IN MY OPINION
"Beauty and the Beast"

Books Read in 2007

Updated 4/9:
"Paula Deen"

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COUNTING SHEEP

26 June 2007

I am starting this entry at 4:30 a.m. on June 25th.  I went to bed at 10:30, could not sleep, tossed and turned until 1 a.m., when I got up and moved to the recliner in the sitting room. 

Tried that for an hour, then decided to try lying on the floor with my back against a piece of furniture.  What a disaster THAT was. So I've been organizing photos on Flickr for the past hour or so (added pix from the party the other night) and may give up entirely and watch a DVD, which I have with me in my computer bag.  I suspect I will sleep all the way to Niagra today.

* * *

Well, I finally did fall asleep around 4:30 and slept until 7--that's something at least.  After we'd had our coffee and cinnamon muffins in the room, we checked out the menu that Linda posts daily and discovered we were having creamy scrambled eggs in a sausage ring, something called Pannenkoeken (a fried puffy pancake -- very light.  And then bananas sauteed in butter and brown sugar, with crystallized ginger and coconut.  Another 4-star meal!

Earl, Linda, and the couple from Minnesota had lots of advice for our brief stay at Niagara.  And then when Earl learned that tomorrow (well....today, by the posting date of this entry) is our anniversary, he and Linda gave us this beautiful vase by local artist, Max Trainque.

It as a very sweet gesture and another example of how lovely these people have been and why we would love to come back to Naples, if only to spend another couple of nights at the Maxwell Inn (and enjoy another of Linda's breakfasts!)

So we finally packed up our stuff and got in the car and headed for Niagara. Since our time here is so limited, we opted to go freeway as much as possible rather than the back roads.  I have loved spending so much time on the back roads.  I don't know what it's like the rest of the year, but right now there is a calendar-worthy picture around each bend.  The fields look like quilts, rippling across a bed, in stripes of various colors of green.  The houses are beautiful structures with wide front porches and each its own unique style.

This house, for example, had a driveway lined with fire hydrants, each painted a different color or pattern.

Once we got to the freeway, I was finally able to sleep without fear of missing anything and I dozed off and on until we got to the Canadian border.  We crossed without difficulty and arrived at our hotel, the Holiday Inn, around 2 p.m. 

First we drove around to get the lay of the land.  I'm from SF, so I wasn't surprised to see the "Fisherman's Wharf-ing of Niagara Falls"

"All the guys" are here -- Ripley's Believe it or not, Planet Hollywood, and lots of games and scary stuff.  But if you can get past all that, you come to the falls themselves and what an amazing sight it is.  It turned out that the closest place to park was the parking lot by our hotel and we drove around and around until we found ourselves back where we started from.

We are within walking distance of the falls and even closer to the Sky Tower.  Since it is our anniversary, we decided that even tho we knew it would be overpriced and probably not up to Linda quality, it was a special occasion and what the hell.  We went to Western Canada on our honeymoon and now, 42 years later we are back here at Niagara.

Things were fine for awhile and then they seated a family with small children behind us.  I groaned.  One of the boys in particular was quite lively (he was right behind me), very excited, talking a blue streak, and climbing on the window to take photos, etc.  I was afraid he was going to ruin our nice quiet dinner. 

Things went OK for awhile and then it started.  First it was the drink being spilled.  Red liquid all over the place and ice on the floor.  The wait staff cleaned it all up.  Then a potato bounced off the plate onto the floor and nobody said anything.  A little while later it was a scuffle to get a dropped napkin.

I was quite irritated, and even more irritated that the little boy was sitting peacefully eating his dinner and it was me who had spilled the drink, dropped the potato and lost my napkin. 

The ultimate was when I got up after dinner and stepped in the heretofore hidden potato.  I kicked it in the direction of the little boy and hoped people would think it had been him.

You can't take me anywhere!

We went up to the observation deck to look some more and I made the required visit at the ubiquitous souvenir stand.  Then we went downstairs and I discovered I had lost my purse/bag somewhere.  We asked them to call up to the gift shop and sure enough, my purse was there (one thing about forgetting bags these days, with all the fear about bombs, I guess nobody is going to rifle through it to steal anything!)  We got another free ride up the outside elevator, which was nice.

View from the Tower restaurant
(click to see full size)

Our hotel, the Holiday Inn, is directly across the parking lot from the Imax theatre, which was showing a film on "miracles, myth and daredevils" at the falls, so we did that.  It ends with leading you out through a display of several of the containers that people have tried to go over the falls in.

(this kid was adorable and was with us in line for the movie.
He reminded me a lot of Ned at his age!)

There are lights on the falls at night, but I decided I preferred them the way God made them, so decided not to walk down to look at the lights.  Tomorrow we will get up early, have a small breakfast!, and then try to catch one of the early rides on the Maid of the Mist and hope we dry off before we have to pack and head for the airport.

If there are no catastrophes we will be home tomorrow night.  Hold the good thought.

This has been a whirlwind trip, but we have (so far) enjoyed every single bit of it.  I'm hoping that I will finally sleep tonight (I'm going to use my suitcase to brace my back and hope that will be enough!)

PHOTO OF THE DAY

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