The Beauty Around Us

Niagara Falls Weekend Getaway (Friday)

By Linda G. on February 23, 2015

I awakened on Friday, February 20th, to temperatures below -20 degrees for the second time in less than a week! It seems this month we have been experiencing either frigid temperatures or chilly temperatures and snow. A warm-up is forecast for Saturday, with snow in the forecast.

As if we haven’t had enough of the cold, we headed north for the weekend to see the partially frozen Niagara Falls.  Our weekend getaway was planned as an early celebration for my birthday.  My actual birthday is today, February 23rd.

Bob came home from work at noon, which is customary for Friday. We were on our way to Niagara Falls by 12:30 pm. We made one stop at Tim Hortons in Fredonia, NY for coffee/tea. We arrived at our hotel, Comfort Inn The Pointe, at approximately 3:00 pm.  We checked into our hotel room, a two-queen bed room on the fifth floor with a park view. After I changed into long johns and we bundled up, we walked the short distance to the brink of the America Falls at Prospect Point.

 

It was very, very cold with temperatures barely above 0 degrees Fahrenheit.  The sun was shining, and the sky looking away from the falls was a deep, brilliant blue.

 

The view was markedly different, when looking toward the American Falls.  The falls faded in and out of an icy mist.  The mist contained ice pellets, which bombarded us the entire time we were in the vicinity of the falls.  My glasses glazed over with ice, making it difficult to see!

 

I did take one picture of the American Falls.  I wasn’t even sure if the falls were visible, until we returned to the hotel and I looked at the pictures I had taken.

Soon after taking the photograph of the falls, we returned to the hotel.  After we had thawed out, we bundled up again and walked the three or four blocks to the Seneca Niagara Casino. We ate dinner at Thunder Falls Buffet. Dinner was good but more expensive than we expected. We paid $29 each for dinner, when we were accustomed to spending $16.95 each at the Seneca Allegany Casino.  We learned that the Seneca Niagara Casino charges $3.05 more than Seneca Allegany Casino for its buffet dinners. On Friday nights crab legs are added to the buffet, and dinner was $29 each.  We don’t eat crab legs.  There were plenty of food selection, though, and dinner was good.  I ate too much, which is usually the case when we eat at an all-you-can-eat buffet. We did have an opportunity to get back some of the money we paid for dinner, as we each received $15 in casino dollars for eating at Thunder Falls Buffet and paying cash. Luck was not on our side. We did know enough, though, not to put any of our own cash into those one-arm bandits!

I noticed the moon as soon as we stepped outside the casino. I didn’t have my camera with me.  As soon as we returned to the hotel, I took pictures of the view through our hotel room window.

If you stay at Comfort Inn The Pointe during a visit to Niagara Falls, be sure to ask for a park view room.  You can’t see the falls; however, the view is still picturesque..

As you can see by the two evening photographs displayed above, it was a clear night.  We did consider for a moment making another trek to Prospect Point to see the falls illuminated . At -1 degrees Fahrenheit, though, we opted to not make that trek!