While this road trip was in a van, it was not a #vanlife road trip. We rented a 12 passenger van for Kelly’s dad, sister and her family Loci and the boys, and us. So 9 of us in a 12 passenger van to Canada! At least we broke the drive on the way up by stopping after 4-5 hours, but on the way back it was one straight shot!

Before we got to Niagra, we did stop in Buffalo at the home of the original wing:

We have a lot of photos, but I’ll try to capture just a few things. The 1st evening we just walked around “up top,” and didn’t venture down. The shots from there are not that exciting, so I won’t share them.

The next morning, Kelly and I got up and did an exploratory run, so here are some shots from that:

But then we got our 1st views of the powerful falls!

Later we caught up with everyone and walked around more, but also made our 1st (of 3!) ventures up the Skylon tower. (We bought a day and night pass, but then found our tour the next day also included another trip up!)

The tower does some funny photos:

Later we drove to Niagra-on-the-Lake on Lank Ontario which was quite a nice little town, and stopped at a couple wineries on the way back.

The next day we had quite the tour planned! We would meet our guides at 8:30 in the morning, and the first stop was a surprise — back to the Skylon tower! After that, we Journeyed Behind the Falls (well worth it!), drove north along the river, and then got to venture out on the famous Hornblower, which brings you right up to the falls!

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Later we ate at the locals’ recommendations (Chucks – reasonable prices compared to most other options) and a few of us ventured into the Myrtle Beach-like section of town:

The next day Kelly and I ran from Canada to NY! We ran the 1.5 miles from the hotel to the pedestrian bridge, and even though we had our passports (required), we did not have the $1 toll! 😦 So we ran back to the hotel, picked up some dollars, and headed back. I’m so glad we got to see the NY side – well worth it! Niagra Falls State Park in NY was really nice, and we got to see the US side of Horseshoe falls, Bridal Veil falls, and the American Falls, all from a different perspective.

We liked it so much, we talked the rest of the gang into going that way 1st, on the long drive back so they could see it too.

Kelly had the ACCS conference in Atlanta, so we dropped her off at Buffalo International, and the remaining 8 of his drove the 11 hours back to NC. It was a long drive, but we survived.