This week started in Canada with Toronto and a trip to Niagra Falls while we were there. I’ve always wanted to see Niagra Falls for some reason. I don’t know why exactly, I just always thought it would be cool. We went to the Canadian side while we stayed in Toronto and it was great! I could watch a river all day long because moving water is fascinating to me. In this case the Niagra River drains three of the five great lakes and lordy ~ that’s a lot of water!
We did a couple of tours there ~ the best of which was the Niagra Parks Power Station. You can walk the outlet tunnel all the way to the river below the falls and THAT was cool. Lots of interpretive signs and interesting things to look at from the early part of the 1900’s. Westinghouse and Tesla ~ both big names in the development of electricity were involved in the development of the power station ~ interesting stuff.
Today’s updated power station produces a quarter of the power for the state of New York and the Province of Ontario. They may be able to produce more but a 1950 agreement between Canada & the U.S. stipulates the terms and conditions of maintaining a flow especially during daylight hours to “preserve the scenic beauty”…..or to put it another way ~ keep those tourist dollars coming!
Toronto was a lovely town with lots to do. We had a nice dinner at the rotating restuarant on top of the CN tower. Cool views of the city and fun to see a 360 view of the greater Toronto area. Food was ok and overpriced, but it was fun to watch the couple next to us spend about $500 on a seafood tower in celebration of their anniversary! Toronto’s Island Park has both amusement park for families and a nudist beach with lots of skin showing for folks who are comfortable with that. We took our bikes on the people ferry to Centre Island and enjoyed a day in the sunshine. We didn’t get naked & swim in the lake, but we did sit on the beach and enjoy the sunshine for a bit.
From Toronto to Montreal was like driving from England to France in about 6 hours. The drive might have been 5 hours but the traffic in Toronto is AWFUL. We were in Montreal for what felt like a minute. Long enough to take a hop on/hop off tour, have poutine, eat dinner al fresco on a rooftop patio, light a candle in a cathedral for my mom and Erin’s grandmother, Zoom with our friend Laura to catch up and gossip about Safonia and walk around old-town for 16,000 steps! THAT is a day!
From Montreal to Acadia National Park for the last portion of the week. We finally had a border crossing guard who was nice! All of the others have seemed like they were very unhappy with their jobs. This fellow was funny and charming. Of course, we were one of TWO cars in line to cross…..all the other crossings have been way busier than this one for sure.
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