Niagara Falls...finally

So we ate our breakfast in the motel parking lost because we didn't want to take our food inside (that's how gross it was). Left for Niagara Falls, what should have been a 45 minute drive turned into 2 hours. Apparently everyone wants to see Canada Day fireworks at Niagara Falls. Who would have thought???? We headed to the action on Cliffton Hill and checked out the Guinness Book of world records attraction. Went down to the falls and Cassie says "this is it?". Same thing I said over 15 years ago when I came with her dad (she is her mother's daughter lol). Headed to Rainforest Cafe which was only the second time we've eaten in a restaurant since leaving. After filling our bellies we checked out the skywheel which Justin did NOT enjoy at all...especially Cassie bugging him by swinging it. View was beautiful though. Went to check in to our hotel and found out our reservation hadn't been transferred into the system so they had to upgrade us to a suite (bummer lol). Front desk suggested we go down to fireworks at 8 because of how busy it was. When we left hotel traffic was still backed up out of town so we used a map (yes a map) to take a back route and made it in 5 minutes. Let this be a lesson to all GPS users, sometimes it pays to use a map. Not only did we get there faster we got back so early the parking lot was still empty and we actually got a spot:). Today we checked out Maid of the Mist that takes you on a boat right up to the falls. It was awesome but will have to post pictures when we can get decent internet connection. Tonight we are going to a magic show for Justin.
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Niagara Falls

Here's Niagara Falls from the Skywheel.
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Niagara Falls or Bust!!

After we left that sketchy motel in Marathon we started on our way towards Niagara Falls. If you read our older blog from yesterday we said we would include a picture of the sign near the window for you. Here it is.

It's a good thing we didn't discover this until the next morning or I'm sure we wouldn't have gotten any sleep.

As you can see we were very happy to be back on the road again and away from that hotel.

As one of our random acts of kindness, we decided that for every hitchhiker we saw, we would give them a drink from our cooler and a little bag of chips. Right outside Marathon was our first hitchhiker! So we pull over, explained that we don't have any room, but we would like to offer a drink and chips. He was very grateful for a nice ice cold bottle of water and some cheetos :) So then we kept on our way to Niagara Falls!! Looking out for any other hitchhikers.

We saw some pretty strange things on our way.......In a town called Wawa they had all these statues of giant geese everywhere...

My theory behind the name of this town, is that they named it after the noises geese make :) "WAWA!"
We got to stop and see Lake Superior a few times, its huge!

Justin skipping rocks :)

I don't even know what I'm doing here....
We found a nice place to sit for a rest along the way :)

Leaving Sault Ste. Marie we spotted our next hitchhiker (the only one since Marathon) so we started to slow down and realized it was the same hitchhiker from Marathon!!!!  Even the hitchhiker can make better time than us on the road.  What are the chances????  Wanting to get as close to Niagara Falls as possible we just kept rolling.  Around Barrie (at about 10:30 pm) we noticed it looked like Toronto was being evacuated.  The highway was completely full coming out of the city.  We also noticed that the only ones going into the city had tinted windows and looked like gangsters so we were wondering if they city was being evacuated and we were in the crowd of pilagers lol.  Anyway, we managed to get through Toronto and settled on a Motel 6 (very classy I know) in Burlington.  We have driven 3,557 kilometres since we started our journey. Now we're off to Niagara Falls.

Pictures from Ontario...still

Room we were staying on the morning Cassie turned 19.

