Our FIRST time at Niagara Falls (US side) | Maid of the Mist boat tour + Cave of the Winds!

This is one of those things where you just can't wipe the smile off your face. Nothing on me is dry right now. Today we are visiting one of the most iconic sites in the United States. Niagara Falls! Yeah! So Niagara Falls is located in New York on the U.S. Canada border and we originally wanted to go to both the U.S. and Canada side today because we hear the Canadian side has better views. With just all the logistics right now to cross the border it just didn't really make sense to go through all of that just for a couple hours over there. So we're going to stick to the U.S. side today and hopefully come back in the future to see the Canadian side. We've made it to Niagara Falls State Park which was established in 1885 and is actually the oldest state park in the United States. There's many areas of the park to explore but we have headed first to Terrapin Point on Goat Island to get our first glimpse of Horseshoe Falls. Oh! You can't even see the bottom! Not yet. Nope. Wow! Wow! So much water! That is massive! Oh there's a rainbow! Yeah! Niagara Falls is actually made up of three waterfalls American Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, and Horseshoe Falls and at peak flow almost 700,000 gallons of water flow over Niagara Falls per second. And the waterfall behind us is Horseshoe Falls which is located in Canada and it's also named Canadian Falls and it's the largest of the three. And per the usual we've read so many different numbers about its size but one of the stats said it's 188 feet tall and its crest line is 2,200 feet wide. It is, even with the mist which is blocking part of the falls you can just see it's so massive. While Niagara Falls is beautiful to look at it also serves a very important purpose for the area surrounding it. Right behind us is a statue of Nikola Tesla who was an electrical engineer and in the mid 1890s he developed a system of alternating current which converted the energy of Niagara Falls into electricity and was transmitted over 21 miles from Niagara Falls to Buffalo. This led Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse to create the first major hydroelectric power plant in Niagara Falls. Today Niagara Falls is capable of producing 4 million kilowatts of power which is enough to supply a quarter of the power used in New York State and in Ontario, Canada. After seeing Niagara Falls from Goat Island and Luna Island we walked a mile across the river for one of the top things we wanted to do at the falls the Maid of the Mist boat tour. The first Maid of the Mist boat hit the water in 1846 and started as a side wheel steamboat ferry with twin smokestacks and over time has evolved with many different boat types and today they are now using all electric, zero emission passenger vessels the first of its kind in the U.S. I feel like Jim and Pam right now. Once you get off the boat there's a spot called the Crow's Nest which takes you up these stairs. Nice and dry. The boat ride was so much fun. It cost $25.25 per adult for a 20 minute ride and going into it we were kind of like that's kind of pricey for just 20 minutes but I don't know how much longer you'd want to be out there because once you get away from the dock you just start getting blasted with the waterfalls. And it got really cold really really fast so we'd say it was totally worth the cost. It was just, we couldn't believe how close we got to it. You could barely see anything. It was like a white out. But going into this just know it's very touristy, very very busy and not everyone's always considerate so just go into it with that in mind and you'll have a great time. We will say that we saw the Canadian boat and it had like 50 max people on it. Everybody can spread out and just enjoy it. So we kind of wish we had gone over to Canada so we could go on the less busy boat but that's okay. But we're going to head back over to Goat Island to go get even more wet at Cave of the Winds. Despite its name, Cave of the Winds is not actually a cave. Back in the 1800s there was a rock overhang that allowed people to stand underneath the falls and then in the 1900s the rock collapsed but the name stuck. Today the attraction is now a series of wooden walkways that you can walk up to get right up to Bridalveil Falls. They actually rebuild these walkways every year. They cost $19 per adult so between the Cave of the Winds and the boat tour it's not totally cheap to come here and experience Niagara Falls but we hear they're both super worth it. After you get your ticket you watch a movie about the history of Niagara Falls and it's really well done and then you take an elevator down basically just down into the gorge. We're on the walkway and it's time to get soaked. This is one of those things where you just can't wipe the smile off your face. This isn't working anymore. Alright, time for the hurricane death. This is the best $40 we've ever spent. Everything on me is dry right now. Yeah, that was the best shower we've had since being on the road post-pressure. That was so much fun. Alright, now it is time to dry off. We're all dry after our Niagara Falls shower earlier and we've headed back to the park to a spot called Prospect Point to see the falls lit up at night. So every night after dark they light up the falls with different colors. Sometimes these colors signify different charities or causes but we're not totally sure if they're doing that tonight or not but either way it should be really beautiful and colorful. The falls were so beautiful at night all lit up but it's almost 9pm so it's about our bedtime so that's going to do it for our time here at Niagara Falls. But we had so much fun here today. I can't stop just laughing and just smiling thinking about how drenched we got. It was just, it was so fun. And we already cannot wait to come back and experience it from the Canadian side. But our time in the area is not over just yet. Tomorrow we are going to go on the ultimate buffalo food tour. Today we are visiting one of the most iconic states in... No. Where am I? Oh wait, there's the arm. What's the arm? Did I miss the hood? Your arm is in the hood. I put the hood on, that was a bad move. There was a bunch of water in it and it just ran right down.