Brady wasn't feeling well the first few days after our trip. He stayed home from school, but was relegated to the couch and his bed. We have a very strict 'no fun on sick days' policy around here :)
He was upstairs resting and Rudy had disappeared. I went up to check on them and found this: both in Brady's top bunk, with Brady reading Wimpy Kid to Ru.
This was another successful road trip, and probably the first true road trip with the kids.
The itinerary:
Day 1: Home to Pittsburgh
Day 2: Pittsburgh to Grandma's house
Day 3: Grandma's to Dearborn
Day 4: Dearborn to Toronto
Day 5: Toronto
Day 6: Toronto
Day 7: Toronto to Niagara
Day 8: Niagara to Dubois
Day 9: Dubois to State College
Day 10: State College to home
The numbers:
We rolled into State College this morning around 10:30. We're staying with James' old advisor, so we had a nice morning visiting with them. The boys LOVED playing in their backyard, on possibly one of the best climbing trees ever.
We got to go to my favorite restaurant for lunch before heading to the game. We forgot how crazy the town can be before a game. Brady and Rudy were both amazed with the RVs and tailgates we passed.
This was the biggest game any of us had ever been to - 105,000 people!! (James and I hadn't been in Beaver Stadium since the last expansion.) Brady loved the whole experience. At one point after a good play, he was clapping wildly and cheering. James asked what he was cheering for, but Brady had no idea!
This might be the only four year old to ever sleep through a Big 10 football game...
He finally woke up midway through the second quarter!
After the game, we went back to the home of a friend's parents for a "tailgate" dinner and then we headed back to Jim and Andy's house for a backyard fire with s'mores!
Tomorrow - it's the drive home! I drove nearly every other leg of the trip just so I wouldn't have to drive home from State College! I made that drive way too many times while James was in grad school and I just couldn't face it again...
We are all in agreement that today was the best day of the entire trip. After breakfast at the hotel, we bought our Niagara Adventure Pass, which got us into four attractions plus transportation on the people mover bus.
We started with just admiring the awesomeness of the falls. Even with all of the touristy stuff on Clifton Hills, the falls are still all wild and completely amazing.
Our first attraction was the 4D movie. The movie explained the creation of the falls, complete with falling snow, earthquakes, rain, and all. It was a bit scary for the boys, but they still loved it.
Next, we headed way down for the Journey Behind the Falls. We took an elevator down to the bottom and got a look behind the falls...which is actually just peeking out a large hole at a TON of water! We also got to walk out on the viewing platform and see the bottom of the falls.
Then, it was back to the top and a walk to Maid of the Mist. The walk took forever because we kept stopping just to look around.
We finally made it and jumped on a boat to do this:
While watching from above, it seemed the boats weren't at the base all that long. While we were on the deck and getting DRENCHED it seemed like forever! In the interest of saving the new camera, we have no pictures of the time actually at the base.
We finally got to enjoy our picnic after the boat ride. We'd been talking up the market and the picnic, telling the kids that's how James and I ate our way through Europe. Rudy especially was really looking forward to the picnic lunch. We had fresh bread (well, day old by now...), turkey, salami, pepperoni, cheese, cookies, and grapes.
Next, it was on to the people mover for the ride to the White Water Walk. This was amazing in the sheer amount of water rushing through the gorge and the size of the rapids. The pictures just don't even do it justice...
Our last stop in Niagara was the Coke/Hershey store for ice cream floats...
We were supposed to be in State College tonight, but wanted to have the whole day to enjoy Niagara. We rolled out around 4 and headed for a night in Dubois, PA. We had enough time to hit the mall in Dubois to buy our Penn State gear for the game tomorrow and for pizza and a movie in the room before bed.
After the traffic through Toronto, we got to Niagara much later than anticipated. We checked into the hotel and decided to walk to Clifton Hill to show the kids the crazy glitz on that street. Our hotel was ideally located for views of Horseshoe Falls, but quite a hike from the restaurants and such. The kids were troopers (again!) and made it with few complaints. The falls weren't lit up on the walk over, but were rainbow colored on the way back.
We decided we'd treat the kids to Rainforest Cafe for dinner. It's not typically our style of restaurant but, given the atmosphere of the rest of the area, we decided it was the perfect time for that restaurant! The kids, of course, loved the restaurant. We took a loop around Clifton Hill to let them see the gaudiness of the rest of the area (Ripleys and Guiness Book "museuems", haunted houses, wax museums, etc.)
After the long walk home, the kids were exhausted. It was one of the few nights that they didn't fight sleep. Notice they're both sleeping in nearly the same position...
We cleared out of our hotel early-ish this morning. First, we hit the St. Lawrence market for picnic fixins for lunch later and then we headed to the Ontario Science Center. The museum was quite spread out and most of it was geared for older kids. We still found several exhibits to enjoy and spent most of the day there.
Rudy, trying to match the facial expressions:
Han Solo impressions:
Playing at the water table. We tried to teach them about locks, since we'd see some on the drive later. I'm not sure it stuck...
Brady driving a space vehicle:
Steel drum band:
They had an entire section devoted to making shoes. There was a wide variety of materials: scissors, fabric, foam, cardboard, hot glue guns, etc. These are the boys' creations...
In the tradition of our confused Toronto adventure, the tour book had indicated that the museum was on the way out of town toward Niagara when, in fact, it was completely the opposite direction. That might have been fine, except it put us right in the middle of Toronto rush hour. I thought this sign was an amusing [more polite?] merge request:
It seems that on every trip, there is always one location or day where things just don't click. Apparently, Toronto was that place for us this time. Between the nearly useless tour book pointing us in the wrong direction or toward over-rated attractions and my hotel flub, things didn't work out exactly as planned. Even so, we managed to have a good time and I don't think the kids noticed anything!
