New York Trip Day 3-5

On our 3rd day in NY (Friday) after we checked out of our hotel at noon, we headed north along highway 78 toward Lockport. That was one of the towns high on our "like" list. We passed by beautiful neighborhoods and were very happy to see the busy city go away and the laid back feel come around.

We wanted to stay in Lockport for our last two nights, but between the only 3 hotels in the town we did not want to pay double what our precious hotel was. So instead we checked out the whole area for several hours then found another hotel elsewhere.

Lake Ontario was a beautiful stop, and also now the 3rd Great Lake we have seen! The town of Olcott had a wonderful sleepy feel and we had a fun time driving through, stopping to see the beach, and walking through the beautiful parks.

^it was significantly colder up here, but this lake was not frozen at all!

^Good visual of how far up we are! Canada is on the left.

^Nick in front of the original lighthouse from when the town was est. in 1873.

^we were also surprised to see all of the vineyards that are up north! We passed by several large acreages of vineyards (and farmlands) as we headed SW down to Niagara Falls!

Since Niagara Falls is a huge tourist attraction, a cheap hotel was very easy to find there just down the street from the falls! We checked in around 2pm, took a little nap, then drove around the area a bit before getting dinner. Friday night we stayed up late watching the news to see if the government would really "shut down" and close the national parks. Thankfully they didn't, so we went to bed late and got up the next morning to see the Falls!

^we walked all around the falls and went to each point that we could. Some walkways were closed for the off season because they are still covered in snow.

^looking over the falls toward Canada

^the Rainbow Bridge to Canada with the Niagara River underneath.

^the traffic coming and going to Canada was atrocious, so we decided to just walk across to another country! When you already have your passport, why not?

^observation deck on the left that we walked out onto.

^walking across the Rainbow Bridge to Canada!

^View from the bridge: US on left, Canada on right.

When we got over the bridge, we stopped and had lunch at a nice little restaurant. A gift shop was attached so we did some shopping and got souvenirs for our family! I got some great pictures of the falls from the Canadian side, then our throbbing legs told us it was time to get back to the hotel!

^on our way thru Niagara Falls we drive by the "Little Italy" there...another disappointment but it was nice to see.

Sunday was our last day there and we checked out of our hotel at 11am with 7 hours to kill before we dropped our rental car off at 6pm. We checked out some more rural areas in the NW, then found a Guitar Center there for Nick to check out. We had lunch and talked to some more locals. We also found some more areas that we really liked.

I brought up the idea of seeing a movie so we found a Regal Cinema and the movie we picked just happened to be starting right then! So we saw...

...Insidious. Um, very scary!! We love our scary movies and this one was definitely the best of the recent movies we had seen. Before we knew it, it was time to head back toward the airport, drop the car off, and check in for our flight!

Our return flights went great and arrived just after midnight on Sunday night in OKC. Nick's best friend Terry picked us up and we took him out for dinner at a 24hour diner to thank him. We finally got home around 2:15am and were soooo happy to sleep in our own bed!! We got up bright and early and headed out to the country to pick up our little boy who we missed so much!