Frances Smith and her kids take a trip to

Deciding on a gift for a relative (especially adults) can get frustrating sometimes. A book; a CD; more clothes; yet another tie; and there's always that old dependable standby, the gift certificate. But for Frances Smith's birthday in 2004, her kids went all out and scored pretty high on the originality meter.

Those who read Linda & Gary's roadtrip adventures will recall that we stopped off for a day at Niagara Falls. When Frances saw the pictures, she mentioned that she had always wanted to go there. A few months later as Frances' birthday loomed, we were racking our brains for an original gift idea and remembered the comment. We discussed the notion with Richard & Sherri and everyone agreed it was a terrific idea.

Over the next few weeks schedules were checked and possible travel dates were tossed around. Hotels, car rentals and area attractions were researched online. We finally decided that to see and do everything we wanted, a three day, two night trip was required. We settled on October 7, 8 & 9 for the trip and all the necessary reservations were made.

Looking back, the three days were an eventful blur. To help remember the highlights, we decided to post a journal similiar to our roadtrip website. We took far too many photos, but to see some of the better ones just click on one of the buttons below.