A Mountaintop, Lake, and Earache - Oh My!

Last Friday morning the girls and I patted Tesla on the head with directions to behave himself when Andrew came by to feed and water him, threw our stuff, in the car, and pointed ourselves to the west. Amanda was going to spend the weekend with her friend Darci in Bennington who is attending college there while Jamie and I continued on to the Lake George area of New York.

Our journey to Bennington took us through the Berkshires of Massachusetts and as it was a picture-perfect September day we decided to take a slight detour and head to the summit of Mount Greylock, Massachusetts' highest peak at an elevation of 3,491 feet. Amanda and I been there once before early last September but it wasn't the best of days and what we saw on the summit was this:

Amanda had said that it seemed like something out of the movie "Silent Hill" and I've got to admit, it was downright impossible to get a good look at the war memorial that stands at the summit. This time, though, was a completely different story! And not just because Amanda's hair is now red instead of black!

As you can tell, the girls are thrilled to be back together now that Jamie has returned from Canada! Sigh ... Anyway, one of the other things that was different this time other than the fact that we could actually see the monument, was that it was open so we could climb the spiral staircase to the top if we wanted.

Amanda took about six steps up, decided that it was just too windy and steep for her (she apparently inherited my former fear of heights) so instead opted to safely wait for Jamie and I on a bench. There is a time when I would have been sitting right there with her but now I've simply got to do things I wouldn't have before as otherwise I might miss out on a good photo op!

Jamie and I successfully negotiated the increasingly narrower and narrower-as-it-got closer-to-the-top staircase until we finally arrived at the small room at the top of the tower with its windows looking out in all directions. Some of them were still pretty covered with condensation as it was still fairly early in the day but I was able to get a few decent photos taken before we started our way back down.

Amanda was right where we left here when we made our way up and once we got our feet firmly back on the ground we resumed our journey to Bennington which is not far from Mount Greylock at all. I'll be writing more about Mount Greylock over on The Distracted Wanderer once I get my proverbial act together and find some extra time too!

After getting Amanda settled at Bennington College with Darci, Jamie and I drove through some very pretty New York farmland for about an hour and a half before arriving in Lake George around 4:30 in the afternoon with plenty of time to check into our budget motel (more about that on my other blog at some point) and buy a couple of tickets for the upcoming fireworks cruise on the lake before killing some time walking around and taking photos of the area.

As the Adirondack Balloon Festival was taking place just down the road in Glens Falls (something that I decided to completely avoid after witnessing the line of cars trying to get into it off of the interstate)  a couple of balloons came up to do what they call a "moonglow" in Battlefield Park next to the lake before the fireworks went off.  I managed to get a quick picture from across the street before we boarded the Mohican, a moving National Historic Landmark that has been plying the waters of Lake George since December of 1907.

Not only did we get to see some beautiful fireworks over the lake from a terrific vantage point but just before the fireworks started, Jamie and I saw a meteor streak through the sky - though we didn't know it was a meteor at the time and only found out later when I was watching the 11:00 news back at our hotel. According to the newscaster, it's one of those "you're lucky if you see one once in your lifetime" kind of things so I guess we were quite lucky indeed!

Jamie wasn't quite so lucky the next morning when she awoke early with an earache. Thinking that maybe it was sinus-related, I made a trip to the closest Rite-Aid and bought Advil and Sudafed and a few other over-the-counter things and then as I drove up to Fort Ticonderoga, about 40 miles north of where we were staying, Jamie laid down in the back seat and napped until we got to our destination. I took Route 9N along the lake rather than heading up the interstate like my TomTom initially wanted me to as I thought it would be nice to see some scenery along the way even though it was an overcast day.

Jamie snoozed peacefully right up until I pulled into the parking area at the fort and then she was a good trooper as we had lunch and then walked around the grounds learning the history of the fort and the troops that defended it. As you can see by the flag and my hair in the photos below, it was a bit windy there on Lake Champlain but even though there were plenty of dark clouds, the rain held off until just as we climbed into the car to make the drive back to Lake George.  I was most thankful as I had been wanting to go to the fort for years and rain would have been most annoying!

