Never in my life will I forget today. Niagara Falls was a bucket list item that met everything we thought it would be. Then we ended the day with the best Mexican food ever all with my favorite people… yep, Best Day Ever!

We started this morning in Niagara Falls, NY. We slept in a bit and then packed up the car. Thankfully, we can walk to the Falls from our hotel, so we could leave the car at the hotel, fully loaded to hit the road later. No free hotel breakfast this morning, so we snagged a few pop tarts from the car and stopped in a local coffee spot, literally called “The Spot” for coffee and smoothies. These two were entertained by the tic-tac-toe board while Mike went to change his shirt.

We crossed the street and made our way into Niagara Falls State Park.

The State Park is really nice. Plenty of walking/running trails with lots of shade and a nice breeze coming off the water. The weather could not have been better.

We decided to do the Cave of the Winds first, and based on the line as we were leaving, we made the right call. The Cave of Winds takes you down to the bottom of the Falls, gives you a really cool yellow poncho,

and then turns you lose to get as wet as you want… and we absolutely did!

The Falls were everything we thought they would be. Just amazing!

We were so soaked and laughing so hard 🤣 It will be one of my favorite days forever and ever… and it was only 11am! Some of us did not use the hood of our poncho, nor did they hold the edges of their ponchos tightly… wanna guess who?

We spent a little time exploring the gift shop and State Park… and of course took a few pictures.

We even managed to catch the Rainbow over the falls at one of the overlooks.

We then made our way to the Maid of Mist, and while the line at first made us nervous, it was only about a 10 minute wait.  This time, we got a blue poncho and some great views of the water around the Falls.

And off we went to the falls.  The Maid of the Mist boat takes you right up to the bottom of the falls and it is windy, and loud, and wet and AWESOME!

After we docked, we climbed the stairs on the other side of the Falls for one more chance to get soaked 😁

We went out on the observation deck for one last look.  Absolutely worth the trip across the state

We trekked back to the car and started making our way toward Vermont.  Mom’s Cafe – Now with service in Upstate NY!

The closest route took us off the Interstate and through some really cute small towns in Central and Upstate New York.  We decided that the town of Spectator should have been Spectactular, because 1) that’s a way better name and 2) the marketing/tourism plan practically writes itself!  And they had a road called “The Lane” – it turned out to be a boring residental road, but how cool would it be to live on The Lane in Spectactular, NY?

The old school metal bridge were definitely something you don’t see anymore.

When I pointed this sign out, I was quickly told by my people that no one was going in any caves today. BOO!😒

We loved the flags throughout the town of Crown Point, NY honoring their veterans.  Crown Point calls itself the “Birthplace of the Electrical Age” which honestly seemed like a pretty bold claim for a really small town.  But, after some internet sleuthing, it turns out that Ironville, a hamlet of Crown Point, was the firstplace in the world to use electrivity commercially for industrial purposes.  While an incredibly specific claim, it must be true because we found a plaque!

It wouldn’t be a Brown Family Adventure if we didn’t find ourselves on an unmarked road at least once, so we can mark this as done. And we found some random interesting things, like an orchard totally covering their apple trees from birds and insects. ☑️ and ☑️

But the views today made it so hard to believe that the NYC and Upstate are actually the same state.  I guess the same could be said for North Carolina when you think of the mountains to the beaches to the cities.

Finally we made to The Bridge, the one that separates New York and Vermont at the midpoint.

This drive was gorgeous.  Mike said with these views and the low population, maybe we needed to think of moving… I reminded him that it was July, not January.  Could he handle an average of 6-8 feet of snow per winter? We’ll just stay where we are, but wow!  These views…

Apparently everyone likes the views because every now and then, we saw these “Viewing Area” pulloffs. Nothing to actually see other than pretty landscape so maybe everyone thinks it’s gorgeous?

We did get tickled by these signs… apparently in Vermont you don’t take things to Goodwill.  You just put them in your yard with a sign?

We decided to grab dinner in Burlington, Vermont – home to the University of Vermont. The boys wanted Mexican (the boys always want Mexican), and we found this little renovated downtown diner that was a “farm to table to taco” theme.  Not sure what that means, but reviews were good so…  Other that the crowd of high young people hanging out under the stairs of a parking deck, the Downtown area was really cool.

El Cortijo was absolutely amazing! It was small but the food was so good, and the wait staff was friendly and welcoming (people are very interested in our accents). I think we are going to have a hard time eating Mexican food anywhere else and not comparing it to here. Of course, Michael, ever the contrarian when we all rave about a restaurant, said Amigos is better (our local Mexican restaurant). 🤦🏻‍♀️

After dinner, the boys decided to use the hotel gym to exercise and I decided to use to whirlpool to not exercise 🤣  Then they joined me in the pool area. I had a flashback to when they were little and could spend hours wrestling and sliding and wrestling, and did I mention wrestling?

Total miles today was 5 miles and ~11,000 steps, of course that was by 1pm so not too shabby 😊