Month: September 2017

Saturday is winery day. We started out with the intent of driving to Niagara on the Lake, the place the our train friends told us had many wineries. Being Saturday, the traffic was a bit heavy going toward Niagara, so I decided to give Curt directions off the highway. We were about 40 minutes outside of Niagara on the Lake when we started to see the winery signs. We thought why go all the way, why not just hit a few wineries here and be closer to home. We hit 4 wineries and made sure we shared tastings and ate food along the way.
Winery #1 – Rosewood Winery. This one had 5 stars and also had a patio area. We are not fans of standing at a bar tasting one after another. We like to take our time and enjoy the views and tastes. Wine tasting in this area is a bit expensive. In Washington, in most places the tastings are complimentary, or waived if you purchase any bottle of wine. At this winery, it was $5 for 4 tastes. We sampled a chardonnay, a rose, a pinot noir, and a cabernet franc. The view was much better than the wines. We had a view of Toronto across Lake Ontario across the vines…Gorgeous!!

Winery #2 – Angel’s Gate Winery. $5 for 3 tastes. We tasted a gamay noir, a pinot noir, and a red blend (gamay noir, merlot, shiraz), standing at a bar! The red blend was the favorite here, so we purchased a bottle to go. Unfortunately with the impending border crossing, we are careful how many bottles we purchase due to the duty. We picked this winery because they had a restaurant attached, but they only offered pizza and Curt wanted to move to another one, we wanted a charcuterie tray to enjoy a glass of wine. We asked the wine tender to recommend another winery and she pointed us to another one.

Winery #3 – Kew Winery. We thought she said “Q” and had a little trouble finding it. But once we did we loved this one. It was like walking into someone’s house. Unfortunately the seats on the patio (there weren’t enough tables—poor design) but we sat by the open French doors and had a great view of the patio and the vineyards. $5 for 3 tastes: pinot noir, pinot gamay and a red blend (1/2 cabernet franc and ½ cabernet savignon). Here we were finally able to get a cheese and bread tray with a glass of that red blend. The dipping sauce for the bread was made with their chardonnay, and was so good, we got a bottle to go! Again we did some people watching, and were annoyed with one small little boy (about 5 years old) who was running around the place. There was a gas fireplace that had river rocks in there and he was throwing the rocks, we were just waiting for him to break something. His father, who tried reasoning with the child for 10 minutes, finally came to his senses and took the child out to the car. He must have given him a good talking to when they left, because the boy came back and was much better behaved. But really I don’t think a winery is a place for kids—thank goodness we didn’t get the winery bug until the kids were able to stay home by themselves.

If you look close, you can see Toronto in the distance (above)

Winery #4 Good Earth Winery. We chose this one because it advertised a bistro and winery. Instead of doing a tasting, we headed to the Bistro for a snack. Curt ordered the charcuterie tray (only okay) and I ordered the French fries (Yummy!!). Everything we ordered, even the cannoli for dessert had “grass” on it. I think they were some kind of bean sprouts, but certainly did not belong on my cannoli. We shared ½ bottle of a red blend, that was full bodied, we corked the bottle and took the rest home.
Home in time to have another campfire…because of the cooler nights, these are really necessary.  Watching the fire sure beats watching our choices on TV!!
Sunday was a day of rest. We went to breakfast again and then went to the Canadian Super Store (like a Walmart) for some essentials like bacon and eggs and wine! Tomorrow we are headed to Niagara Falls.

 

**my apologies for my followers, due to the poor internet and then getting caught up in Philadelphia with family and friends, I am very late posting these**

After stressful drive in, we needed a day of relaxation. So we slept in, headed to breakfast in downtown Milton and then drove down to the outlet mall. There was a 40% chance of rain, but it turned out to be a nice day to walk around in the OPEN AIR Outlet Mall. Doesn’t it snow here? We thought for sure this would be an indoor mall. But the rain never came (probably because I carried an umbrella around). It was pretty crowded; I think everyone else had the same idea. The parking lot reminded us of the mall parking lot at Christmas. We were a little surprised by the “outlet prices”, although there wasn’t much on our wish list, but we were hoping to get some summer attire at end of season prices. But that was not the case, so needless to say the only thing we got was a pair of sneakers to replace my sneakers that were falling apart and that was only after visiting 6 different shoe stores. I didn’t want to spend the money, but Curt finally talked me into getting them reminding me it was Canadian money (but also Canadian taxes – 15%!) so I think that cancels it out.
Home to another quiet evening and a campfire.