Jamie climbed into the backseat and resumed her previous position for the drive up to the fort and slept the whole way back to the motel. She said she was feeling a bit better before going to sleep but the next morning she said that her ear was really bothering her again so I sent Amanda a text and told her that I'd be picking her up earlier than planned as I wanted to get Jamie home at that point. On the way back to Bennington I simply had to stop briefly to take the photo below:

Makes me wish that I lived up in that area simply as that would be one very cool triple-feature to see, especially at a drive-in movie theater! Unfortunately it's a bit far to go even if one of the movies does star John Cusack and it would be kinda interesting to see Abe Lincoln slaying vampires!

After picking Amanda up at Bennington College and saying good-bye to Darci, we continued on home though this time our route of travel took us down some back Vermont highways where the foliage was looking pretty good in some places. If I hadn't had a sick kid in the backseat, I probably would have been stopping way too often to take photos but instead I merely pulled over for the two below.  It looks we are most definitely having an early foliage season this year but that doesn't surprise me as everything seems to have been about a month early this year. It's been weird to say the least!

The rest of Sunday passed peacefully enough but when Jamie's ear seemed to be even worse on Monday, I took her to see a doctor who diagnosed her with both an inner and outer ear infection. Having been on an antibiotic plus ear drops along with a pretty powerful pain reliever since then, Jamie is finally starting to feel a bit better and hopefully the worse is now behind her.  Even though the timing could have been better as far as not having happened while we were out of town, I'm just glad that she didn't get the ear infection while she was still up in Canada as I'm not sure how she would have gotten it treated. Thank the good Lord for granted favors!

Good Grief! Where Did August Go?

Rabbits! Rabbits! Rabbits!  Just in case I forget to say it out loud first thing in the morning and set myself up for a month of bad juju!

I get the sneaky feeling I've been pretty busy again lately though this is the first time I've been back to the North Shore since I was here in early July with Barb.  This time around I'm up in Salem for the weekend with a mission - to house and puppy sit for my friends Juli and Walt while they head off to Montreal to celebrate Walt's September 13th birthday a bit early. I'm kinda envious as I'd love to see Montreal one of these days but it's been there since 1605 so I guess it will still be there by the time I can finally visit it myself.  Of course, once I see Montreal then I'm going to want to see Quebec though if I ever get around to doing that, I should probably take someone who speaks French with me just in case!

I guess it's sort of cheating to say that I haven't been to the North Shore since early July as I was up this way last weekend - just not in Salem. I went to Portsmouth, New Hampshire with my cousins Amy and Robin to have lunch at Newick's Seafood Restaurant - a family favorite since 1972 when we lived up that way while my Dad was stationed at Pease Air Force Base. We followed that up with a little tax-free shopping and then drove down to Newburyport, Massachusetts to attend a concert by the Nova Scotia bluegrass band, The Spinney Brothers.  In case you're interested in reading up on either adventure, you can click here and here for the posts on The Distracted Wanderer.

My Travels With Nathaniel  for the Hawthorne Hotel have been keeping me busy also though most of that has been in the form of writing rather than traveling the past two months. I'm hoping to maybe get to a place or two with mini-Nate this weekend if the last-holiday-weekend-of-the-summer crowds aren't too bad.  The weather is supposed to be quite nice so that's a major plus and it's been too long since I've walked through a historic house so it's time to amend that.

Amanda is up here with me and visiting with some of her North Shore friends in between helping out with the pups who are pretty easy maintenance as long as they get their food and their walks and some attention now and again.  Just don't tell Tesla that we're up here with a couple of dogs, he might not like that very much!

This is Dewey and Jay-Jay - the younger fellas who are cute as buttons

Kookie is the older lady of the house who is more interested in naps than walks and is starting to have a touch of dementia - bless her little old heart. 

