Day 35 & 36 - Rest Days in Niagara on the Lake

It's amazing how a two day rest can seem like a week vacation.  As noted, we really enjoyed seeing the falls - up close and personal, enjoying the wine country and just relaxing.  I can't remember the last time we had breakfast at 9:00am.  We did find out that in this area, Niagara Falls is the name of the city - The Falls - is the name of the falls.  No matter that the rest of the civilized world calls them "Niagara Falls".
Wine tasting is fun.  Yep, sure liked the ice wine - actually, I prefer the 'late harvest' wines.  Monday evening will find us enjoying dinner at the Strewn Winery.  We enjoyed their tasting room hosts, and of course the wines.
Patty along the wine route :)

American Falls

Canadian (Horseshoe) Falls

Canadian Falls Up Close and Personal

Tom and Gwen in our fashionable ponchos

The group, sponsored by USC with visors

Notes from Jerry:  Ahhh.. rest days!  Time to sleep in, except you still wake up at 6 am or earlier, but most of us can go back to sleep.  We got going early on Sunday morning to beat any crowds to the "Maid of the Mist" boats that go right up to the Falls themselves. 

We really enjoyed a cloudless day and one of the first boats out with no lines or waiting to board.  The viewing was breath-taking and pretty hilarious with everyone wearing their blue ponchos.  Spectacular!  Lots of great photo opportunities both on the boats and above at the rim of the river.  The Canadian side is where you want to be because one can view both the American and Canadian Falls themselves from across the river which is pretty narrow where the Falls are located.

To top the day off we drove up to Niagara on the Lake, which is the next town up where the Niagara River empties into Lake Ontario.  We discovered that Niagara on the Lake is actually not just a small town, but the name that they use for a whole wine growing region that covers many miles.  Think of Napa or Sonoma.  The little historic town itself is really well restored and a great venue for daytrippers, weekend stays  or longer as it has lots of inns, B and B's, restaurants, neat shops, plays/theaters and is surrounded by lots of wineries.

After walking the little town and having lunch it was off to the local wineries to try the, "Ice Wine" which is what this region is famous for.  I had never heard of ice wine, being a California boy, so I will let the rest of the gang tell you about it.

Monday is another R and R day so it is time for rotating the tires on the bike (new on front - front to back), haircuts and catching up on blogs, then off to more sightseeing and wine tasting!

Short Note From Gwen: From my perspective, I think the three travelers have been eating gourmet meals throughout the trip.  Seriously, we have hand-picked some great dinner restaurants since I met up with the gang.  Last night we had great steaks while seated outside in a nice patio.  The night before in Niagara Falls, we each had home-made pasta dishes which were the best I have ever eaten.  Both places were recommendations from the hotel/motel staff.  Patty, Tom and Jerry keep relating their past experiences -- some great, some not so much!  Today, we will do some more wine tasting and sightseeing.  I can't believe the number and quality of the local wineries in Niagara on the Lake.  The small historic town is so quaint and picturesque.

Notes from Tom:  Ah, rest days is right.  This is the first rest day since Marquette, Michigan, which was July 19th, and it's the first time we took two days off in a row.  We'll need to be re-trained in the morning.  I won't dwell too much on the rest day activities--the others have pretty much covered that.  One thing I will add is that at the winery where we're having dinner we probably tasted 10-15 different wines between the four of us--some were supposed to cost $4 each.  While tasting we told the hostess about our bike trip, and when we left she charged us $4 total, saying she enjoyed hearing about us and wanted us to enjoy our trip.

When the three of us try to tell Gwen about some of the experiences we've had, it takes all of us to remember what hotel we stayed in which town, and which restaurant was where--we've been a lot of places along the way.

As I said in yesterday's blog, we have ridden 2800 miles so far, but even more surprising to us is that we have less than 700 miles left, and a week from tomorrow, Tuessday, August 7th, we'll be in Portland, Maine and the adventure will be over.  The first thing Jerry and I will need to give up is eating everything we can get as often as we want.  Even eating like we have, we've lost weight.  I'm not sure how much weight we've lost, but all of my clothes are a lot looser than they were 5-1/2 weeks ago.