo, NY and Niagara Falls, ON.
We left Saturday, July 14 around 11 a.m. Tony drove to Port Huron, MI; then I got us across the border, through Canada, back across the border, and to our hotel in Buffalo, NY. We didn't stop once from the time we left Port Huron until we arrived at our hotel in Buffalo!
On our way!
Tony showing off our passports which will enable us to return to the U.S.!
After checking into our
hotel, we walked the 1/2 mile (yay, exercise!!) to the
Anchor Bar, the restaurant that invented buffalo chicken wings in 1964.
Yum!! We shared this plate of 20 wings with homemade bleu cheese dressing.
On the boat, waiting to leave.
The harbor cruise goes into Lake Erie, down the Niagara River, then through the Black Rock Lock and Canal.
Lake Erie
Going under the Peace Bridge. The flag in the middle is the United Nations flag.
Awesome Buffalo City Hall in the center.
After the harbor cruise, we drove back into Canada and checked into our hotel. We discovered our "city view" room had a great view of the tightrope the skywalker, Jay Cochrane, would be walking on every night at 7 p.m. So we stayed in to watch:
We left before Jay Cochrane finished the walk, as we were starving and needed to get going. We went to dinner at a restaurant in our hotel and then went to
Dave & Buster's in the
Clifton Hill area of Niagara Falls. If you've ever been to a Dave & Buster's that isn't in a tourist town, please note that the Niagara Falls D&B is nothing like the one you have been to. It is kind of terrible. The prizes are crap, you can't take your drinks outside of the bar area, and it seemed much smaller than the one I went to in Houston, TX. But we still had fun!
Patriotic looking drinks at Dave & Buster's :)
On Monday, July 16, we celebrated our first anniversary! We began the day by enjoying a cheap all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast at a restaurant behind our hotel. It was filling, we did not go overboard, and we spent a LOT less money than we would have at the hotel's IHOP (don't get me started on Niagara Falls pricing or Canadian tax rates).
After breakfast, we walked to a welcome center where we purchased the
Niagara Falls Adventure Pass. I highly recommend this pass. For $50 each (including tax), it gets you into four attractions and enables you to take the People Mover bus system for two days. It is worth every penny and saves you money over separately purchasing admittance to each of the attractions along with a People Mover pass. I believe something like $15 each.
We started with
Journey Behind the Falls. It is pretty cool and we enjoyed it. To save myself some time, I am not going to describe these attractions; if you are interested in what they entail, feel free to click the links provided :)
Then we went to
Niagara's Fury. Photos are not allowed, so no photos :) It was interesting and we enjoyed this one also. The first part seems geared toward young children but the second part could be a little scary for children who are afraid of the dark and/or thunderstorms.
After that, we took the People Mover to
Maid of the Mist! This was so much fun and I would do it again for sure!
We then took the People Mover further north to the
White Water Walk. This was decent; for some reason I was under the impression we would be able to see the whirlpool that forms in this area of the Niagara River, but we could only see Class 6 rapids. The rapids were interesting, but if we had had more time, I would have liked to have seen the whirlpool through one of the other available attractions.
We then took the People Mover back to the welcome center, took the Funicular (or as they call it, the
Incline Railway) up the hill, and went back to the hotel to shower and get ready for dinner.
We had dinner at the
Keg Steakhouse on the 9th floor of the Embassy Suites, about a block from our hotel. It was delicious! We had reservations at 8 p.m. We could have waited 60-90 minutes for a front row table, but decided it wasn't worth it. We were given a table in the second row which still gave us a nice view. When the couple at the table in front of us left, we got up, sat at their table, and had our waitress take our photo ;)
After dinner, we came back to the hotel and ate a piece of cake from the top tier of our wedding cake! it was still delicious. We enjoyed it multiple times over the rest of that week.
On Tuesday, July 17, we slept in, then walked to the Skylon Tower, where we took the elevator up to the top to have a buffet lunch (again, we didn't go crazy!) and to see the views from the observation deck.
This photo was taken as we went up the yellow elevators that face outside the tower.
These two photos above were taken from the Skylon Tower observation deck.
After that, we spent about 45 minutes in the casino to secure free parking (woohoo!) and then were on our way home! We got back around 9:30 p.m. or so.
Overall, we had a really great trip. It was so nice to get away and to see a new part of the world. Throughout the trip, we talked about coming back once our future kids are 8 and 10 (or so), once they are old enough to appreciate it. There is so much to do as a family, as a couple, or even as a group of friends. Next time we will hopefully have more time so we can see more things.
Katie's Food and Exercise Diary can be found here.
Tony's Food and Exercise Diary can be found here.
Our weight loss tickers can be found at the bottom of every page of our blog.
