Niagara Falls!

So...  We had a free day to spend as we liked in Canada before my brother's family headed back to California.  But actually the border town wasn't very interesting and we couldn't see just wandering around the town the next day.  Shall we bite the bullet and drive to Niagara Falls?  Yes we should!!!

Except for my brother...  He had had enough of driving around and with socializing at the wedding.  He just wanted to be left alone in peace and he didn't want to be in a car any more either.  Watching TV all day in a hippy Airbnb didn't discourage him a bit.  I must admit that he had done more than his usual share of SMILING and TALKING at the wedding and so we decided to leave him alone to enjoy his free time.  The rest of us went to NIAGARA!!!

It helped that Justin was willing to do all the driving again (another four hour trip) and that we didn't have to take two cars this time.  We said good-bye to Keion and we were on our way early in the morning.

 Niagara was so exciting!

 This is the drop off from the river to the falls.  So much water!

Oh my!  We have waterfalls in Japan but nowhere the scale of Niagara!

I was playing around with the photograph modes on my camera.

We all took SO many photos of the falls.  Looking back to the US side...

No, it wasn't raining, the spray from the waterfalls left us soaked in minutes!  Tetsu and I (and many other people) bought a couple cheap rain parkas from the gift store.

Not exactly attractive but it served the purpose.  I was worried about our cameras getting waterlogged just trying to take pictures.

Tetsu was overjoyed to be able to cross Niagara Falls off his bucket list!  He was very excited about this side trip.

Don't we look like the tourists that we are?!

Another tourist?

It was fun to watch the tourist boats go right up to the Horseshoe Falls part of Niagara Falls.

If we had had more time, it would have been nice to take a boat ride but we had another 4 hour drive back to the Airbnb.

 We were all satisfied with our spontaneous tourist trip.

We did a bit of souvenir shopping at the gift store nearby but I refrained from buying anything here.  I had another souvenir I wanted to buy before we left Canada.  Can you guess?  I couldn't get it here...  I had to ask Justin to make a stop for me at a nearby mall...

A final shot of Niagara Falls.  Panorama mode!  The bridge between Canada and New York on the left, Table Rock Falls in the middle and Horseshoe Falls on the right.

And this is my souvenir from Canada!  A new charm for my Pandora bracelet!  A bright red Canadian maple leaf with a little heart that has Canada inscribed on it!  Now I have a Michigan charm which I bought when I visited last November, a maple leaf charm to remind me of our trip, an I  ♡　Pets charm, an origami crane charm in honor of my 40th year living in Japan, a birdhouse charm from Tetsu last year and a California charm from Takumi!

Justin did a fantastic job of driving us all four hours again safely back to the Airbnb where my brother's family then got ready for an early morning flight back to California.  Tetsu and I had another 5 days to enjoy!  And we had more driving plans for that!

Anyway, Niagara was another memorable highlight in our two weeks' travels!