In other news, Jamie will be coming home from Toronto in about two weeks but chicken that I am, I haven't told Amanda that yet; I reckon I'll break the news to her this weekend at some point. I think she was hoping that her sister living in Canada was going to be a permanent thing but I always hoped Jamie would come back home at some point and figured she'd have to come home after six months at any rate or be an illegal alien. Those two are just going to have to grow up and learn how to get along - and get jobs too, that would be nice!

I hope that everyone has a great start to their September - which I still can't believe is here already.  Time most certainly does fly! 

Thursday Thoughts & Things

First and foremost, a very happy 19th birthday to my baby who is up in Ontario and - as best I can tell - planning on staying there as long as she possibly can.  This is the second year in a row that Jamie hasn't been around for her birthday as she was up in Manitoba last year for her 18th and I missed her last year just as I'll miss her again this year. I'm not going to lie - even though I do miss her and wish she were home, I don't miss the constant arguing that she and Amanda seemed to want to engage in.  It would have been great if Jamie had been home for her birthday but she's technically an adult now and can make her own decision on where she wants to live.  Not that I ever thought it would be Canada though!  Anyhow, I'm hoping to take a trip up that way to see her soon and to bring her a few of her things and hopefully we'll be able to celebrate her birthday then - belatedly but better late than never!  In the meantime Jamie - happy birthday!  I hope you do something special for you today and have cake - ya gotta have cake on your birthday!

Secondly, yesterday marked the 6th anniversary of my blog which for some reason, I thought was the 5th anniversary!  Just goes to show how much attention I've been paying to this particular blog lately!  I've been a little swamped (overwhelmed?) with trying to keep up with "Travels With Nathaniel" and occasionally tossing something new up at "The Distracted Wanderer" in between work and everything else so this blog has sort of taken a backseat lately.  That's not to say that I don't think about posting over here - I just never seem to get the time!  Hand-in-hand with that is visiting other blogs as lately there just do not seem to be enough hours in the day!  Trust me, I do miss all of you and try to get around at least once a week but some weeks are gone before I even know it so please forgive me if I am absent more than I'm present.

A quick side note on this blog, I have decided to start doing the occasional paid post again as an offer was made and it was quite reasonable and a little extra money for wandering never hurts. Please feel free to ignore those posts, it will probably be quite easy to see which ones are the paid ones as they are going to be for travel destinations that I've probably never even heard of - never mind been to!  Unless of course I post about someplace you've been to - in that case, feel free to chime in!

Finally, in spite of all that's been going on lately - and it's been a lot it seems - Cyndi has been uppermost in my mind quite a bit.  I seem to be having more times when I get the urge to call her than before and every time I realize that she's no longer there, it still comes back and hits me upside the heart a little bit.  I was having coffee at work the other day out of my beloved Cancun coffee cup that she got me and out of nowhere I found I had a big ol' lump in my throat. Then today, while driving back from dropping Amanda at a friend's house in Quincy, Massachusetts yesterday evening I had lots of time to think and sure enough, Cyndi was there in the forefront of those thoughts.

I'd like to think that maybe she's up there watching over me a little bit though if I know her and the Mama Bear that she always was, she's up there watching over Daniel like a hawk (after all, that was her last name!) and making sure that they're treating him right at the home he's in.  I suspect she takes the occasional side glance to see how Angela is doing but as Angela received her Doctorate in History before Cyndi died, I'm pretty sure she's not too worried about her daughter who has always had a really good head on her shoulders. She most definitely took after her Mom!

Anyhow, with all of that thinking about my old friend and missing the heck out of her, it really came as no surprise that when I went back to look at my very first post on this blog, there was a comment from her.  Cyndi didn't comment often but when she did, it was always a gift and I'm so glad that I've got those little gifts scattered here and there throughout the last six years of writing.  I just so wish I had been able to talk her into her own blog but alas, she always felt like she never had anything all that important to say.  Well heck, it never stopped me!  

A happy Thursday to all! 

Monday Musings by Moi!

Whoa ... who turned the heat off?  June 4th and it's a blistering 59 degrees outside!  Mother Nature is definitely back to her old tricks!  Last Monday we were all sweating in 88 degrees with high humidity and today I've got all the windows closed and am wearing my warm robe and slippers.  It gets any colder and I'll be lighting a fire in the fireplace!

