October 12, 2003

Road Trip - Day 8: Sunday in Niagara

We slept in a bit this morning before having breakfast in the room. Then we went to the church Joel located that sounded like a good fit for us. Redeemer Bible Church was a small church of probably a couple hundred people or so. They put a lot of emphasis on praise and worship, so the music portion of the service lasted nearly an hour. After that we heard a message on Baalam and his talking donkey. It was quite interesting and very well done.

We went to lunch after the service at a really good rotisserie (sp?) chicken place. The food was great, the service was lousy. Then it was back to the room for nap time for me, Nintento time for the kids, and Star Wars time for Joel.

After I got up we took the laundry to the laundromat, which was very clean, by the way. Joel and I took turns shopping in the dollar store next door, which was awesome because the US dollar is worth $1.30 Canadian! That means a $1 item in Canadian currency only cost us about 70 cents. (Woo-hoo!)

After that we headed for the Skylon Tower. Inside we found an arcade which the kids were really excited about, so we let them play for awhile. Joel ended up with the prize, however. Of the 300 tickets they had, Joel spent 200 on a Marvin the Martian doll. After that we paid the arm and leg it cost to ride the elevator to the top of the tower. The view was magnificent, though. I'm so glad we went. The sky was mostly clear, so viisibility was about 60 miles or so.

The next thing on the list was to go to the IMAX movie about Niagara Falls. We spent another arm and a leg there for tickets, not to mention the $30 (Canadian) it cost to buy dinner at Pizza Hut for the four of us. The movie was okay, but not as good as I had hoped. We actually learned a lot more about the falls from the Internet site I found yesterday.

By then it was dark outside and we all wanted to see the falls at night with the colored lights shining on them. We drove down there, hoping to get a parking spot so we wouldn't have to walk, but no such luck. It took us about 20 minutes to drive the mile or two down to the falls (due to the long line of traffic backed up), then they wanted $12 to park our car. (No thank you!) So we drove back to the hotel and Joel and Jenna walked the two blocks down to the falls. They were both really disappointed that we didn't get to stop and look at the falls. Frankly I was satisfied just seeing them as we drove by....

Anyway, that was our day. A lot of worship, a little work, a little rest, and more touristy stuff. Tomorrow we head back across the river to the states as we continue on our adventure.

A ground-level view of Skylon Tower