3600 miles later........

We are back from our trip to the Northeast. We had a good time, despite the rain! We left home on Saturday, the 11th of June, and headed to Kalamazoo, MI to meet Anne, an Ooze friend, for breakfast. It was a lot of fun to meet Anne, and her son Carman in person. Not long after we sat down to eat, a couple of guys came over to our table. It was Anne's pastor and Carman's youth leader from Threads in Kalamazoo. It was really cool to be able to meet them. My hubby, and Carman managed to keep each other entertained while we girls chatted. My girls loved Anne for her creativity,kindness, and gentle spirit. The time went way too fast, but we had to be on the road by noon so we would be able to get to Guelph, Ontario, Canada by 6:00 to meet Jewels - another Oozer. We had a great time at dinner with Jewels - good food, good conversation and lots of laughter. I was a little worried my girls would object to visiting people they didn't know, or be bored at both breakfast and dinner, but they loved it. They both really enjoyed Anne and Jewels. (They loved Jewels because she was animated, fun, hilarious and outgoing.) They actually were disappointed that there were no more Oozers to meet on the trip. They asked me why we got to do all the cool things on the first day - now what was there to look forward to! Wasn't there someone else they could meet? Thanks Anne and Julie for meeting us on the road!

Day two, we were at Niagara Falls. Believe it or not, Canada was the hottest portion of our trip. 90 degrees. Because of the heat the fog never lifted off the falls so you couldn't really see them. It was disappointing not to be able to see the magnificence and awesome beauty and power of the Falls. We did manage to get pretty wet tho! We decided not to go on the Maid of the Mist because all we would have seen was MIST, but we did do the Journey Behind the Falls. We still didn't see much, but we sure tried! What amazed me about Niagara Falls is that in the years since I have been there (my dad grew up in the Buffalo NY area) it has become overly commercialized and touristy. Lots of cheesy shops, restaurants (any theme you could want, including super heroes, as well as Hard Rock's etc.) wax museums, Casinos, etc. Amazing what people will spend their money on! We opted to leave the falls proper, and go to Niagara Glen Nature Area and hike. Carissa's curiosity and insistence led us down a neat trail into the gorge. Unfortunately we couldn't spend a long time there because getting lost in the woods, in the gorge, in the dark just wouldn't have been cool!