Had a nice visit with my mom yesterday; Amanda and I went up and took her for a drive to get her out of the house for a little bit in between rain showers.  We'd had such a deluge of rain on Saturday I think a lot of us were looking to get out and enjoy some sun even if only briefly. Mom seems to be doing great and one would be hard-pressed to tell that she'd ever had a stroke a little less than a month ago.  Just to be safe and to give her more of a sense of security, she's using a cane which I think is a great idea - there are times when I've thought it might not be a bad idea to have one myself! - but beyond that she's doing really, really well.  Once again thank you all for the positive thoughts and prayers that I'm sure helped immensely in her recovery.

As my mom and I were talking about how quickly the rhododendrons had gone by this year it dawned on me that yesterday was the 36th anniversary of my graduation from high school - holy krap!  Where has the time gone? In just a few short days it will be another 36th anniversary - this time of the day that I left for Air Force Basic Training as I boarded a bus in Willimantic (from that very spot) for Springfield, Massachusetts and the Armed Services Center where I met up with my recruiter, did the final official swearing-in, and then got on a plane for the very first time in Hartford to make my way to Lackland Air Force Base and six weeks of hard work, discipline, and fun.  It was June 7th, a mere four days after graduation, and I was only 17 at the time - younger than both of my girls are now.

Speaking of my girls, Jamie has been up in Toronto visiting a friend and has asked if she can stay in Canada longer and go back to Winnipeg to stay with the same friend that she was visiting last year.  She's been talking about going back ever since she got home and she's already partway there so I think I'm going to go ahead and let her stay.  Technically she's almost 19 and could certainly make that decision on her own but if she wants me to buy her bus ticket to Manitoba then she needs my permission!  If she and Amanda got along better here at home then I would be more inclined to tell her she needs to come back to Connecticut but she made a lot of friends when she was in Winnipeg last year and is hopeful that she can somehow figure out a way to permanently move to Canada so I think I should give her the chance to find that out for sure.  I'll miss her but I won't miss the tension between she and Amanda.

I'm still trying to adjust to my new work schedule - as is Amanda who is totally confused on what day it is! - and I'm going to totally confuse both she and I later this week as I switched a Thursday evening shift for a Friday evening shift so I can go see "Man of LaMancha" at the University of Connecticut with my cousins and also picked up an overtime shift on Sunday evening.  No doubt we'll both be wondering what day it is by the end of the week or beginning of next week or whenever that is!

And on a final note, even though I should have been out cruising to Canada with Barb this week on the Carnival Glory (a cruise we had to cancel for various and assorted reasons that were much more important than piano bars and room service and things like that), we have booked another cruise for the first part of July.

The Prince of Whales out of Newburyport, Massachusetts may not have a piano bar but they've got wine and whale sightings are guaranteed!  Barb will be up visiting her SistersDear later on this month and we're going to get together for some fun on the not-quite-as-high seas along with a few other activities that I've yet to determine but give me time and I'm sure I'll come up with something!

Hmm, I wonder if we should wear our tiaras?!?

Working for the Weekend at the Inn Victoria

As I mentioned briefly yesterday, Jamie and I are spending this weekend in the charming town of Chester, Vermont where we are participating in the Second Annual Inn Victoria Work Weekend.  The weather has been absolutely gorgeous this year unlike last year when it rained for a good part of the time that we were here and even though yes, it's been a lot of work it's also been a lot of fun seeing familiar faces from last year and meeting new folks.

We are once again staying in the Prince Alfred room just like last year but this year there's a big new change to the room - a second bed!  So, Jamie has been happily ensconced in her own feel-like-you're-sleeping-on-a-cloud 1600-threat count triple-sheeted bed while I've been enjoying my own also.  Sweet!

The food has been absolutely delicious - just like last year. Breakfast this morning was fresh strawberries served with light brown sugar and a dollop of sour cream (that made a delicious almost caramel-like sauce when mixed together) followed by Eggs Benedict with asparagus and tomato served on a puff pastry, plenty of bacon, and coffee that actually tasted as good as it smelled!