Our trip to Toronto on Friday started early-ish, as we wanted to let the rush hour folks get to work first. Our first mistake was thinking we could stop on the way and get a Starbucks or Tim Horton’s (which are usually on every corner here in Canada—except for today), but as luck would have it, we did not see any and got on the train without breakfast (I, however, had my morning tea during my walk with Daisy). The train was long and the cars were split level, so actually had 3 levels: main level, mezzanine, and penthouse.

We did not venture off the main level, so not sure what was beyond the stairs—but during the trip we saw many a stroller head up the stairs. Sitting across the aisle from Curt was a college boy who happened to meet up with a girl who we think he worked with. So last night after work, they all headed out to a party and the boy boasted about how he was still drunk, and got only 3 hours sleep—oh the power of youth!! One of the fun things about riding the train is the people watching or in this case the people listening. We heard all about his party and the antics of him and his friends—but it did make the trip go faster. So remember all of the strollers, they all departed the train at the same stop—Canadian Expo. The Canadian Expo is the Canadian Fair according to our other next door neighbor. The theme of the Expo was Science so in addition to the normal animal exhibits, they had various science exhibits and of course the midway rides and fried everything food trucks. We don’t particularly like crowds (funny as we were heading into the city where 2.6 million people call home) so we steered clear of the Expo.
In two stops we arrived at Union Station—I think there is a Union Station in every big city, eh! Union Station was huge as expected, but we finally found our way to the street level and were on the lookout for the off and on tour bus. Using the knowledge we gained from watching 16 years of Amazing Race, the best place to get information in a big city is head to the Concierge desk at a large hotel. As long as they didn’t ask us what our room number was, we were good…and she didn’t! She even called the company and got us a reservation and sent us to the nearest stop, which happened to be right in front of a ….wait for it…Starbucks!! Finally got our Starbucks, the bus arrives and we are on our way. We have taken a double decker bus tour in several cities (DC and NY (on the coldest day of the year) come to mind) so we knew this would give us a good overview of the city without ever getting off the bus, which is exactly what we did—rode it all around. Also included in our ticket price was a harbor ride…it was a beautiful day for a boat ride—70 and sunny.

Some of our sites:

CN Tower – The tallest tower in the Western Hemisphere (used to be the world until the Dubai tower beat them out). It has a rotating restaurant and an observation deck that has a glass floor (we’ve been on one of them in Shanghai). You can also walk outside of the observation deck called “EdgeWalk” tooted as Toronto’s most extreme attraction. If you want to propose up there on the EdgeWalk, they will give you a plastic ring, so you don’t accidentally drop it and it gets embedded in someone’s head on the ground.

Hockey Hall of Fame – This is the home of the Stanley Cup. The tour guide said there is a superstition that if you touch the cup, your team won’t win that year, so she said if you root for the Toronto Maple Leafs—DO NOT TOUCH THE CUP, they haven’t won the cup since 1960 something. I really wanted to visit this, but we arrived about ½ hour before closing, so we only had time to visit the gift shop and take some photos, but no Stanley Cup sightings—sad face!

The King Edward hotel is where the Queen and any of the Royal family stay when they are in town. They have their own suite, which you can stay in for $2000 a night, but you had to sign a contract that says you will promptly move out if they happen to make a surprise visit to the city. This place also has seen celebrities over the years: Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton stayed in the same room BEFORE they were married; the Beatles stayed here for a week and they had to shut down the street because fans found out where they were staying and camped out.

Toronto has 2 city halls an old one, which I took a picture of that has the clock tower and the gargoyles. The newer one is a futuristic looking building, but I didn’t get a good picture of it.

It was difficult to take pictures as you weren’t able to stand up because we were driving just below all of these cables for the streetcars (see photo below). This is a picture of a news van that was in an accident and instead of trashing the car; they made it into a “work of art”. The wheels of the van never stop to illustrate that news never stops.

Check out the Miami Dolphin taxi cabs!!

After the 2 hour tour, we hopped off when they said they were going to be at that stop for 20 mins or so. We set off toward the marina and went in search for a waterfront restaurant.

