Summer Vacation 2009 - Day 3 (or SCOTT WAS RIGHT)

After breakfasting in suite this morning, Papa decided he was ready for Ohio again and who can blame him? So we bid Grandma & Papa farewell in the parking lot (and again at the stop light down the street) and we headed for the shoe store. Because sometimes Andrew has to have new shoes. Not to say he's a high maintenance boy, but this is his fourth pair of shoes in six months. OK, he's high maintenance. Jac is evidently worse. She just got the cutest pair of sandals and in five days took them off and put them back on so many times that she shredded the Velcro. Amazing. And since we were there, I picked up a pair of slip-on tennies for myself. Niagara Falls Recommendation #2: Don't wear leather sandals on the boat.

Shoes purchased, we head for Canada. We're blessed to all have passports. You can't live in Japan w/o them so there you have it. That means we cut about 4 hours off our trip by driving through Canada. Right after crossing the Rainbow Bridge you can take a right turn and drive down the street next to the falls. These fantastic photos were taken from the car w/o stopping...such talent!

After cruising the falls we can confirm that the Canadian side of the water is a more pleasant destination than the red, white and blue. I said, "Where do our tax dollars go???" Scott replied, "We use them to pay people in the state of New York not to work. It's called welfare." A truer thing was never said. It is really an untidy place, run down and sad. There is so much more to drink in on the Canadian side so get your passport and enjoy them both. Our next stop was the Botanical Gardens and Butterfly Conservatory. Fabulous. That's all I'll say. Completely fabulous. I'm going to post (almost) every photo!

The photography talent comes in not getting any photos of the screaming, the crying, the fighting or the tension of a family vacation. It looks like we had such a perfect time. We did enjoy it, but it was just as painful as your family vacations, I promise.

We left the Niagara area and headed west toward the US again, thinking we'd stop along the way for lunch. It was about 4:45 when someone in the back said, "Mom, I'm hungry. When's lunch?" No child abuse there. We pulled in for gas and chicken strips at a Wendy's and finally had the forever-promised vacation ice cream in the form of a Frosty for all. Yeah!

Things are rolling along fine and we pull into the border crossing at Port Huron. We wait our turn and the very nice border agent checks our passports, congratulating us on a nice trip. He gathers our documents and starts to return them when he hesitates to smirk while saying, "The computer randomly selects vehicles for inspection and I'm sorry, but you guys drew the unlucky number." Oh crap.
Please pull in here, leave your cell phones in the car and proceed inside the building with your passports. "Can I bring the diaper bag????" Yes, lady, you can bring the diapers. Trust me, we want you out of here more than you want it. It took us ten minutes to get everyone's shoes back on them and trek into the building. The stanchions inside the room that force the serpentine line were made of cheap plastic...Andrew swung on every one. This was a real treat. Passing Jac back and forth between us so she didn't lick the floor or something equally horrific. We stood there for about 15 minutes when the agent guarding the line made up a story about needing 2 lines - one for the true criminals and one for everyone randomly chosen. God bless that man. We were the randomly chosen...and then came in another random car. This girl and her blonde dread locks were travelling with her father and her dog. That's almost worse than five children, except that she got to leave her dog in the car!

It took forever. The agents were all terrific and did their best to speed things up. We're pretty sure the agent checking the car didn't even pop the trunk - and really, if two people with that many kids is on a family vacation, would you open it???

So the bottom line here is that Scott's anticipation of problems and extra time at the border crossing were valid. My calming him down and assuring him that a positive attitude would help the situation was completely naive. I'm sorry. I'm the idiot. He was right. And lucky he was or our trip would have been a complete bore!