Monday May 3, 2010 - Buffalo, New York - Dayton, Ohio

**I'm behind on updates, so I'm just posting text right now. Keep an eye out for photos to be added in within the next day or two. Thanks for your patience!**

Today was a busy day. We got up early and headed the 22 miles or so northwest to Niagara Falls.

It's a gorgeous sight - no doubt about it. Well worth going out of our way to see. The kids were amazed and thought it was awesome. Since we haven't renewed our passports, we couldn't go across to the Canadian side, but we were able to view the falls from the top as well as the bottom.

As you're trying to figure out where the heck everything is and how to work everything, you find yourself in a line charging $13.95. They're charging you to take an elevator down to the river and a short boat ride around the falls. However, for just $1, you can take the elevator down and hike up a few flights of stairs to get a closer look at the falls yourself. We opted for this, and the kids about soiled themselves with excitement.

As beautiful as the falls are, the experience of the surrounding several blocks is an experience in itself. It's rife with parking lots, 'visitor centers', and all manner of other commercial ventures designed to help you memorialize your visit to the falls with any number of clothing items, doodads, or whatchamacallits. The other things we noticed was that the food establishments (at least the ones we saw) were oriented towards East Indian visitors primarily. Interesting!

We spent a little over an hour at the falls before piling back into the van. We stopped next in Silver Creek, New York. It's about 30 miles southwest of Buffalo, along I-90 and Lake Erie. We were stopping to have lunch with Chris, a guy I went to Sem with and who served as a field-worker with me at a small, inner-city parish called Mt. Olive in the Shaw neighborhood of St. Louis City.

We enjoyed a local food favorite called the beef on weck sandwich at Aunt Millie's Kitchen. We then got to see the parish he's been at for nearly three years. It was nice to reconnect and get the news of his impending nuptials.

We passed quickly out of New York state, then into and through Pennsylvania, and most of the way through Ohio. We then continued on a mind-bogglingly exciting (not) drive, terminating on I-70 just north of Dayton in the bustling burg of Huber Heights. The kids were fantastic today - they dealt with the long day in the car amazingly well. Woohoo!