Day 1 - Framingham to Niagra Falls

Start of trip

Departure time was set for 7am. The bags were in the car, the alarms were set, the dry food was packed and the only thing left was filling the cooler...or so I thought! Well, 7am came and went (not surprisingly). We still had a bunch of little, last minute things that we were forgetting to account for. In particular it was packing up all the electronics. How in the world did we do this when we were younger without technology?!?!?!

One bright spot in the morning was Carl stopped by with a Starbucks bag filled with goodies for the trip. Thanks Carl!!! With the Kerr & Chalmers' families finally packed in the car we pulled out of the driveway at 8:07am! The starting mileage was 112,954 and the temp outside was 72 degrees. I turned on the radio and the song playing was "Highway to Hell"; Sharon and I had a good laugh. You can interpret that in so many ways!

Everyone was so excited, but quiet. I think the kids were still a little groggy and the thought of leaving their dads was hard. But, the boys will join us soon enough! Off to Niagra falls. We figured, how hard could this be, you just need to head west right?!!?! So, we decided we didn't need to set the GPS because it was so obvious, until we hit the huge fork in the highway where 87 went to Buffalo and 90 went to Syracuse...oops. First call to Mark (my live GPS) for help. Thanks Mark!

We arrived in Niagra Falls just before 4pm. Plenty of time to visit the Cave of the Winds. What an awesome sound and feeling standing at the bottom of that part of the falls and listening to the  crashing water come down right in front of us. It was the perfect day for this and the kids stood on the Hurricane Deck getting soaked but loving every minute of it. Hard to take pictures from that point because there is just no good way to protect the camera. The walk through the caves was just amazing.

The ponchos are supposed to keep us dry!!!

Result of the Hurricane Deck Visit

After that, we decided that we had to kill some time before setting up camp so we  headed over to the Hard Rock Cafe for some dinner and then off to the KOA Niagra to set up. The tent was up in less than a minute...thank you Coleman for creating the instant tent! Sharon and I unpacked and organized ourselves in the tent while the kids played and explored. We thought about going back to the falls at night to see them lit up, but everyone was pretty tired by 9:30. So, off to bed we went....It was an amazing first day!!

We are looking forward to our adventures from here!