On The Way Home From Canada, We Saw Niagara Falls, Theodore Roosevelt, and Trilobites!

Here's our first stop at Steamtown National Historic Site.

Here's our second stop at Lowell National Historical Park.

Here's our third stop at Acadia National Park

Here's our fourth stop at Hopewell Rocks

Here's our fifth stop at Fundy National Park

Here's our sixth stop in Halifax

Here's our seventh stop in Kejimkujik National Park

Here's our eighth stop in Prince Edward Island National Park

Here's our ninth stop at Green Gables

Here's our tenth stop in Toronto, including doing the CN Tower Edgewalk

And then we started home, sightseeing all the way. 

I mean, really. You can't drive right past the Niagara Falls without stopping to take a look!

We stayed the night on the Canada side, and we tried to explore the town, but... my, it's a VERY tourist-friendly location! Go-carts and haunted houses and T-shirt shops and Ripley's and ferris wheels and towers and hotels and water parks and restaurants and arcades and wax museums and bumper to bumper traffic and more people than the sidewalks could possibly hold. I can handle national parks and historic sites and museums and zoos and hikes and people-watching. I cannot handle tourist traps and giant crowds of tourists.

We parked on the veeeeery edge of the tourist traps and walked the Riverwalk past the Rainbow Bridge to an overlook of the Niagara Falls, thus avoiding 99% of the tourist-heavy areas--turns out that there were far fewer tourists actually looking at Niagara Falls than there were doing go-carts and haunted houses!

We stayed past sunset and into the night, because I wanted to see the fireworks. I did know that they made the Niagara Falls tacky after dark, but I wasn't quite prepared for what that would look like:

The fireworks were spectacular, though, if equally tacky when you consider their location:

The next morning, my plan was that we'd do either Hornblower or Maid of the Mist, as we did the last time we were at Niagara, but the kids, perhaps as tired of tourists as I was, both vetoed the idea. We had seen the long lines for Hornblower the previous night, so that probably had much to do with their reluctance. Instead, we crossed the Rainbow Bridge back to the US, paid admission to Niagara Falls State Park, and parked on Goat Island to do some hiking.

Ahhh... much better!

You get a better view of the Falls from the Canada side, but you can get much closer on the US side!

There were lots of tourists by the best lookouts, but we passed very few people as we hiked to Three Sisters Islands and back:

This is exactly one photo of everyone with their eyes open, out of approximately 400 that I took of them with a varying amount of eyes squeezed shut. There was even a tourist behind me, shouting at the kids, "Just hold your eyes open for a minute! A nice picture is worth it! Come on, do it for your Mom!"

We spent the entire morning at Niagara Falls State Park, then drove over to the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site just before they opened with their wonky Sunday hours. I was ambivalent about this one, but the fact that we were right there, and that it had a Junior Ranger program, were our deciding factors.

It was... well. It was right there. It has a Junior Ranger program. It was also awfully expensive for what we got, and the guided tour was less than half-hearted, although my partner's excuses that our tour guide was perhaps new and super nervous did not fly after I noticed that he had no problem gregariously flirting with the woman working the front desk. My own guess is that the tour guides have a script, and this particular tour guide has discovered that if he rattles out the script as quickly as possible, and leaves no room for anyone to ask questions, then he can get his tours over with and get back to flirting.

Anyway, here's one interesting photo from the inside:

And here's one interesting photo from the outside:

Fortunately, the thing that I most wanted to do in New York is also right there. We went back to Penn Dixie!

It's my favorite spot to search for fossils, and if we lived nearby, I'd be there every day. As it is, I purchased a family membership so that we could make the most of our limited time by staying after they'd closed to the public. Seriously, you move your car outside of the gate and then they just leave you there. It's quiet and lovely, and you can dig away as happily as you please.

 
There's me, happy as a trilobite scuttling in the mud on the bottom of the shallow ocean floor!

My partner wanted to get Buffalo Wings for dinner because, you know, Buffalo, but I had zero interest in that food, and so I convinced him to take the kids off to a Daddy-Daughter Buffalo Wing Dinner while I stayed all by myself at Penn Dixie. It was the first time I'd been alone since Halifax. The area was completely absent human and traffic noises, and I blissfully wandered here and there, digging for a while in one spot and finding beautiful things, and then another, finding yet more beautiful things. If it was just me I'd have fetched my sleeping bag from the car and stayed there all night, so that I could begin again at first light, but alas, as soon as the light began to fade my family came back for me, an order of baked potato skins in tow, and we went to our hotel so I could eat them and watch Princess Bride.

