Why I Ottawa… In the Land of 1000 Islands and Daytrip to Ottawa Canada

We left the Syracuse area to drive another 147 miles north where we pulled into the Lisbon Beach Campground in the area known as the 1000 Islands. This is a nice town park with full hookups and 50 amp service on the banks of the St. Lawrence Seaway which flows between the USA and Canada.

We are booked a few days so one thing we did was drive around this area to visit some of the small towns in upstate New York. One town was Potsdam NY which is home to Clarkson University, State University of NY at Potsdam and Crane School of music. As we were driving to Pottstown I kept thinking I knew someone from there and sure enough our good friend, Rose who lives in our former home town College Station is from there (small world). Well, we did stop and do a walkabout around the town. We found it to be a neat little town with some character and there was even a small music venue in Ives Park!The music wasn't our type but it was nice nonetheless.

The trees are beginning to show their Fall colors as we noticed a lot of purple leaves in this area. Our next stop was another town nearby in Canton NY. It was another small college town with some interesting looking architecture in some of its older buildings

The next day we took a trip to a nearby city as well but this one was in Canada. The main reason we came to Ogdensburg NY was to visit the capitol city of Canada, Ottawa. Because of our past unpleasant experiences we dislike crossing borders since it seems we are hassled at each one. Mostly our problems have been upon returning to the USA but I was also detained many years ago when I visited British Columbia. Fingers were crossed in the hope that maybe this time would be different. Sure enough the lady officer at the crossing into Canada though not exactly friendly did not hassle us at all! Maybe our luck has changed

The drive up was pretty simple but finding parking was not! We finally did find a underground city garage with public parking lot at the Art Museum after looking around for about 30 minutes. As we emerged from the lot we were awestruck by the magnificence of the Parliament Building on Parliament Hill, with its grand Victorian architecture. What an absolutely cool building. Not to be outdone were several other grand government buildings and statues. On Wellington Street was an extremely long table set for dinner.  We discovered there was an event called Dinner for a Thousand where chefs from all over Canada converge to prepare dinner for a thousand people! Sounds fun!

We walked all around this bustling city enjoying its many gems. We walked along Rideau Canal which reminded us of San Antonio’s river walk. We happened by a mirrored building reminding us of the Bean in Chicago and enjoyed finding our reflections in the geometric mirror tiles. We also checked out the Byward Market lined on one side of the street with beautiful produce stands and the other side with bakeries and restaurants filled with people enjoying the beautiful sunny day in the city.

We soon realized our feet were tired and we were hungry so we stopped at the Auldinger Pour House. They had a quaint patio overlooking a busy intersection in the Byward Market area. We had a great view for people watching and lucky for us adding to the ambiance was a musician playing guitar nearby hoping to score a few bucks from passing shoppers. His music was very good and went really well with the IPA from Mills Street Brewery in Toronto and our Poutine Fries. Yum, a real road treat!!!

The drive back was a bit more stressful since we didn’t have GPS because we were only up for a day and didn't activate our phones for use in Canada. So our one hour drive back took almost two hours because of road closures and detours. Crossing the border in the USA was surprisingly uneventful and a few minutes later we were back at home.

Today we leave and head a bit further east…

NOTE: We are currently in Ogdensburg, NY an our nest stop is in West Chazy NY and then on to Graniteville Vermont through the Labor Day weekend.

What was that nasty crunching sound?

We left the KOA later than normal since we only had about a 100 mile drive . We plotted a route across the southern farmland of Ontario as we find this part of the Province rather scenic with its mixture of rolling hills and bright green recently planted farmlands dotted with dairy farms each with fun striped colors on their silos. Most were either green and white striped or red and white striped and we wondered if there was any significance to the colors or if it was just a bit of frivolity the farmers had when painting their barns and silos.

Well it wasn’t long and the signs in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada started directing all cars and RVs to the left lane as we were about to enter the USA on the Blue Water Bridge. As we crossed the last bridge leaving Canada they fleeced us for one more $10.50 toll. Then as we got to the US customs they had all RV’s going into only two lanes with cars. I thought this was odd since it makes more sense for RV’s to go in with trucks due to their size. Then it was our turn so we started forward into our lane hoping the customs folks would not take any of our goods.

The lane I was in had a traffic cone just below the officer’s window and as I tried to maneuver in such a way as to not hit it I heard that nasty crunching sound that RV’ers never want to hear. Then it suddenly dawned on me that I had just lost my passenger side mirror… sigh…now I know how Vic and Pam felt and worse, knew what it was going to cost me after reading about their encounter. The custom’s guy was as rude as most of them always seem to be and simply said “Well aren't you going to get out and pick up the broken pieces of mirror?” “Pull forward and pick it up.” … and  Sharon jumped out to quickly retrieve the pieces.

A uniformed officer directed over to the lanes on the left since the terse fellow said he wanted the “State” to look over their building to see if we had damaged it. I assumed he figured they wanted to make a claim on our insurance but as I noticed and the”State” also found, there was no significant damage to their building. In fact the “State” lady was just the opposite of Mr. Custom’s guy as she was kind and understanding even sharing a few stories about how she hoped that one day she wanted to do what we were doing in eight years after she retires. She also told us that although the signage doesn't say so, lane ten is for wider RV's...I guess we know that for next time.....