While I spent the day painting doors and trim inside the house, Jamie was kept quite busy outside doing some gardening as well as painting the inn's sign and giving it a fresh rejuvenated look.

Following a busy day with a break for delicious burgers and pasta salad for lunch, we worked until about 5:00 and then cleaned up in time for dinner with these fellas accompanied by delicious steaks followed by a wonderful rhubarb-strawberry crisp with homemade whipped cream!  No picture of that I'm afraid, I ate it too quickly!

After a busy day of painting and other tasks and eating like royalty, Jamie took off to soak in the hot tub for a bit while I enjoyed the wonderful soaking tub in the our bathroom.

I have to say, working for these kind of "wages" isn't bad at all and I've been very proud of Jamie as she really pitched in and did her share and then some working just as hard as everyone else and doing a great job. This might not be too many teenager's idea of a "fun" weekend but we've sure been enjoying it and now we can say that we've finally had honest-to-goodness struggle-to-get-it-out-of-the-shell lobster. Good thing there were people here to give lessons on that!

We've got another day of work ahead of us tomorrow with no doubt more good food in store before heading back to Connecticut where I will definitely miss that soaking tub, the 1600-thread count sheets, and having someone else cook for me but probably not the paintbrush that had me thinking I was channeling my inner Barb all day! 

Greetings from Boston!

Jamie and I are having a fine time visiting Beantown even though it's a little on the cold side (or as Jamie says, "it's freezing!") but there's no snow and the sun is shining so I'm not complaining in the least.  I took this picture of the very popular "Make Way for Ducklings" sculpture in Boston Public Gardens yesterday evening - Jamie thought she'd get behind the last duckling and follow along.  Today we're off for a tour of the Massachusetts State House, Boston Public Library, and maybe a few other places in between before we head back to Connecticut and "real life".  

A Monday Mish-Mash of Catch-Up

Seems to me it's been awhile since I've written a "regular" post over here so I thought I'd take some time to update the goings-on in my life lately rather than do my darnedest to lead you over to The Distracted Wanderer and whatever my newest post is over there. Lately blog posts here seem more like a jumping-off point over to that blog - something I do in order to get more traffic at the TDW in the hopes that someone will eventually take me seriously as a travel blogger. As long as this blog has been around, it definitely gets more traffic than the TDW but I'm hoping that will eventually change as Google picks up more searches and leads more people over that way. In the meantime though there really is more going on in my life than trips to a Battle Monument in Bennington, a Grand Resort Hotel in New Hampshire, the most fantastic Halloween Ball in the country, or even a historic Comfort Station in Massachusetts - the latest post on my wanderings if you'd like to check it out!

For example, Jamie will finally be coming home from Canada the weekend after Thanksgiving and probably none too soon with the way the weather has been acting this year;  I'm afraid if she waited much longer than that she'd have to return via sled dog or something!     When she went up to Manitoba in July she didn't exactly pack winter-type clothing as I really wasn't expecting her to be up there visiting her friend for quite as long as she has been and I suspect that Winnipeg is getting a bit chilly.  I guess that she figured trips to Canada are going to be few and far between so she wanted to stay for as much time as she could but that said, I believe she's quite ready to come home and try to find some sort of job as she tries to figure out which life path she wants to be on. Granted, finding a job around here is pretty darned tough but she said that she's willing to pretty much take any job that she can find even if it requires asking if you want fries with that!

In preparation for her coming home and still having Amanda here being that she wasn't able to go back to college this year as I've yet to win the lottery or have any wealthy distant relative leave me a substantial sum of cash in their will, I needed to take some steps for some better sleeping arrangements. Amanda has spent the summer sleeping on a trundle bed in the dining room while the perfectly good bedroom that I spent a long time painting when we first moved to this house has been used mostly as a storage catch-all for both she and her sister's stuff.  I suggested bunk beds awhile ago and was immediately scoffed at by Amanda but then after she thought about it some she decided that might not be a bad idea as she could then get a big table and use the space that the trundle bed was taking up as a craft corner.

