Today we got Maggie from Geneseo and we drove her, along with the kids, out to first see the Erie Canal and then out to Niagara Falls. She did not have a visa for going into Canada, though, so we were stuck on the American side.
Before leaving Geneseo, Maggie and I grabbed lunch from the EuroCafe downtown which turns out is a little Ukrainian spot. I’ve heard good things about it but have never been there myself. Their menu was pretty limited but they had pirogies and Maggie had never seen a pirogies before so we had those.
First trip was up through Batavia to hit Tim Horton’s for coffee and lunch. We got sandwiches and the girls had a good time sitting by the fake fire and hanging out. We all got egg sandwiches and donuts and coffee (well, no coffee for the kids.) Then from there we drove north out of Batavia.
We made it maybe half an hour before Dominica realized that she had left her purse behind at the Tim Horton’s back in Batavia! We pulled over and she called, they found it and we turned around and drove back down there. So our quick trip up through Batavia suddenly turned into a very long trip. We lost more than an hour there.
We got up to the canal, finally, and the girls got out and ran around for a while. Maggie did some filming and we did a little walk down to one of the locks. It was a nice day, but the sun was getting low. It was sunny and warm, though.
From there we drove west along the canal and in about twenty minutes we went from a warm sunny day to driving into an epic rainstorm that came upon us very quickly. The ran was so heavy that we could almost not keep moving forward and were worried about visibility which was nearly zero and slipping off of the road. It was quite extreme.
The rain let up, mostly, and we made it out to Niagara Falls, drove through the city and parked at the falls themselves where we were able to get out and take a walk around. We only got a few minutes before the rain was back, however, so it was cold and wet, but at least Maggie got to see one of the most iconic natural wonders in the United States. And the girls have never seen it either, so it was nice to take them, although they were not so impressed and really did not want to be there for long and Luciana did not like it as it was all too scary.
We fled back to the car and decided to take the kids (and Maggie) to the Rainforest Cafe there in downtown Niagara Falls for dinner. We had a nice time there, the food is always good and the girls always enjoy it and Maggie had never been to one before.
After dinner it was pretty late. We took the slightly longer drive along the lake so that technically Maggie could get to see Lake Erie and downtown Buffalo, although it was super dark between being night time and there being the storm blotting out the moon and stars as well so really she just saw the darkness, but technically, she made it there and got to see it. It was raining as we came through Buffalo so was very hard to see as well.
It was pretty late when we got back and dropped everyone off for bed.