And the next day, we went home.

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to random little towns, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

We Went To Canada, and I Did the CN Tower Edgewalk with My Kid!

Y'all, bonding with teenagers can be hard.

They're really sullen, for a really large amount of time.

When they're not sullen, they're, like, ON, enthusiastic and crazy and boisterous and kind of like toddlers in that they want you right that second. If you miss that second, they're gone. I'm not always great at getting into the connection zone when my kid needs that, because I'm an introvert and people, even my own kids, sometimes, are hard.

So, yeah. You've got to be open to them the second that they decide that they want to connect, for that full second that they want it, even if it's super intense, and you've got to be constantly looking for other ways to connect. And since they're older, it's nice to find ways for you to connect as people, not just parent and kid.

Since one of the things that you can almost guarantee that a teenager will love is risk-taking, one guaranteed way to connect with them is to join in with them and do something adventurous.

Like this:

This is the CN Tower. It's 1,815 feet tall, the ninth tallest tower in the world and the tallest free-standing structure in the Western Hemisphere. On the roof of the restaurant, 1,168 feet up, there's an outside pathway called the Edgewalk. If you've got a teenager who loves big adventures and perceived risk, and you're fairly chill and you want to connect with her, you can sign up to strap yourself to a BUNCH of safety equipment and walk all the way around the CN Tower.

On the outside. No railing.

Of COURSE we did it!

Matt and Syd dropped us off bright and early on our last morning in Toronto, and they went off to safety of the children's museum. Will and I took advantage of the early morning and zoomed our way through the security line (when we left just a few hours later, the line was soooooooo long!), and met the rest of our group.

Will was the only kid in our group, and so chill that the staff kept checking in with her, asking questions designed to see if she really wanted to be there or if I was making her (which sounds awful, but after the walk, as we were stripping out of our gear,  there was a teenager in the next group who literally got caught trying to flee. It apparently happens!). Finally I hissed, "Start showing some enthusiasm! They think I'm holding you hostage!"

She remained by far the most mellow person in our group, but at least stopped acting like she was there under duress. I swear, the whole thing was her idea! There was another couple there, for whom one of them the Edgewalk WAS a surprise. I eavesdropped on them as the guy was trying to tell the woman that he didn't want to, and the woman was all, "Oh, come on! Just yesterday you were bragging about all the times you went rappelling!" Oops!

For those who are already freaking out about just the idea of walking around outside the top of a giant tower,  you might be mildly reassured to learn that there are probably more safety systems than astronauts have. We all got subjected to a metal detector and a pat-down. I had to take out the single hoop earring that I've worn continually since I was probably sixteen; it was so old and brittle that it broke, poor thing. No watches, no wedding rings. Every one of us, even Will, took a breathalyzer. We zipped up into a full jumpsuit, and the necklaces that our locker keys were on were locked onto carabiners at the back of each jumpsuit. We had to let them pull hard on our shoes, and if the shoes came off when they pulled, we had to borrow a pair of lace-up shoes that wouldn't pull off. We were helped into a harness, and every person who walked by, I feel like, checked that harness, as often as not finding a way to tighten it one more millimeter.

We rode an elevator to the top, got our harnesses checked another couple of times, and then we were strapped to an overhead track. The track ran a continuous course out the door, around the entire tower, and back inside where it curved around. Once you were hooked in you simply walked the course of the track.  We were hooked by a static rope to a carabiner in the front of our harness. The rope was a specific length, so you couldn't fall far, and the carabiner attaching it to our harness was locked, and then a staff member zip-tied the lock so that you couldn't fiddle with it, and then he cut the ends of the zip-tie off so that you couldn't fiddle with THAT. On the back of our harnesses, where we couldn't reach it, we were strapped to another rope, this one with one of those devices that seat belts have, the kind that have plenty of give with a gentle pull, but that lock with a sharp pull. There is NO falling off the CN Tower!

I really liked observing the psychology of this activity. All of the staff members are super high-energy, enthusiastic, and positive, to buoy you into a positive frame of mind, if you weren't already there. They also keep the pace fast, with very little sit-and-wait time, so that you don't have a chance to get crazy inside your head. Our walk leader immediately learned all our names and used them often, so that we felt involved and taken care of. When we were all geared up, we walked through one public area on our way to our dedicated elevator, and our passage was announced by one staff member shouting, "Edge walkers coming through!" and then clapping, so that everyone nearby also clapped as we passed, feeling like total ballers. And when we were out on the very edge of the tower itself, 1,168 feet up, our walk leader kept us busy, alternating the walk with lots of different activities, most of which we did in turns so that everyone could support and cheer each other on--and so there was just enough peer pressure to perform!

