Ontario: Yours to Discover

It's been so long since we went to Ontario, that instead of thoroughly breaking it down by day, you will get a lot of pictures, and brief captions to sum up the 10 days by event.

Ben and I at the Edmonton Airport. A seriously early hour (Our flight was out at 6:00am.) 

On the other side! Jared and Ariana were on the same flight as us.

I don't know why I didn't take any photos of the rest of our day, because we after this we went to Niagara on the Lake. Which was so pretty. It reminded me of Tofino in a sense that it felt totally removed from the rest of the world. Except there were no hippies. 

The next day…

 Ben and I hopped on the bikes and rode to the Falls. It was only a 10 minute bike ride. I'm so glad we went in the morning, because it was like 8:00am and it was already so hot.

I'm such a tourist, and I don't care. 

(That puff behind me is mist from the falls. At this point I could already feel the mist)

This boat is seriously close to the Falls. You can tell from the white rapids how strong the current is, and it's amazing that it didn't go over. For the full story of survival, click HERE. 

The whole time I was at the bottom I was thinking that the boat would 

finally dislodge, and come crashing over and kill us all. It didn't…

This is the American side of the Falls 

(with the bridge in the background that separates Ontario from New York)

This is the Canadian side (the most famous side, because it's bigger and clearly better). The tugboat down at the bottom doesn't seem all that close to the base of the Falls, but when you're down there (or maybe it was just me…) It feels a little too close for comfort. You can feel the boat's engine revving in reverse to fight the pull into the Falls. It was slightly frightening to feel that kind of power. 

Okay, this is not sweat, it was like it was raining because it was so misty from the Falls!

Maid Marion… of the mist… 

We had another tourist take our picture. She sucked at taking pictures. 

This is looking back towards the NY side of Niagara Falls. I had to put my camera away at this point because it was already really wet and about to get worse as we got closer to the big Falls. 

After our Maid of the Mist adventure, we rode our bikes to a close by park to meet up with the rest of Ben's family for a Townsend family reunion. 

On our way there, Ben popped a tire on his bike and we had to walk our bikes the whole way there. 

Sarah wearing my glasses and hat

Me, Ariana, and Jared at the picnic spot

The picnic was so delicious. It's a Townsend family reunion tradition to get a big bucket of KFC chicken, along with tons of other dishes and have a picnic. It was fun to have the opportunity to meet his extended family, considering they're all so spread out and far away.

The next day...

We drove down to Palmyra, NY to see the Hill Cumorah Pageant, and some other historical sites.

We got there pretty early, so we claimed some chairs and went off to explore.

The set up

The Palmyra temple has 108 windows, and all of them are stained glass, reminiscent of the sacred grove. I'm normally not a stained glass fan, but these windows were so gorgeous I had to take a picture. 

And then blog about it… 

View of the Temple from the Sacred Grove

This is the Townsend Family crest! It was in the replica of the Smith family log house. 

We didn't have time to go anywhere else. We missed out on seeing the printing press, because they had closed by the time we had gotten there. Still pretty neat to see where it was!

The next day...

This wasn't the next day, but I don't know when these pictures were from. 

It was Niagara on the lake though! So probably belongs back in day 1.

See the hotel in the background? So Charming (and haunted. I don't want to talk about it anymore).

The next day...

Canada's Wonderland!

Chase was super excited to go on all of the rides.

Ben and Jeremy went on "The Bat". 

I wasn't feeling brave enough yet to go on. I feel like I have to build up my tolerance starting with the small rides, and working my way up to the big ones. This one was too big.

So instead, I went on the "Jumpin' Jet"!

It was a really long day, but it was lots of fun. 

I still don't think it compares to Disneyland, but I would still like to go back.

The next day...

We crossed the bridge over to Niagara Falls, NY to do some shopping at the outlet malls. It was awesome, but this was the only picture I took of the day… crossing the bridge. 

The next day…

Camping has begun! We went to the Pinary Provincial Park for 3 days. 

Sorry for the wide eyes… The flash was so bright.

We were about 5 seconds away from Lake Huron. 

We had to climb over a massive sand dune to make it here, 

but it was only a few minutes from out campsite. 

I said to Ben "Hey, you might want to stay out of the sun today… You're looking really red."

He didn't, and later that night I was woken up from the 

sound of him being violently ill from heat exhaustion. 

There was a drive in about 30 minutes out from the park, 

and this is where I witnessed the final Harry Potter. 

This was the gang, and our set up! We had front row seats.

This was the final picture I took of our trip. Somehow I missed the last few days. I always feel like I never take enough pictures. Or take way too many pictures of the same thing. 

Next post: The Cockapoo and the cupcake.