What, you ask could be better than finding a whole new family?  Well, not much, but we did manage to fit in some pretty interesting adventures!

First was Niagara Falls. It was pretty amazing–a lot of water.  We could use some in Arizona.

Mark, Jeff, and I decided to jump off a very tall platform and take a zip line to the bottom of the falls.

Here we go!!!

There we go!!  And we all survived.

Took a walking tour with our new-found family through Old Town Kensington Market.  This is the part of town where Annie lived.

Jeff standing in front of Annie’s house, now an office.

Met up with Rebecca, Ted, Edith, and Ian, pals from the India trip, along with Sandy and Annabel.

Ted suggested going to Niagara On the Lake.  What a pretty little town full of beautiful flowers and other tourists.

But, it was Mark’s birthday so we stopped at Orzo and had a great lunch!

When you are in New York you might not naturally think of the Erie Canal. We did and set out to find it.  In Lockport there it was!  Here lives a five tiered set of locks which are like giant stairs to get boats up and down a 60 foot change in elevation.

It’s hard to see, but the five layers are still there.

Sixty foot weir gates holding back the water behind the boat we were on.

The mechanism which operates the weir doors.

Leaving the locks.  This canal is 363 miles long and was started in 1817.  It only took 7 years to complete and was opened in 1825 to help shuttle good and people to the less settled west.  It runs from the Hudson River to Lake Erie. Quite a fear of engineering!!

What a time we had this past 10 days!  Family, Falls, Flowers, and the Erie Canal!!  What is next?  Wait and see!

Yes, Jeff did walk around the edge of CNN Tower in Toronto.