The crowds and lack of fireworks over the falls were a disappointment at Niagara Falls, but the ride on Maid of the Mist was everything we expected. Robert said it almost made him giddy to be in the midst of the mist. Akalena spends about half her life being giddy. She spent much of the ride screaming and running from side to side on the lower deck of the boat, which was not crowded at all. She wanted to stay on the first deck to have the opportunity to escape from the water in her face occasionally. I tend not to get giddy very often, but I did enjoy the experience and loved watching Robert and Akalena.
Most of the restaurants in the area were closed or had gone out of business, but the streets were lined with food trucks. The most difficult part was deciding what kind of chicken to eat – almost all of them were serving chicken. We had a chicken shish kabab salad for lunch and spicy fried chicken for dinner. We had actually planned to have pizza for dinner but all the pizza within walking distance was sold out by the time we decided to eat and we weren’t about to get the car out of the parking lot, brave the bumper to bumper traffic, then find a new parking spot just to get pizza.
We could have braved the crowds to drive into town and watch a fireworks display, but we had to get up early to make it to our next destination, so we stayed in the motel room, where we could glimpse a few of them over the neighboring buildings and went to sleep early.