Last week when we set out on our week long adventure to a retreat in Kentucky (and yes, this trip will provide fodder for Field Trip Friday posts for several weeks!), we had no intention of stopping at Niagara Falls. It wasn’t even on our scope. But as we were driving down the road, Kenny mentions that we’ll pass right by it. What?! Really!? Can we stop?!!! Wonderful man that he is, he says yes — even though it cost us about 2 hours of driving time.

Since we didn’t plan to stop at Niagara, we didn’t really know what we were doing. We had rented a Chevy Tahoe for the trip which had built in GPS so we just plugged Niagara Falls into the system and clicked on the first thing that came up. It did get us to Niagara Falls, New York.

In my mind, I think Niagara Falls, New York, was just a big giant waterfall with maybe a post office next to it. And maybe a hotel.

It’s actually a bustling city and the falls are not that easily accessible. I’d say we wasted at least another half an hour trying to locate them. We finally found them in a state park. We paid $10 for parking and had to walk a little ways to get to the actual falls.

Oh. my. goodness. It was SO worth it. Breathtaking.

I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

We saw some Canadians…

When we looked out at the coast of Canada through the mist we saw them again. I think they got wet!

Of course, we had to ask someone to take a picture of the whole family at the Falls!

And Abe kindly (although with a bit of grumbling over the kissing!) took romantic pics of mom and dad at Niagara Falls.

I also got a couple of great kid shots.

If you’re ever in the vicinity, you must stop! We can’t wait to go back with passports and look from the Canadian side, too!