Our 5 day family trip started Saturday (Sept. 28th) when we headed down to Ocean City to spend some time with a group of my fellow high school pals at a mini reunion. I’ve know some of these people 38-46 years! Pretty neat that we still want to see each other, just kidding!  We have a reunion guy named Scott, who I sometimes help with finding people. And Jim is the fellow who opens his home and heart to us all. We couldn’t stay around too long, but we did do the photo booth.

Yes, it was a Mexican themed get-together. And yes, I like to act silly in photo booths!

Before we went to the reunion, we ate at one of our favorite places in Gardner’s Basin-Gilchrist’s restaurant (we ate outside) and found a few geocaches.

There was a cache in West Atlantic City where Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress, had a mansion. It sat in limbo for many years and they finally tore it down. There is a big grassy area, but this view of Lakes Bay is gorgeous.

We stayed at a mediocre hotel that night over in Atlantic City. It smelled of smoke, even though some of the rooms were suppose to be smoke free. And doors slammed shut all night.

We headed north at 9:30 am…..and arrived at our destination at 8:00 pm. Yes, it was a long trip made longer by stopping, eating and traffic.

But we saw this:

I took these out of the car window! The fall foliage was spectacular in Pennsylvania and New York.

The guys took turns driving while I sat in the back seat. Brian and Sean are a good team.   My friend Jenna suggested I try Bonine so I could read in the car and I could.

We were in a big traffic jam when we approached the Canadian border as a Buffalo Bills football game had just let out. We showed our passports and driver’s licenses and were asked how long we would be there and where we were going, that was it!

We got to the lovely hotel and sat down to a late dinner. We unloaded the car, climbed back in and  headed down to Clifton Hills (like 6 minutes away), the hot spot of Niagara Falls. It’s like a smaller version of Times Squares in NYC mixed with a beach boardwalk.

We were going to go on the Sky Wheel the next day, but we changed our minds-for something else that is really cool!

There was a Jurassic Park like mini golf and lots of attractions and neon lights!

We all took photos, I borrowed some from Sean too.

Look who was around the corner!

Katy Perry

and next to her-

Captain Jack Sparrow!

Yes, they are wax figures. I didn’t take a photo of Heath Ledger as The Joker. We also didn’t go in to the museum as we were anxious to see this:

Brian sat the camera on the wall there and got this beautiful shot of the American Falls. What is funny is that Sean and me thought this was Horseshoe Falls. Brian had been here in high school and said, nope these are the smaller ones. We would have a surprise in the daylight!

I will continue our trip in a few more posts. We took almost 300 photos (Brian and me) and Sean took about 240.