Here's what it looked like, courtesy of our walk leader's GoPro:



And here's what it felt like to be 1,168 feet in the sky!

It was an awesome experience. Awe-inspiring. Magical. We saw cars the size of ants. Pedestrians that were tiny dots. Planes took off from a nearby runway, and we watched them from above. It was exhilarating for me, and even my chill kid was amped. She was fearless, and the walk leader commented several times that she just jumped right into every activity, never had to be cajoled, my bold, brave girl.

But did it work? Did we bond?

Yeah, I'd say we bonded:

Our Edgewalk tickets included VIP passes to the rest of the CN Tower, and that was perfect as Will and I only had a couple of hours to explore, so hopping to the front of every single long, long, LONG line was much appreciated. We saw it all!

This is from the SkyPod, a VIP observation point even higher than the standard observation deck. It's the only one that's above the Edgewalk, and you can look down and see them!

The standard observation deck is below the Edgewalk and the restaurant, BUT it has a glass floor--

--and an outside area that's enclosed by tons of screening. You can get a much better view if you just walk up a couple of floors and strap yourself to the track.

Eventually, Will and I tired of the crowds inside, and so hiked around downtown Toronto for a bit before we met up with everyone else:

Can you see the edge walkers?

There are some in the below photo, too, but I didn't zoom in, so they're the same tiny dots that we seem to them!

And just in case you think that we got away without doing anything else weird in Toronto, I need to tell you that after Matt and Syd picked us up, we drove over to the Poop Cafe for ice cream. I didn't bring my camera, which I regret, but yes, EVERYTHING was toilet-themed. The kids sat on toilets at our table, whereas Matt and I shared a poop-shaped couch. My waffle with peanut butter ice cream on top also featured a marzipan poop. Matt and the kids all got ridiculous milkshakes, with cookies or cotton candy stuck on top and sprinkles all down the side glued on with marshmallow. Like, SERIOUSLY ridiculous milkshakes, the kind that food bloggers make as a joke. It was absolutely nuts, and I'm 100% positive that we all staggered away with sugar poisoning.

Fortunately, all we had to do was rest our bellies in the car, because we were on our way to Niagara Falls!

P.S. Little Free Libraries don't build themselves--my kid builds them, for her Girl Scout Silver Award project! Buy magazine subscriptions and chocolate from her, and give our troop the money that it needs to do even MORE cool stuff this year!

P.P.S. Want to know all the weird adventures that happen upon us? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page!

We Went to Canada and Saw Toronto!

Here's our first stop at Steamtown National Historic Site.

Here's our second stop at Lowell National Historical Park.

Here's our third stop at Acadia National Park

Here's our fourth stop at Hopewell Rocks

Here's our fifth stop at Fundy National Park

Here's our sixth stop in Halifax

Here's our seventh stop in Kejimkujik National Park

Here's our eighth stop in Prince Edward Island National Park

Here's our ninth stop at Green Gables

And here are the only photos that I managed to get in all of Quebec:

Why yes, that IS milk in a bag! In all of Canada, this is the one thing that Will wanted to do above all else: purchase and consume milk. From a bag.

It's a Canadian thing.

Buying milk in a bag was actually surprisingly hard to accomplish, considering that we were IN Canada. It only comes by the gallon, so I didn't want to buy it when we were driving hither and yon because we wouldn't have time to drink it, and whenever we stayed some place for two nights, by poor luck that place only had tourist-style convenience markets, with tourist-style amenities. No milk in a bag.

But the main feature of Quebec City, along with all of the French-language immersion, is that Matt flew out to meet us there! We picked him up at the airport (and no, I do NOT want to talk about the drive from Prince Edward Island to Quebec City. The bridge toll was over thirty dollars. I learned a lot more about lobsters. Everyone puts their hazards on and pulls over when it rains. I managed to survive the experience), checked into our hotel (every person I met spoke French to me, and I excitedly spoke French back, but as soon as they heard my terrible pronunciation they always switched to English, grr!), and then took him grocery shopping to show him all of the glories of Whippets and All-Dressed Ridgies. And since he was along, we rolled the dice on our stomachs and bought some chocolate mix and milk in a bag!

After all, that's only a quart of milk apiece!

If you're wondering how you actually drink milk in a bag, it looks like this:

You put it in a pitcher (here our ice bucket is called into service), snip a corner, and pour!

The next morning, very, VERY full of milk, we drove to a local mall and spent the morning shopping at Renaud-Bray, a French-language bookstore.