After receiving her blessing I started looking around for a sturdy set of bunk beds and was able to find some on Craig's List that came complete with mattresses for what I thought was a very good price.  A few email correspondences back and forth later and I had made arrangements to have my go-to guy Andrew pick them up for me on Saturday.  The guy who was selling them actually lived closer to Andrew than I so that worked out pretty well.  Shortly after he arrived late Saturday afternoon, Andrew had the beds all assembled (thank you Andrew - I would be lost without you!) and that night Amanda tried hers out for the first time and declared it to be quite comfortable.

I snuck in this morning and took a picture of her sleeping quite soundly but don't tell her I posted it here as she'll probably give me that look! Surprisingly Tesla isn't in the picture as he usually sleeps next to Amanda's feet but I think he ran as soon as he saw I had the camera! (Memo to self: get the kid a nightstand so that her MacBook isn't on the floor all the time!) When Jamie gets home she'll get the top bunk minus the extra mattress and hopefully the girls will learn how to co-exist together without every day being a version of Family Feud: The Home Version! If not, I'm moving the bunk beds to the garage and they can sleep there!

In addition to acquiring the bunk beds, this last batch of days off also had me attending the opening reception of the Holiday Photography Exhibit at the Gallery at Firehouse Square in New London where I have eight photos on display alongside those of 15 other photographers.

My friend Paula, who is an art teacher, had encouraged me to submit some of my photos for the show and I was quite surprised when eight of the ten I sent in were accepted.  Of course that then meant I had to get them all framed and matted and prettied up to hang on the walls of the cute little gallery on Bank Street in New London but I managed to do that without suffering from too much stress though there definitely was some involved!

Friday night was the official opening of the exhibit which continues on until December 24th and I was thrilled to have had the support of some of my friends who showed up that evening.  Amanda and Paula were there along with John and Christine, Jeff and Sarah, Bucky, and Melissa, and Stacey and Jason.  Stacey, a fellow blogger and real-live published author, actually wrote a post about the evening on her blog that if you'd like a chuckle, you can read at Hobnobbing With the Artistes.

Believe it or not, I didn't bring my Nikon along for the evening so I had Amanda snap a few pictures of the gallery with her fancy-dancy new iPhone 4 that she recently upgraded to.  It takes much better pictures than my older generation iPhone 3 does though I did snap one picture of the area where most of my photos were displayed. That hand photo-bombing the shot would belong to Amanda of course!

All of the photographs on display in the exhibit are for sale so if you live in the area and are totally stumped on a last-minute gift for that certain someone at Christmas, feel free to stop in at the Gallery at Firehouse Square and take a look around.  Who knows?  Maybe you'll see a photograph of something you'll like!

In between work and the photography exhibit and the household stuff and what-not I also managed to come down with a nasty case of bronchitis that I seem to be having some trouble kicking. I went to see my doctor following a rather scary bout of "I can't seem to catch my breath" one night and she put me on antibiotics and an inhaler but even after finishing the antibiotics I've still got a pretty bad cough that keeps me awake a good part of the night sometimes. I was hoping to be able to quit taking my inhaler which leaves a nasty metallic taste in my mouth and causes trouble sleeping but alas, I don't think I'm at the point where I can do that yet so I'm still puffing away on it. Hopefully this will clear up soon as except for when I can't do it, I never think about breathing and lately I've thought way too much about it!

I believe that about catches me up for now, I promised myself that I would get outside with a rake before work today and take care of some of the leaves in my yard so I need to get to that. Before I do, though, may I just say that we got rather cheated out of our usual beautiful fall as Mother Nature decided to be more nasty than nice this year. The poor leaves basically turned brown and dropped from the trees rather than put on their usual brilliant show and now it's time to bag them up and send them to the Transfer Station. It's pretty sad task as I remember the words that my friend Rhonda said at one of our recent lunches, "We only get so many autumns and it's a shame to waste even one." So true, so true.

Happy Birthday to My Baby!

