Wednesday morning arrived and we drove to the CVS and got our second Covid test. As luck would have it, we got our results from our first Covid test on Saturday soon after we took our second test, just a day late. Our test results were all negative so that was a good sign for our new Covid tests.
Afterwards we went to the Buffalo Museum of Science, serving as a homeschooling lesson for Olivia. The Buffalo Museum is smaller than other big city science museums but it had a number of interesting exhibits such as one showcasing endangered animals and the products made from them. There was a leopard skin coat and Chinese medicines made from tigers. Olivia enjoyed a paleontology exhibit where she got to uncover bones and there was a really cool wall where the kids could construct a path for balls to go around. Afterwards we returned to the Gander RV for the night.
Lo and behold the next morning we got our new Covid results. I downloaded the ArriveCan App and entered all of our information into it. Next step was to fill our water tanks and empty our sewage tanks. We had minimal groceries so we were pretty much all set to go to Canada. It was only a 15 minute drive to the Peace Bridge border crossing. There were no stops exiting the US and minimal traffic over the bridge. On the Canadian side there were only two cars ahead of us to go through immigration but of course the car in front of us had some sort of issue and was taking forever so we ended up backing up and going into another line. It was a good thing that there was very little traffic.
The immigration and customs process was simple since I had pre-entered all our information in the ArriveCan app and we just needed to show them the code from the app and our test results on our phone then providing our passports, vaccination cards. While Holly and I were required to be fully vaccinated, Olivia just needed a negative PCR test. A few quick questions on where we were going and making sure we were transporting weapons and we were good to go.
We drove to Niagara Falls and parked in a parking lot we found on iOverlander. CAD$20 to park midnight to midnight right by the Skylon tower and within easy walking distance of Clifton Hill and the Niagara River. It was a surprisingly warm and humid day. Although the tempurature was only in the high eighties the humidity was also in the in the eighties percent so it felt pretty warm.
We followed a steady stream of people from the parking lot to Clifton Hill where we found a full on entertainment street packed full miniature golf parks, amusement places such as a Wax Museum, 3D motion rides, sky wheels, fast food restaurants, roller coasters, video game arcades, ice cream parlors and more. It was like being in a carnival.
It was lunchtime so we went to a Burger King with a giant Frankenstein eating a burger over it. We immediately noticed that they had full Covid protocols in place. Interior seating was limited with many tables blocked off. Facemasks were mandatory when not sitting at the table and there was no wandering around. The other thing was that our Whopper Combo meal came out to over CAD$17 including a whopping 13% tax. Although the exchange rate was $1.26 Canadian to $1 US Dollar it still came out to almost $14 for a simple Whopper combo meal.
After our snack we walked down to the river and got our first view of the falls. First, we saw the American Falls which were very nice before walking further and finally seeing Horseshoe Falls. Horseshoe Falls was as majestic as it looks in videos and the spray of the thunderous water drifted above the walkway creating a cooling mist. It was a bit of a walk and it was almost sunset by the time we finished taking all of our pictures so we took the Falls Incline Railway up the cliffs to the main street which at CAD$3 a person was not very expensive.
We walked through the Fallsview Casino before settling for Coco Terrace where we had a nice dinner. As we left the restaurant we discovered that Olivia did not have her hat so we walked back to the Incline Railway but could not find her hat. We were able to see falls lit up at night though and it was very pretty.
