Favorite Photo(s) Friday: Niagara Falls

October 2006 our little family took a long anticipated trip to western NY. We had excitedly made plans to visit Niagara Falls and then drive to Palmyra to see church history sites and visit my sister Rachel who was serving a mission there. We arrived just ahead of a huge, un-seasonally early blizzard that dumped 22 inches of snow the day after we arrived. We were scheduled to visit Niagara Falls that first day. Here's an account of our experience at Niagara Falls that I wrote after we got home:"Next morning I'm pretty excited to get to Niagara Falls. It's raining. And windy. And extremely cold....like 42 degrees or something. Still, I'm jazzed. We make our way to the Maid of the Mist boat area. It's close enough to the falls that the wind is blowing quite a bit of water at us. We're pretty wet before we even get on the boat. Bryan doesn't look overly pleased to be that wet and cold already. He re-names the ride the Maid of the Wet. We get on the boat and it's a pretty cool ride. I risk a bit of water on the camera to take some pictures. It's seriously awesome but also seriously misty and even being right practically under the Horseshoe Falls we still can only see about half of it. We all end up keeping on our raincoats after we get off the boat since it is now raining pretty steadily outside."We jump on the trolley which takes us over to the Cave of Winds area. This is a wooden walkway that takes you right up to and practically behind the American Falls. Except that they want you to wear the shoes they provide so you won't slip and sue them. And these shoes are velcro sandals! We get only a few feet out the door towards the walkway before the kids start complaining bitterly about how cold their toes are. We decide that even though we paid for this activity we will skip it. Too cold.
"The kids are starting to make comments about just wanting to go back to the hotel. I'm trying to convince them that going back to the hotel will be boring for them and this will be the only time we get to see Niagara Falls. We hop on the trolley again and head out to some look-out point. It's after we get off the trolley and are walking down to the viewing area that it starts snowing. I'm valiantly trudging on, determined to see the view. Bryan is equally as valiantly trying to talk me out of it. We're all freezing and miserable. I'm standing there looking out over the incredible view. It's amazingly beautiful. The trees are all sorts of reds, oranges and yellows. The waterfall itself is mind boggling. We've spent thousands of dollars to get there and yet it's snowing so hard I can hardly see....let alone dare take my camera out to get some pictures. The disappointment is absolutely crushing and as we walk back up to catch the trolley again I am trying my hardest not to cry."
Ever have trips like that? That no matter how carefully you've planned, nothing seems to go quite right? We had issues with weather the rest of the trip. It took us 4 hours instead of 2 to drive to Palmyra because the earlier blizzard had closed down the freeway and we were diverted on to side roads the whole way down. (All hail GPS!) All of our airline flights, ALL of them, were fraught with problems and delays. But the trip remains a happy memory despite, or maybe because of those crazy problems.