Happy Anniversary!!!

June 19th: Happy 5 year anniversary to us!

We got a bit of a late start today, Richard woke up at a decent time but I didn't seem to want to get out of bed, I'm guessing it was all that walking yesterday, every bit of me hurts. Richard was a sweet heart and went down to get breakfast for me from the hotel breakfast before they quit feeding us.

We decided to go to New York today, I figured it wasn't a trip to the falls without seeing both sides, everyone kept saying the Canadian side is so much better but I had to see for myself the difference. Turns out everyone was telling me the truth, the Canadian side really does have a much better view. Though I quite enjoyed the park like setting on the New York side, much less commercial feeling. I had a few caches to do on Goat Island which is where we spent most of our time in New York. Most of the caches in around Niagara Falls seem to be earth caches or virtuals, which is probably good since I've been having a horrible time finding the caches that actually require searching. So we headed out to Terrapin Point, collected the required information, took a picture for a couple that I'm guessing were from the south somewhere based on their accent and they took one for us as well. It is pretty amazing to be so close to the water as it plunges over the falls, Gods power at it's finest! Then we went over to Bridal Veil Falls (and the American Falls) and enjoyed the top of them as well.

The park like setting I was talking about is where the next two caches we went searching for were located, the Three Sisters Islands. These islands are tiny little things just off of goat island they were pretty, had a nice little walk and a great view of the river before the falls. One of the caches here (the one that required finding an ammo can), I didn't find, and we searched for quite awhile. I did manage to get a bug bite or two while searching however. The other one was another earth cache so I just needed to figure out some info and take pictures, I can do the picture thing.

After leaving Goat Island we went looking for the Porter House, or at least the foundation of it since it's no longer standing. Judge Augustus Porter was one of the pioneers of Niagara Falls, there was supposed to be a cache located on the foundation but I'm fairly sure it's missing, I can't be THAT blind. Having struck out on another cache that required finding something I decided to try for one more before heading back to Canada. We went to one that was located by a very yummy ice cream place, I had a waffle cone with a scoop of orange/pineapple and a scoop of black cherry. There was a food place there too and I had intended on eating before the ice cream but they didn't seem to want to bother coming to take our order so we gave up and had ice cream with no lunch. I found the cache there fairly easy, I was starting to worry about my cache finding abilities after not finding the last three physical caches I looked for, it has been quite a few months since I did any caching. Back to Canada we go!

Next we headed out to see the Niagara Clock, they have planted different designs around a clock that is actually keeping time, if I remember right they change the design twice a year. Very pretty to see indeed, did I mention there was a cache here too, seems we had a very cache filled day today. From here we headed back to the botanical gardens that were by the butterfly conservatory just to walk the gardens for awhile. The gardens are kept up by the School of Horticulture, very pretty grounds. Walking around here made me think of Pride and Prejudice which I read recently (and watched two versions of the movie), certainly made me feel like I was stepping back to a simpler time for a little while.

So then we went on to do a tiny bit more caching at Great Wolf Lodge, there was actually two caches by here to find but after finding one I really was tired of caching and said "let's forget it and not even bother looking for the other one". Richard being no much of a cacher to start with was more then willing to be done caching for the day. Great Wolf Lodge looks like an amazing place to bring a family, if/when I have kids I think it would be a wonderful place to vacation. So we took our sun burned selves back to the hotel to get ready for dinner and to go watch the fireworks over the falls.

After getting ready we left to go get dinner before heading down to watch the fireworks. We went to Bostons Pizza and I got a small cheeseburger pizza, I felt like trying something different from my regular Hawaiian Pizza. It was pretty good, maybe I should venture out a little more and try new things from time to time. Our waitress took FOREVER to get us our bill, unfortunately as we were leaving the restaurant there was a huge stream of people coming up from the falls, turns out we just missed the fireworks. I was pretty bummed that we missed them but I do believe I'll live. The falls are amazing all lit up at night with the colors constantly changing. Richard found it rather amusing and unnatural that they lit them up at night.

And finally it was back to the hotel with achy feet and a very tired Amy.