Monday, July 22, 2013 – Niagara Falls, Canada & Toronto
On Monday morning we slept in and took our times heading out to the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls. Before we headed out we decided that we should stop and package and ship back home some of the things we have acquired on our trip. So we made a quick stop at the nearby UPS store and we have 4 boxes on their way back to San Diego. (Joe & Marti – please be on the look out).
By now it was about 10:00 and we thought we had better head out to make our way across the border. When we were on the US side, the previous day we saw a long line of traffic waiting to make their way across the Rainbow bridge that goes over the Niagara river and connects the US and Canada. We were actually surprised at how light traffic was. Once again, we were ushered to a special location for RVs and Motorhomes. We were greeted by Canadian Customs and Border patrol officer, who happened to be a petite woman who asked us a few questions, went inside with our passports ran us through the computers and noted that we were not terrorists and she came back out and welcomed us to Canada.
So we were now on our way trying to make our way through the myriad of casinos, and sky towers that line the Canadian side of the Falls. We were a bit surprised that anyone would want to spend time up there because the were actually a pretty good distance from the falls themselves. We figure that if you’ve come to see the falls, you want to be close to the falls. So, we bypassed all of these touristy things and made our way to the park. The route to get there was circuitous but we finally got there. As we pulled up to the parking area (where they charge you $20), we noticed that one of the workers were walking out to flag us down. She told us we needed to go 2 miles back up the road to park in the designated spot for RVs where we would take a shuttle down to the falls. So back we went. One positive about having to park so far away was that the parking was only $10 and it included he bus ride down to the Falls.
As we parked our vehicle and made our way to the stand for the bus stop we were marveling at our good fortune once again with the weather. As you can see in photos 1 – 5, it was gorgeous – in the low 80s, clear blue sky.
Then we made it down to the visitor center for the Falls. and we began to understand why the hotels, casinos and sky towers were located where they were. When we got to the Falls, it was as if we were in a monsoon. The mist from the Falls was soaring high up into the air and getting caught in the wind and falling like rain right onto the visitor center. We were getting soaked and the temperature was a good 20 degrees cooler than it was at the parking lot. You can see the difference in photos 6 – 8. Once we took in the magnificent sight of the Falls we checked that box and decided to head into Toronto which was about an hour away.
Photo 9 is the skyline of Toronto. The CN tower dominates the skyline. When it was completed in 1976 it was the tallest free standing structure in the world but has since been surpassed by the Burj Kalifa tower in the Arab Emirates and Canton towers in China. When they were designed in 1968 by Canadian National Railway, the objective was to build an engineering marvel that would demonstrate the strength of Canada and more specifically Canadian National. The tower would serve as a platform for television and radio antennas to serve all of Toronto and it would also be an observation deck. Ironically, Canadian National was subsequently privatized and non-core assets were sold off (including the tower) and modern technology has made the tower somewhat ineffective as an antenna platform. Today it is largely a tourist attraction. Tourist can now pay $175 to be strapped into a harness so they can walk around the edge of the tower at its peak.
Later that evening we made our way downtown so that we could meet some friends for dinner. Mark and Susan are a great couple. We spent some time with them at their beautiful condo that is very close to St. Lawrence Market and the Toronto Harbour Front area. We had dinner together at the Hotspot restaurant. We had a nice sidewalk table that was quiet and allowed us to chat. Elisa was excited to see that they had gluten free pizza on the menu. Just the other day she was telling me how much she had been craving some pizza. So she took advantage and ordered a Pizza Parma, It was a thin crust Italian style pizza that had a very mild tomato sauce, bufula mozzarella chees, prosciutto de Parma (cured ham from Parma Italy) baked to perfection and then covered with arugula. It was very good. She ate pare ant took the rest home with us so we could dine on it for lunch some other day. I had the New York strip with baked potato, mixed vegetables of beans and carrots. It was well cooked and lightly seasoned with salt, pepper and what tasted like a light rub of garlic powder and onion powder. It was also very good.
After than we called it a day and made our way back out to our campground. We were staying at Indian Line Campground. We wondered why they named it Indian Line. We soon figured it out as the train on the “Indian Line” rumbled past our camp sight, and rumbled past it again about once an hour through the night. I managed to get a good nights sleep – Elisa – not so much. Such are the joy of “camping”.
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