Friends, I was in HEAVEN.

Because our local libraries do not have a French-language collection, and it's hard to inter-library loan books in a language I don't know well, my goal was to select several early-reader French-language books for the girls to use in their French studies. Here's some of what I bought:

• Ou est ma licorne? (Are You My Unicorn?)
• Rencontre les poneys! (A My Little Pony title)
• French magnetic poetry kit
• Monsieur Joyeux
• Une Patate A Velo
• Je Suis Terrible
• Sabrina la sirene
• Mechant Minou n'aime Pas les Chiens (a Bad Kitty title!)
• Mon Tout premier Dictionnaire Larousse
• Ce N'est Pas Mon Chapeau (This Is Not My Hat, one of my favorite picture books!)

All those books, plus all of the brochures, food packaging, and various other bits of ephemera that we collected now make up a nice little starter French-language collection in our homeschool.

In the afternoon, we left Quebec City and drove on to Toronto, discovering on the way that we do NOT like Toronto traffic. 

It took more than double the time that it should have to get to Toronto Zoo the next morning. Soooooo much traffic!

Worth it, though:

This is the cage that they use to capture and relocate polar bears up north.

Will was SO excited to see a Przewalski's horse!

I mean, not this one. This one is a statue...

But there's one waaaaaay over there, so it's good that I keep binoculars in my backpack!

The kids could not have been more thrilled to have Matt back with us, and even though it poured down rain regularly, we just put on our ponchos and tromped on through.

The mental breakdowns didn't come until we were trying to drive from the Toronto Zoo to Medieval Times. Traffic was RIDICULOUS. It took hours. Streets were randomly closed. Other streets merged together with no traffic lights or signage or any direction whatsoever, everyone just left to fend for themselves and battle their way into the proper lane. We finally got there and ended up somehow parking in the employee lot, and could not for the life of us figure out where we were supposed to go in.

And then, and THEN, when we'd eventually discovered the entrance, and were let inside, freezing and sodden, I went to the bathroom to try to compose myself and dry off. It was a madhouse, but I used the toilet, flushed, and as I went to wash my hands I heard the lady who'd come into the stall after me say loudly, ostensibly to her small child but LOUDLY TO MAKE SURE EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE WOMEN'S BATHROOM COULD HEAR, "Oh, look, Honey, that lady didn't flush. That's too bad!"

I was in the middle of wiping my glasses down with a paper towel, but I had HAD it with that militant Canadian politeness bullshit. I immediately whipped around, glared somewhere in her general direction, and barked at her, "I did, too, flush!"

The woman replied, "Well, there's some toilet paper there. You know what I meant."

Oh, DID I?!? It was the last freaking straw. I was all first-world problemed OUT!

Seriously, I could barely enjoy the town crier or the royal procession. It took about half my fruity alcoholic beverage, half my hot tomato bisque, and the sight of these sweet faces to get me out of my funk:

And then? I started having a really, really, REALLY good time:

You might remember me mentioning that I have a Master's in English with an emphasis on the Medieval period. Heck, if you've been reading here since the beginning, you remember when I WAS in grad school studying the Medieval period. Good times. Kind of...

Anyway... I am very interested, academically, in the Medieval period, but I found during my studies that I'm actually much more interested in "Medievalism," which is representations of the Medieval period that take place after the Medieval period. They sometimes try to be accurate, which brings up a billion more issues of how you can portray or define accuracy in regards to a historical time period, but mostly they really just want to reflect or modify various non-canonical aspects of the period. These new artifacts say a lot of interesting things about the cultural context in which they were created, and just about nothing about the actual Medieval period.

But... they're FUN!!!

Whenever we explore Medievalisms as a family, I spend half my time furiously hissing historical corrections to Matt and the kids and the other half beaming and cheering wildly.

I did both constantly at Medieval Times, and it was AWESOME:

This guy is our knight. He did NOT win, though I cheered him hard.

I had been especially super excited to come to Medieval Times since they replaced their kings with queens. Yay to more positive female role models! Here she is:

I hadn't realized it before, but Medieval Times is really the place to go if you want to see a lot of horses. There were several really beautiful performances, although the kids and I talked for the rest of the trip about how on earth the horses get nice outside time in the middle of downtown Toronto. I hope they walk them over to the park a lot:

Also, falcons:

And fighting!

Oh, my gosh, it was SO fun. Afterwards, both kids assured me that I had cheered louder than anyone else in the arena.

I don't think they were necessarily going for a compliment, but that's how I took it!