Had a nice cocktail and lunch before we headed to our Marina Tour. The boat we took on the tour was an open air boat, it actually looked like it could go very fast, but the Captain never took it out of NO WAKE ZONE speed. The Marina tour guide was not as informative as our Bus Tour Guide, but the tour did allow us to get a nice picture of the Harbor front and the Skyline (you could stand up on the boat with the only worry was a stray dropping from the seagulls above!

 

After the Marina tour we headed back toward the Hockey Hall of Fame, but like I said we were a little late, so we decided to head back to Union Station to find our way home. We had to ask 3 people and finally the third person I asked, a patient lady, gave me a tutorial on how to read the signs and find our track. It was weird because we knew what station we needed, but the train line was not written on the ticket. Once she told me what to look for we were ready, of course, another weird thing was the track does not get announced (or put on the board) until about 8-10 minutes before the train arrives—a bit nerve racking as everyone is standing around with their eyes glued to the screens and then when the board gets updated, everyone makes a mad dash for the stairs to get to the track. Be careful not to get distracted on your FaceBook, or you may miss your train.
Our trip home was a fun one. We sat across from 2 people who were headed to Milton (our stop) and the one beyond. We got to talking about Toronto, they have both lived here their entire lives and of course, we had to fill them in on our Canadian adventures. Come to find out as we were getting close to the station, the man turns to the women and asks her name, “I’m sure I know you from somewhere”. How about this for small world, they went to the same high school and she works with his sister.

Got home about six, had some dinner and enjoyed a nice campfire and conversation with our neighbors.

 

 

The drive from Sault Ste Marie to Sudbury we had rainy weather. When we checked into Carol’s Campground the rain had let up, but when we got to our site, there were mud puddles everywhere—so bad that Daisy refused to lay down or sit outside.

Selfie with Daisy at the lakeBut I will say, the next morning, Daisy and I took a nice long walk and found a beautiful lake, some bunny rabbits to try to chase, and a snake. Check out these pictures:

The next day we headed to Toronto, this was a 4 ½ hour drive and we knew we were going to hit some traffic, so I volunteered to drive the first 2 hours. Good thing too, even though the GPS took us on the outer loop to get to Milton which is Southwest of Toronto, the traffic was heavy and the construction was crazy. Curt did a great job driving on the highway with the crazy weaving in and out people and the big trucks. It was a white knuckle drive for sure. But while we were headed out of the city, we noticed the inbound Toronto traffic was heavy the whole way. Did you know that 6 million people live in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area)—that is more than the population of the providence of Manitoba? (Fun Jeopardy fact).

The campground is beautiful, lots of green space.

The one thing that would make it a perfect place (besides an internet that actually works) is if they put a fence around one of the big fields for a dog park. When we started out our trip, on the west coast, there were a lot of campgrounds that had dog parks, or dog parks close by—poor Daisy has been tethered for many weeks now. I can’t trust her to run free, if she sees a squirrel or rabbit, she would be gone into the woods and not sure she would come back.  There was plenty of green space to walk her, but also lots of bunnies and squirrels.

After our long drive, while Curt set up the water and electric and sewer and after I unpacked the inside, I made us some fresh fruit margaritas.  We had bought the lemons, limes, and oranges a few days ago, but with the rainy weather and cold, there hasn’t been a good time to enjoy…until now.

We weren’t here 30 minutes and our neighbors arrived. At first we were upset about it, but these people were wonderful. They had 2 kids who were in love with Daisy!! Even though they had their own dog…Charlie, a big one year old black lab who wanted to play with Daisy too. Their friends came and stayed next to them so it was a big family gathering with 2 more kids and Charlie’s brother. We have found Canadians to be very friendly folks. We would talk across the campfires in the evening, and on their last day, they invited us over for a beer (they stayed Wednesday til Sunday, we were staying until Tuesday).  And when they left on Sunday, it got quiet for a few minutes (no kids), but then it got loud…we could now hear the traffic from the highway.  All weekend they had been our sound barrier and we didn’t even know it.  No one filled those spots for the rest of the time we were there.
When we arrived here, we were commenting to the camp host about the traffic and wanted to visit Toronto while we were here. She told us even though the GPS would say a 45 minute drive, it would probably take us 2 hours to drive their and to find parking was very expensive. She gave us directions to the GO train station and told us it would take about 35 minutes to ride in—we were up for the adventure!!