Niagara Falls

Our final stop on our trip before returning home (or as close to home as we have at the moment) was Niagara Falls. We drove from Hamilton, N.Y. to Buffalo, then the next day we drove up to The Falls. We did our sightseeing from the Canadian side, largely because the best information we found on the internet was all about the Canadian side. Plus it squeezed one more country into our agenda, bringing our total to 10 since the middle of June (or 11, depending on how you count a bus ride through Belgium).
Niagara Falls was spectacular. I know there are bigger, better waterfalls in the world (notably Victoria Falls), but Niagara Falls was well worth the trip. It's a touristed area, with some big hotels and a couple of casinos nearby, as well as the attractions at The Falls themselves. We didn't go to the hotels or casinos, but The Falls attractions were quite well done. We bought the adventure pass and started with the famous Maid of the Mist boat tour. We lined up, donned our ponchos, and sailed into the heart of the Horseshoe Falls. We passed the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls along the way - Chelsey and I were on the right side of the boat to get great views of those two - before we were surrounded by the Horseshoe Falls. The ponchos were useful, as the mist did get us wet. It also obscured the view a bit, at least in parts, but it was still quite neat.
Next we headed down to the edge of the falls themselves. The cliff at the edge there was probably my favourite view of The Falls, as you could watch as the water just plunged over the edge of the cliff. You also got a good idea of just how wide the river is at that point, leading to the huge total volume of The Falls.
We headed down to the Walk Behind the Falls, also included in our adventure pass. We went down by elevator to some tunnels in the cliff. A couple of portals are built into the cliff that allow you to actually see the falls from behind (that's right, we saw the backside of water!). We then followed the tunnels to an observation platform just to the side of Horseshoe Falls. The ponchos were useful on the Maid of the Mist, but they were essential on this platform, which was essentially like being outside in a rainstorm. Chelsey had fun running around and taking pictures, even though she occasionally had to duck back inside the tunnel to dry off her camera.
Our last adventure pass adventure for the day was the Whitewater Walk. This was farther downstream, below the falls. It was a little trail along the Niagara River where it cascades through a gorge, creating Class 6 whitewater rapids. (Class 6 is considered the toughest classification). It was a pretty neat walk, especially when we were right down near the level of the river and could watch the water surge above our heads. We also got to see a fat old groundhog running around and chowing down on the plants near the trail.
Before we left we headed even farther downstream to the whirlpool. We were hoping to see some serious swirling and destructive power, possibly even a swirling vortex of death, but instead it was just a big pool with some lazy floating action. No swirling -- at least on the surface.
Despite that, we were quite impressed with our trip to Niagara Falls. It definitely rated as a worthwhile tourist attraction.
-Jason