Final camping day at Letchworth State Park

We started out our day with some delicious pancakes made by Daddy.  I love having him make us breakfast, it is one of my most favorite camping traditions.

Then we decided to venture out on another trail.  The kids liked hiking, althought a mile is about enough for them at this age  :)  We did see some beautiful scenery.

 We also made it on time, and went to the tour of the dam near the entrance of the park.  We tried yesterday, but were late (shocking, I know).  It was a good tour, and we got to go down inside the dam (lots of cold, pitchdark concrete).  This dam was built to be a "dry" dam, so there is no lake typically in front of the dam.  Made it look like it was all dried up and we came in the wrong season!

 

A few days ago we found one butterfly egg (after searching *many* plants) and today he decided to hatch into a caterpillar.  He was so tiny, but I know soon he'll be munching away at that leave and be a super caterpillar!!  Can you see him?  He's in the upper middle of this picture....

 At night we had a game of frisbee golf (which I totally suck at btw).

We also put the laptop out and made our own little "drive in" with it.  We watched Despicable Me, complete with smores.  That as a great way to end our camping trip.

Letchworth park, fitness and fishing

Today we decided to conquer the fitness trail that was set up at the park. Some stops were very simple: stretches.  Others were only a challenge for some of us (Lisa - balance beam, Zachary - king of balance beam).  Some were even feats of strength, like this arm walking thinging station.  I definately could not do it.  In fact, my arms were sore for almost 2 days from doing pushups!

 This was a bit of challenge for the non-coordinated people in our group :)

 Here's another scenic view of the park.

 We also went on a fishing trip today.  This is a stocked pond with Rainbow Trout in it.  However, the trout did not seem to be thrilled with our choice of bait: buns and hot dogs.

 Hmmm, they don't even want a whole hot dog!!

Niagara Falls day

We headed out from our campspot at 9:30 this morning. It was supposed to be an hour and a half drive to the falls, but we did have some challenges staying on our Google Maps route again today, but not too bad.

When we got to the Niagara Falls region, we were told about a tour of the major attractions... On an air conditioned bus. We were sold! Something about driving around in an unfamilar area, and doing a lot of walking in this heat really sounded unappealing, so we took the tour. Luckily Zachary can still pass for 5 years old, so his ticket was free :)

I thought the statue of Liberty was going to be bigger than this....

 

 

Our first stop was the Cave of the Winds, which actually doesn't even have a cave anymore, but it was really cool.  See the tiny yellow things in this picture?  Those are the people walking over to the falls - the spot where we would be soon!

We got some free shoes to wear, so we didn't have to get our shoes wet (any also for safety concerns I bet).  We loved those things.  They were so comfy we wore them the whole tour!

We donned our ponchos and got to walk right up to the Bridal Wave falls and touch it.

The closer we got to the falls, the wetter we got - but the kids loved it.

Next we went to the Daredevils Museum. It did have quite a bit of memoribila from past crazy people who went over the falls.  What the heck were these people thinking?

Next stop was the Whirlpool area on the gorge overlook.

Finally the biggie - the Maid of the Mist boat ride. We all had a great time on that.  It was a spectacular, upclose view of the falls.

 

The last stop was the Observation deck.

 

We went to Canada for a look around.   We had a great view of the falls and got to see some unbelievable rainbows in the mist.

We ate dinner at Planet Hollywood and finally headed back to camp around 7:30. We were all pretty tired from our exciting day. The kids described it as our best camping trip ever! Zachary exclaimed that he would never forget the Falls!!

Letchworth State Park : Exploring the falls

Today we ventured out into the trails of the park to see the falls and the gorge.  The park itself stretches out 26 miles from one end to the other so there was a lot of driving to get around.  Good thing, because it was *really* hot today.

 This made for a nice picture.  Almost good enough for a Christmas card photo.  hmmm....

 This one?  Not so Christmas card worthy, but certainly not too bad.  My new haircut is really a pain. Short hair makes my hair unruly and very hair to keep decent looking.  Oh, and I should probably burn that t-shirt when I get home.  Not so flattering.  But I digress....

I can't remember if this was the upper, middle or lower falls, but I think it was the middle falls.

 We had to walks LOTS of stairs to get there.  whew!!

 We did get to see a pretty rainbow by the falls though.

 These are the upper falls.

 For all of our hiking, we rewarded ourselves with a big (huge!) ice cream cone and some playtime at the park.  Remember how Zachary's ice cream fell off his cone within several minutes of getting it??  Luckily the ice cream lady was nice and gave him another scoop... in a bowl.