Amethyst Mine

Ontario...still

We left Dryden without getting our picture with the giant moose:(. Oh well we still have Bigfoot. Ontario is huge!! Luckily it's very beautiful, kind of the same scenery as in the Rockies, but without the huge mountains. They have some mountains here but nothing like the Rockies. So yet again we have another entertaining story. Yesterday was my birthday and we spent most of the whole day driving across Ontario which never seems to end. As we were driving along like any other normal albertan family...some ontario guy drives past us and flips us the middle finger, how nice!!! Didn't he know it was my birthday? Anyways, after that friendly incident with a local we came across some weird looking bird things that were in a field beside the hiway, they kinda looked like a ostrich...or in the words of Justin brown herons.....I just called them mutated turkeys :). Of course we stopped and got out because we hadn't seen anything interesting for a while, I get out of the vehicle to try and get a nice picture of the birds and all the sudden me and mom start getting dive bombed by tons of bees, so we both start freaking out running around the vehicle flailing, and as I'm running for my life I kinda ran a little bit on the hiway....luckily mom yelled at me and grabbed me to get off the hiway. So after escaping near death we had to try and get in the suv and get the bees to fly out the windows. After we were laughing because Justin said I could have died on my birthday...not good!!! I told mom I wouldn't of died since the car that was coming at the time was a punch buggy (I coulda took it). After all of the commotion we didn't even get a picture of those turkey heron creatures, quite the fail. After we finished having another laughing fit we started on our way again....did you know people actually pee in bottles then throw them on the side of the road? I always thought that was just in the movies.....nope people actually do it. We stopped at an amethyst mine and got to dig or search for our own pieces to bring back home, mom found a great one! It was really cool to see the different kinds of amethyst. We decided to stay in a town called Marathon in a sketchy hotel last night and I'm sending this right before we leave, kind of happy we are leaving because there is a sign on the windows here that says they are permanently sealed due to wildlife....we will post the picture later.

Terry Fox Memorial

Justin at the Terry Fox Memorial in Thunder Bay.
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Ontario

We crossed into the Border late in the after and made it to Dryden for the night.  Along the way the kids met up with something taller than them so of course needed to stop and get a picture.

Northern Ontario is very beautiful with winding roads and lots of lakes (great views after Saskatchewan). 

HOLY CROW!!!! (A short story from Cassie)

Ok so, as we were driving down a highway after passing Kenora Ontario something of odd proportions happened..... We were just cruising along going 90km...(ok well 100km since moms a speedster)....anyways just going along minding our own business well all of a sudden in the distance we see a huge crow just sitting in the middle of the highway. Anyone who knows me knows my history with crows...I'm terrified of them. So as we are approaching this eye pecking vulture of a beast I jokingly say "HIT IT!!!!, HIT IT!!" and well....turns out the little bugger didn't get out of the way fast enough and BOOM!! it smokes the front of our SUV landing in the lane of oncoming traffic. At first i felt kind of sorry for the little guy...even if they creep the crap out of me, but mom quickly pointed out that in the rear view mirror you could see the other crows swooping in to eat their buddy... YUCK! One dead crow feeds a whole murder of crows, so technically i did them a favour :) Mom was laughing so hard that we actually had to pull over for a few minutes. Now the only thing i seem to be able to think about is how all of the crows are going to find out that it was my fault their buddy died....they are plotting against me i can feel it!!

~Cassie

Agape Table

Wow what an amazing experience today!  We showed up at Agape Table for 8:30 and were put to work until 1:00.  Cassie spent alot of time in the kitchen chopping up veggies (no injuries lol), Lorrie and Justin carried bins and boxes of groceries up and down the stairs most of the day.  Agape Table serves breakfast (which they charge $1.00 for) and soup (which is free).  They also run a food bank on Tuesdays, and we also ended up helping with that by handing out groceries to families.  We met some really great people!

Manitoba

Since we slept in Regina for 4 whole hours, we never crossed the Manitoba border until this morning.

We made it to the Royal Canadian Mint with only 5 minutes to spare for our guided tour.  It was really interesting to see how they make all the Canadian coins and coins for many other countries.  We even saw a beaver coin.

 They have a $675,000 gold brick we got to hold.  Unfortunately it was chained down and guarded.

Tomorrow morning we start our soup kitchen shift at 8:30, thankfully we are already checked into our hotel and ready for some sleep.  After soup kitchen we start our journey towards Niagara Falls.

Saskatchewan- Most thrilling drive EVER!

So, we are now sitting in our hotel in Winnipeg!! Was a long drive through Saskachawan....probably the most exciting drive of my whole life! (not) One good thing is that Justin got to hold the worlds largest Tomahawk!!

We should of known we were in for a boring ride when we saw what the sign for Saskatchewan looked like......but if course we took all of you into consideration by making the sign look more appealing :)

SUV so full we look like a bunch of hillbilly

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Goin to winnipeg!

So here we go!! That's right our first destination is Winnipeg!! Tomorrow we will be going to the Royal Canadian Mint! Money, money, money, money, (money!) That was to the tune of the Apprentice theme song if you didn't know :) Anyways for our dear old Grandfather we are leaving with 39828 km on the SUV. We will keep posting as we go along :) love you all :)
~Cassie
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