Hard to believe that it was 18 years ago today that I went into Backus Hospital to have a test run to see how things were progressing with my final pregnancy and ended up staying to have a C-section -Jamie was doing things her way right from the start!

Happy birthday to my youngest - who's no longer that young! She's off with a friend and not here to celebrate with us but she's in my heart and my thoughts and I hope she has a kick-ass birthday regardless of where she is, eh?

Happy 18th birthday, Jamie Jessica! I love you!

Trekking to Toronto

Last Tuesday evening Jamie and I began our trip up to Canada when I got out of work a little early so that we could put part of our journey behind us by nightfall.  If I was reading the maps correctly, the trip to Toronto was going to take somewhere around 9-1/2 to 10 hours so rather than get up in the wee hours of the morning I decided that we'd just hit the road Tuesday evening, drive as far as Albany which is a mere 150+ miles away, and spend the night at a cheap - but hopefully clean - hotel before starting out again in the morning.

The traffic was minimal and we made good time pulling into a Days Inn near the University of Albany just before it started to get dark.  I'd booked the hotel through HotWire and got it for a mere $40 so even though it was nothing to take pictures of or blog about, it was a decent enough place to spend the night. It certainly wasn't the type of place I've grown accustomed to lately but good enough!

Rising bright and early the next morning - some of us more bright and early than others! - we were ready to hit the road again around 8:30.  Our direction of travel took us on Route 90 West (aka the New York Thruway) before we took a turn north on Route 81 towards Watertown and Fort Drum, a relatively large Army base which is home to the Army's 10th Mountain Division.  Not too far past Fort Drum we came across the last exit in the United States and Jamie started to get excited as she's been wanting to go to Canada for awhile now.

My goal had been to reach the American/Canadian border by 1:00 p.m. at the latest and we did just that reaching the New York side of the Thousand Islands Bridge System right around 12:30.  We stopped for a little bit to fill up on gas (I had checked to see how expensive it was in Canada and decided that it would probably be a good idea to not buy gas there if I didn't have to as it was going for approximately $1.30 a liter) and take some pictures of the Welcome Center and the American span of the bridge.

Looking up at the spindly green suspension bridge that crosses the Saint Lawrence River, I was thinking that it was probably a darned good thing that my mother wasn't with us as she hates bridges and certainly would not have enjoyed this one at all!  

She wouldn't have liked how high it was nor would she have liked how narrow it was! 

The entire Thousand Islands Bridge System extends a distance of 8.5 miles running from Collins Landing near Alexandria Bay, New York to Ivy Lea near Gananoque, Ontario; in other words, it's pretty big! I wish I had been able to enjoy the view more but alas, I was busy keeping my eyes on the road while trying to adjust to measuring my speed in kilometers rather than miles per hour.  It's trickier than you might think! 

Shortly after leaving the bridge behind, we approached the Canadian Border Crossing where we were fortunate enough to get a very friendly young lady who smiled broadly when, in answer to her question about our purpose for visiting Canada, I replied "Hugh Jackman is in concert in Toronto!"  She said that was definitely worth the drive though she warned me that driving in Toronto could be tricky.  It was going to be even trickier based on the fact that my GPS went into a vast nothing-ness at the American border as if the rest of the world didn't exist outside of America. I had rather suspected that might have been the case so was well-prepared with Google maps and printed directions. I dubbed Jamie the official navigator and off we went - into Canada! 

I'm afraid my first impressions of the Great North were less than stellar as it started to rain shortly after we crossed the border and the entrance ramp to Canada Route 401 West (the only way to get to Toronto) was blocked off for some unknown reason. There was nothing for it but to take Route 401 East for close to 15 miles before we were able to turn around at the next exit and finally make our way west and in the proper direction. 

My navigator decided to take a nap about an hour into the ride but I woke her up as we got closer to Toronto as she was going to need to start reading off directions for me on how to get to our hotel for the night in downtown Toronto.  Traffic was also starting to get heavy though you can't quite tell from the picture above. 

As we drove into Toronto on the Don Valley Parkway, Jamie got a quick shot of the CN Tower in the distance and lots of power lines up close!  

