Surprise Birthday Trip - Day 2!

Back to the birthday extravaganza!

We woke up the next morning with plans to stay in Toronto until about 2pm before heading off to Niagara. Of course we had to hit up the Hockey Hall of Fame (or the Hockey Museum as I kept calling it) because Tom is a ginormous hockey fan and I'm a bit of a fan myself (aka I had a crush on Mark Messier in the 90s). 

The museum was actually really cool and way more interesting than I expected. I was really impressed with the whole setup/layout and there were a ton of different elements -- a great mix of history and current highlights and some fun interactive features. One of the coolest parts was seeing the Stanley Cup and the vault that holds some of the hold plaques. I don't know if this was the real one because there are apparently copies floating around, but cool nonetheless!

After the Hall of Fame we checked out of the hotel and headed over to the Historic Distillery District for some lunch. The Distillery District is a historic and entertainment precinct filled with cafes, restaurants, galleries and shops housed within heritage buildings of the former Gooderham and Worts Distillery. The district comprises more than 40 heritage buildings and 10 streets, and is the largest collection of Victorian-era industrial architecture in North America. I was really looking forward to coming here but it wasn't really what I expected. It seemed to be aimed more toward the wealthier Canadian folk than us middle classers. Still, it was a pretty cool place to see. After looking over some menus, we decided to get lunch at Mill Street Brewery. I ordered a flight and we got some short rib poutine to start, which was amazing. I also ordered the fig and prociutto flat bread and Tom got a lobster and avocado sandwich.

Once lunch was finished we packed into the car for the quick 1 and a half hour drive to Ontario. Unfortunately we made a couple of wrong turns (thanks to my bad decision making) and hit quite a bit of traffic. I passed out for a while but woke up ready to entertain. Tom had Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with him so I decided to read it aloud in hopes of making the time go by. I think it worked. 

We finally arrived at our hotel in Niagara Falls around 8 pm. We were staying at the Hilton and are room was just awesome! Tom did a really good job :) Another king suite equipped with a hot tub!! 

 We were pretty hungry at this point so asked the woman at the information desk for some local recommendations. Niagara was wayyyy more touristy than I expected (more on that later) and we didn't feel like eating at the Macaroni Grill and other chains that filled the area. She recommended Syndicate Restaurant & Brewery, which was a great choice for us. The restaurant was cozy but classy and offered a 3-course meal for $20! I ordered ANOTHER flight of their in-house brews, a ceasar salad, seafood boullabaise and the s'mores dessert. Tom ordered the caprese salad, lobster ravioli, and creme brulee. Everything was pretty delicious!

After he had planned the trip, Tom found out that Nik Wallenda was going to be tight-rope walking across the falls on the Friday we would be there. This was such an awesome surprise! The day before we heard that ABC decided they couldn't air his walk unless he was harnessed. I was relieved that we definitely wouldn't be seeing anyone plummet to their death but it did take away just a bit of the excitement.

The walk started at 10 pm and after dinner we joined the other 100,000+ people gathered around the falls to watch. It was pretty hard for me to see but it was still very cool! Here are some pictures of Nik -- if you look closely you can see him!

Nik is just to the right of the ladder thing

There he is with his stick right at the start of the mist

It was a really cool experience and I'm so happy he made it across -- harness and all! There were supposed to be fireworks after but apparently it was too windy. Too windy for fireworks but not too windy for a man to walk across a rope? Sounds pretty shady to me!

We considered hitting up the casino for a bit but the crowds were insane. There were people EVERYWHERE you could barely walk. We decided to just hit the hay and get ready for the next day at the falls!