Maine, Boston, and Toronto

While these cities could be done on the same trip, and it sounds like something we’d normally do, they were actually separate trips.  Yes, I’m playing catch-up on smaller trips again!

Maine

We went to Maine to visit relatives over Labor Day last year.  We love Maine and try to make it out there every two years.

We went to the Blue Hill Fair and Acadia National Park, which occurs nearly every time we visit and spent some time in Bar Harbor.  We also took a short road trip to Bangor to stop by Stephen King’s house.  Bangor was surprisingly empty for a weekend so there wasn’t much else going on there.

The highlight of the trip was the three of us crammed into a two-person plane for a 30 minute flight over Acadia.  Jaime was slightly terrified when we drove up and saw how small the planes were but Lydia was excited enough for all of us so we couldn’t back out.  The flight was quite a thrill to experience.  Lydia had to wear a helmet with a mic to the aviation towers.  This was unexpectedly hilarious as the pilot would report our coordinates and Lydia would follow it with “BIRDIE!”.

Boston

Lydia and I tagged along on one of Jaime’s work trips to Boston.  It was a very strange welcome…  We had to switch subway lines twice to get into town and Boston’s train lines are all completely different so it was hard to find the right train as they weren’t connected and looked like they were from different eras.  In the middle of it all, we had someone call us “rich, white, motherf’ers” just for paying the fare!

Once we got to the tourist areas though it was fine.  We did all the typical tourist things — Paul Revere’s House, Boston Commons (including the new Edgar Allan Poe statue), Faneuil Hall, and Quincy Market.  That day we also wandered the old North End, visited some cemeteries, and got in a random long line which turned out to be for amazing cannolis at Mike’s Pastry.  Over the next two days we took a great Duck Tour, a highlight for Lydia, went to the top of Prudential Tower, and spent some time at the Boston Children’s Museum.

Toronto

Most recently we spent a long weekend in Toronto.  On the way to Montreal last year over the 4th of July the Canadian border patrol pointed out that we had left the US the year before for Calgary, so we decided to continue the trend and go to Canada for another 4th of July.

The trip there looks to be 8 hours on paper but with traffic and kids it was closer to 10.  We arrived at 2am and crashed immediately.

The next morning we got up and drove another 90 minutes to Niagra Falls.  It was a bit crazy and full of tourists so we headed straight to the pier to take a boat trip to the Falls via Hornblower (formerly Maid of the Mist).  I haven’t done this trip in probably 15-20 years, so it was a trip down memory lane.  Lydia loved it until we got closer to the falls and it was “raining in the boat”.  We had a quick lunch in town and then went on the Skywheel (Lydia is obsessed with ferris wheels) for some great views.  Afterward we headed back to Toronto for dinner at Pickle Barrel.

The next morning started off with a walk to St. Lawrence’s Market for the famous peameal bacon sandwiches from Carousel Bakery.  We then continued the walk east to visit the Distillery Historic District.  It’s a relatively small area with pedestrian-only brick roads.  It was very well preserved, though with modern shops, and felt like I was back in time.  We then ventured to the north side of town to Casa Loma.  After a long walk and up a large flight of stairs, we ran into a very long line and decided to turn back after snapping some pictures of the outside.

Next we went to the famous Caplansky’s Deli for lunch.  Our plans afterward were to take the subway back to the hotel but there was a very hip street (Augusta) that we just couldn’t walk past.  We ended up walking down that street for a couple miles.  It turned out that we wandered into the newly gentrified Kensington neighborhood.  It was full of hip shops, restaurants, and street carts.  It felt like a totally different world where everyone was selling their goods in a shop that could disappear tomorrow.  Our favorite stop was Wanda’s Pie in the Sky where we had an amazing slice of pie and contemplated how to bring an entire pie home.  After a quick stop at the hotel we went to Pizzeria Libretto off West Queen Street for dinner followed by a worthy long line at Bang Bang Ice Cream for dessert.

On our last morning we went to the top of the CN Tower.  Literally the top too!  They have an add-on ticket to the much smaller ‘skypod’ that’s 33 stories higher than the observation deck.  Totally worth it if you get there early enough to avoid the lines.  The trip back was mostly uneventful.  We did a quick detour to Hell, Michigan which is a quirky little town with basically two businesses.  Probably not worth a going there by itself but if it’s not too far out of the way, it was a good way to break up the trip a bit.

We have also spent separate weekends in Branson (family reunion), Memphis (Thanksgiving), St. Louis (Easter), and Milwaukee as well as camped a couple of times so far this year.

Up next will be an Alaskan cruise next month followed by Thanksgiving in Bangkok.