Niagara Falls Honeymoon

After our June wedding, my new husband and I headed out for our honeymoon destination: Niagara Falls. I was super excited, because I'd never been outside the country before, and was pumped to use my new passport! Matt and I both love going to new places, and were really looking forward to having a romantic week together. Plus, it was our honeymoon, our first days together as husband and wife, and we were pretty giddy. :)

We drove up through Detroit and across the bridge into Windsor, Canada, on our first day. It took about 5 hours, including a creepy drive through a virtually-empty Detroit, and a scary encounter with a ramp to the Ambassador bridge that was under severe construction and made us feel like we were headed for certain death.

Finally through Detroit and over the bridge, we get to the "border patrol" place where they check your passports, and apparently grill you about your plans while in their country. We reached the officer full of relief from getting through Detroit and excitement for being in CANADA for the first time! The officer quickly conveys the message that this is not just some fun transaction where you get a stamp in your passport. About three sentences into this exchange, I actually started getting worried that we'd get arrested for the bottle of champagne in our trunk. Then, out of nowhere, the officer tells us (without emotion, in an intimidating, no-nonsense monotone) that while we are here, we should definitely hit up the wineries at Niagara-On-The-Lake because we will get wasted.

Uh, ok. So we resume our excitement to be in CANADA as we pull away and head to our first hotel of the trip, overlooking the river and downtown Detroit. We went to the Caesar's casino and wandered the river walk, where we had a close encounter with none other than THE Kenny G playing Jazz Flute at a riverside festival! Talk about an exciting start to your honeymoon!

The next morning, we were headed for Niagara! Driving through Canada was exciting for me because I love all things French, and everything in Canada is apparently in both French and English! I snapped this picture of a road sign early in our drive.

Merci for the conversion, Canada!

 We checked in to our amazing hotel in Niagara with a view of both the Horseshoe and the American Falls, and walked into our our room to see this:

Falls view tub.

Yeah, our bathroom has a window next to the jacuzzi tub, so you can literally look at the falls while you soak in a bath! Speaking of seeing the falls.... our view was unbelievable. Here's just one photo of many that I took out the window from the 44th floor.  This was right after a little rain shower and the rainbow definitely jazzed up the view a little bit.

View of the Falls from our room!

We filled our days with good food, beautiful scenery, and lots of laughs. One of our favorite things was our ride on the Maid of the Mist. It was windy that day, which really stirred up the "mist." Except it's not really a mist at all, but more like you are being sprayed in the face with a garden hose and someone has their thumb over the end. It was super exciting though to be that close to the giant, incredibly powerful falls!

Maid of the Mist from the Journey Behind the Falls Tour

 We also did a "Journey Behind the Falls" tour where we got to wear our second poncho of the day, and the best part was standing on the deck pictured above, and having awesome views of the falls.

Rigging for the tightrope

The day after we left Niagara, Nik Wallenda was the first person to ever tightrope walk across the falls, and did so during a live television event.  So, we saw lots of preparation and camera crews setting up. In the above photo, the actual tightrope is in place!

We spent lots of time at the Casino across from our hotel, and left Canada up about $20! We also wandered the touristy part of Niagara and took a ride in Ripley's Moving Theater, bought some souvenirs, and had a little fun with a Mountie/Moose. It was a wonderful trip, and a perfect honeymoon.

Click here to read about our wedding day!