It's all relative

If the proverbial gene pool were filled with water, one look at these cousins would be enough to convince even the bravest swimmer to close their mouth before diving in.


Hooray! We made it safely to out hotel in Niagara Falls, despite Jeff's and my apparent efforts to complicate the process. I don't know which of us is more deserving of mockery. Jeff printed out directions from Map Qwest, listing only "Niagara Falls Ontario" as the end point, omitting a certain key detail - the address of the Best Western where we had reservations.

I, meanwhile, figured we would rely on my iPhone's nifty map service. Turns out my travel planning also overlooked a key detail. Two minutes over the border in Canada, our phones sent us a nice little text message reminding us that we are now subject to international roaming fees of $15.36 per MB.

Oh Canada!

I don't have a clue what that means or how it would translate on our next phone bill, and I really have no desire to find out. So off went the smart phones and my access to an atlas.

Using Jeff's partial map, we made it to town and pulled off at a gas station, where the clerk, whose name tag read Aziz, paged through the phone book and tried to explain, in his nearly impossible to understand accent, that there are four Best Westerns in Niagara Falls. He ultimately gave me some semblance of directions to the nearest Best Western a few miles away. And as luck would have it, we got the right one on the first try.

Other memorable moments:

• Timing is everything! Stuck in a long line of very slow-moving vehicles on the bridge from Port Huron, Michigan into Canada, we slowly inched toward Customs. And that's when Sydney announced... you guessed it... "I have to go potty." We were stranded on that bridge for at least 10 minutes with no bathroom options. Amazingly, when we finally had a chance to stop, Sydney was still dry. Even more amazing, she slept the last two hours of the trip.

• It can only get better from here! We got stuck in a traffic jam on the Queens Highway, the last 30 kilometers before Niagara Falls. The source of the delay? A three car accident... involving an entire wedding party! A total of five cars were pulled onto the shoulder, two with serious damage. Surveying the wreckage were the new Mr. and Mrs., along with a whole bunch of bridesmaids and groomsmen. Let's hope that years from now they can look back on the incident and laugh. At least for me, it suddenly made traveling without a map seem like no big deal.

Tomorrow we'll visit the Falls and Marine Land, which I'm told is like a smaller version of Sea World. Then it's off to Rochester. Where I can turn my phone back on.