Return To Niagara Falls

On Saturday the 7th, we took Bri to Niagara Falls.

For the last few years, Jill and I have travelled in Niagara Region with the Usual Suspects on the annual Fall Wine Tour. One of the places we would sometimes stop at was a restaurant -- a greasy spoon -- called Butterball's. A perfectly wonderful place, whose address we located with a bit of Googling.


We got there by early afternoon, in time to have lunch. Some of us had pie :-)

This place is west and south of Toronto -- to get there, you have to circle around the western tip of Lake Ontario.


There is parking across the road from the restaurant. Even though it was a Saturday afternoon, it wasn't busy.


We had to cope with heavy traffic (due to road construction) along the Queen Elizabeth Way, so we took a detour off the main highway. It was a well marked detour, so we didn't get lost. We got to Niagara Falls by mid afternoon, and surprisingly, found a place to park above the falls.

We rode the lift down to the falls and spent some time soaking it in.

This was not the first time we had been here -- just after Christmas last year, we came with our friend Annalee when she came up from California to experience real Canadian winter. We overnighted in Niagara Falls in a hotel with a spectacular view of the falls. Corwin had been hoping to do the same thing again, but we didn't have enough time.


Six months earlier, Niagara Falls had been spectacular as well -- but also cold, wet, and miserable. On this visit, it was hot and sunny.


The wind direction even kept the mist more or less away from us. We went up the rail to look down and across at the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. Across the river, we could see Niagara Falls, New York. And of course, on the other side of the island, the American Falls (seen in the distance behind Bri, above and below).


The combination of sun and mist produced some amazing rainbows.



We had dinner in a German restaurant in downtown Niagara Falls, just down the road from the hotel where we stayed six months earlier. It was the same place that we had gone to with Annalee. (Note - I like wiener schnitzel).


I had some bad luck -- my tooth implant fell out during dinner which resulted in some discomfort (entirely psychological) over the weekend until my dentist could repair it (basically by gluing the tooth prosthetic back onto the post) the following Tuesday.


The kids had a good time. During the course of the afternoon, Bri got some souvenirs for her family back home, and of course she cinched the bragging rights for herself as far as having been to see the Falls.

Jill and I went away with some ideas for what to do the next time (and there will be a next time) that we come here.