We found our next stop for the night relatively easily and after parking the car in a very dark, very narrow, very low-ceilinged garage that cost $23 a night, we made our way up to the lobby and checked into our room. I had booked the hotel through Travelocity as one of their "Secret Deals" which meant I got it for a fairly decent price but again it was nothing to take pictures of or blog about. The Best Western Primrose Hotel in downtown Toronto is a'ight but that's about it.  I must say that the staff was friendly and they were good about changing our room once I told them the air-conditioning didn't work but I don't believe I'd stay there again should I ever find myself back in Toronto and in need of a hotel room. That said, it was pretty well situated in downtown and it was relatively easy to get to the places we needed to be and that had been my key consideration when booking it.

The first place we needed to be was the Princess of Wales Theater where Hugh Jackman aka Wolverine was putting on a one-man show so we hopped on a subway and then took a short walk down to the theater stopping along the way for a photo op!

As for Hugh Jackman, what can I say other than WOW! He put on an absolutely fantastic show - it was 90-minutes plus of non-stop singing and dancing and interacting with the audience. Jamie and I were sitting in what could probably be called the nosebleed section of the theater (the second to the last row in the upper balcony) but we still had a pretty good view of the stage.  No photography was allowed but my friend Jamie out in Washington state was nice enough to send me some photos to use that she got from another friend of hers. Jamie is a HUGE Hugh Jackman fan and I couldn't help but think during the concert how much she would have loved to have been there.

For those of you who only know Hugh Jackman from his role as "Wolverine" the man is so much more more than that and an amazing stage performer.  He began his love of musicals growing up in Australia and watching movies like "Sing, Sing, Sing", "Guys and Dolls", and "Singing in the Rain" with his very first role being in "The Music Man" when he was in high school.  He performed the opening scene from the show for us playing all eight parts of the traveling salesmen on the train and I must say it was quite impressive! Equally impressive was his rendition of "My Boy Bill" from the musical "Carousel". Honestly, "Carousel" has never been one of my favorite shows but if Hugh Jackman took it Broadway in a revival, I'm afraid I'd have to go see it - he's just that good!

I wasn't too sure how Jamie was going to like the show as even though she's also a big Hugh Jackman fan, I really didn't know whether or not she was going to like the music as Broadway standards aren't her usual fare and she didn't even really know that Hugh Jackman sang until I told her we were going to the show. As it turned out she loved absolutely every minute of the show and only wished that we had been able to sit closer - like in the front row! Of course, she knew how much those tickets cost and said she was just happy to be in the theater at all when you got right down to it.

Following the phenomenal performance we walked back down to the subway stopping long enough to take a picture of the illuminated CN Tower -

And a couple quick pictures of Saint Andrew's Church - 

We made it back to the hotel in time for Jamie to change clothes and make sure she had all of her stuff together before we took a taxi to the nearby Toronto Bus Terminal where she was boarding a Greyhound bus that would take her out to Winnipeg where she'd be meeting a friend of hers who had invited her out for the summer.  Her bus left at 1:00 which might seem like an odd time but it was the only schedule that didn't require her to transfer anywhere along the way.  This being her first long-distance bus trip, I wanted to try to make it as easy as possible for her - or as easy as a 1-day, 12-hour, 36-minute trip could be!

As we waited in line for her bus to board she struck up a conversation with another young lady who was also heading west and they ended up sitting together for most of the trip.  I waited until her bus pulled out taking her on the rest of her Canadian adventure before I walked back to the hotel to continue the rest of my Canadian adventure on my own.  In retrospect maybe walking alone through Toronto at 1:15 in the morning wasn't the best idea but I had no problems at all in getting back to the hotel.

Before calling it a rather late night, I snapped a picture from the hotel window and then climbed into bed and fell directly to sleep.  Ahead of me was going to be a 2-hour drive southwest to Niagara Falls but first I was going to have to navigate my way out of Toronto minus GPS and anyone to read the directions to me!  Obviously I was going to need to be well-rested!