Less than 24 Hours in Niagara Falls

I've wanted to go to Niagara Falls for awhile.... I'm not sure why the Falls trumps places like Vegas or some other fun party city (well, maybe because i act like I'm 80) but if I've learned anything during these past couple of years, it's to always take opportunities and just go with it.

So when the perfect weekend window showed up and the weather was supposed to amazing, my friend and I thought, "why the hell not? we don't got no kids, we don't got no homework, and we don't got no responsibilities." She had points to help break the cost of a rental car and we had some $$ for a hotel room.... so... carpe diem, am i right?

Saturday:
Bright and early in the morning, we headed out for our long 7 hour drive to the falls. Thank God the drive was full of amazing landscapes. Although, I guess after being in the city for so long, any cluster of greenery will amaze you. jk. It was pretty amazing.

So much green. and so many clouds for miles on end.. 

We ended up stopping for some buffalo wings in Buffalo, NY at a place called Duffs. We filled our tummies and then continued driving 30 minutes north to Niagara Falls!

Our first stop and only stop of the Saturday Niagara Tour was Maid of the Mist. We barely made the cut off, as the tour stops ticketing around 5:45 and the last boat leaves at 6pm. There was really no need to buy tickets ahead of time as the line went pretty fast. But maybe that's because we waltzed in almost near closing time.

Look ma! I'm an adult!

All in all, the Maid of the Mist took a little over an hour. This included the waiting in line + the observation deck.

**Pro-tip: if you want to get wet, try and go to the top deck! And no worries, because by the time you're back on land, you're pretty dry. 

At night we saw the illumination of the falls. Don't be deceived by the dark park. It's open until 12am...or you can check on google. To be honest, the illumination was a bit subpar. Perhaps if we saw it from the Canada side...

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Sunday:
Because we're old, and because we had to drive back 7 hours, we decided to keep Sunday short and sweet and try and get out of Niagara by 2:30pm. And we all know that no Niagara trip is complete without going to the Canada side, or as they call it, "the side with the better view". We were sad we didn't get a stamp on our passports for crossing over to Canada, but the views made up for it.

What a whirlwind, less than 24 hours in Niagara Falls trip! If i ever did it again, I would opt for maybe staying a day more. Because we got so tired and lacked time, we didn't get to go to the Cave in the Winds, which is basically standing at the bottom of the falls and getting drenched. womp. Also, I hear there are some good hiking trails nearby which would have been fun to check out. 

But all in all, what an amazing escape from New York City. You have to have one of those every once in a while to keep sane!