After chatting awhile with the nice lady, she gave us the go ahead to drive on out. We couldn't believe it...no inspection?  I can only assume they felt we had enough issues for one day and just let us through.  I used the passenger side camera in lieu of a mirror and merged on into traffic.  We talked about the accident and could not believe that neither one of us noticed the tight space but the lady explained that the outside is wide and that the inside narrowed after they added another inside wall for their equipment.  I was focused on the cone and Sharon on our passports so stuff just happens... at least we ate a homemade pizza that day…

Well there you have it.  It took a bit over two years before we incurred our first costly damage to the the RV. An estimate from the maker of the mirror said it will cost us about $600 shipped to where we are in Michigan. We will be here at a Thousand Trails Encore Park called St Clair RV Resort where we will stay till July 3rd. Then we will head southwest a bit over to the Wayne County Fairgrounds & RV Park near Bellville, Michigan where we will visit with one of Sharon’s cousins.Thankfully her cousin consented to our shipping the mirror to his house so I can hopefully install it by myself while at the fairgrounds… all in the life of a fulltimer…

Last few days in Canada… Back to the USA…

We left the KOA campground and took a route that would take us through the farm country in south central Ontario. The drive was very relaxing and took us through many neat little Ontario towns. I love the mixture of architectural styles that is found here in Ontario. You can see much of the European influence in many of the buildings.

The drive was about 120 miles and our destination for our last few days in Canada was Prospect Hill Campground near the town of St Marys. The web page said the park has large grassy sites available to accommodate everything from pop-up campers, to 40ft rigs. Well that may be true but there are some very tight turns one of which required backing up to make a sharp U-turn. There are also many trees to contend with that will no doubt “touch” the RV if you are of our size. But once we found our spot we loved it… There is a lot of seasonal folks in the park but we found them to be very friendly. Our site is number 125 which has only 30 amp hydro (Canadian for electricity for those that don’t know) and water on our site. We also have a small fire pit and a picnic table. But the best part of this site is we are parked parallel to a nice little flowing creek. Perfect for a few days stay!!

Another great thing about this park is that it is one of the Canadian Passport America Parks and the total cost for each night comes to $22.05 which includes Canada’s hefty 13 percent tax. We used up the last of our Canadian dollars to pay our last nights rent leaving me with only three Canadian dimes. I also get to enjoy our neighbors bird feeders where the orioles and goldfinches have to battle the different colored morphs of fox squirrels. I have seen all black ones before but there are some here that are black bodied with a brown tail. Fun to watch them in the morning as they love to play with the chair cushion of a pink chair belonging to one of our neighbors. Great morning entertainment!

There are several interesting looking towns nearby that we visited during our two day stay. The first day we stopped at the closest town of St. Mary’s and really liked the look and feel of this quaint little town. A mixture of nice architecture and culture seemed to exist here. Further out is the town of Stratford which is larger than St Mary’s yet had the same look and feel but even more culture.. We stopped near the town center and took a leisurely stroll while admiring the buildings built in the late 1800’s along with all the beautiful greenery.

The next day we traveled over to the small town called Lucan which turned out to be not really worthy of the drive over to it. It was a small town with no real energy felt by us… Next up was the largest town nearby called London. There are about 1/3 of million people living in this city. We drove all around but never had a good feel for this one as well. No energy and a city that appeared to be struggling with its growth. Not a place we would likely want to visit again in the future. Oh well you can’t always win them all.

  

Earlier in the day I had an email from Susie and George of the blog Our Awesome Travels as they were within 40 miles of where we were and they invited us to come over to stay at the place they are.camping. Had we already not had reservations (which is why I hate making them) we would have changed plans and zipped over there to experience the camaraderie of the upcoming Canada Day Holiday. As uneventful as our drive was over to London and Lucan we thought we would have been much better off visiting George and Susie… Oh well, next time…

We are now off to Michigan where we will cross the border at Sarnia and hope that the customs folks don’t take all our food…

A Drive Around Southern Ontario…

Since neither of us has ever been to this part of Canada before we wanted to get out and about to explore what was to found here in case we ever return. One day we drove to the area north of our RV park and the next day we headed south to explore the city of Toronto.

But first a bit about the RV park here – Toronto North/Cookstown KOA. We are about 40 minutes north of Toronto and about the same distance south of what they call the Cottage Country which starts around the towns of Innisfil and Barrie. The terrain here is rolling hills that are mostly developed with little native woodlands left. There seems to be lots of dairy farms in this region. The park itself is nice but a bit pricey, after all it is a KOA. The only real negative is all the road are gravel/dirt so it is quite dusty here with all the traffic. This park is completely full because (lucky us) we got a site during the 2013 AAC Western Ontario Regional Championships for Dog Agility. This also explained why there were so many dogs in our park as well…

We had never heard of such an event so we walked over to find out what it was all about. People obviously spent a great deal of time training dogs of all breeds to be able to go through a labyrinth of obstacles such as jumps, hoops, tunnels and they even weave through a maze. While we enjoyed watching this event held just outside the entrance to our park we took note that for many this was indeed serious business because when one of the doggie contestants stopped during her trial and jumped right up on a judge's lap the judge was stoic with no reaction. It was obvious the owner was quite peeved.  It was then we noticed we were the only ones laughing so we thought it best for us to head on to one of our drives.

Our drive north took us west on 89 out into the farmland through some neat little towns and one we really liked called New Tecumseth. It looked like a neat town and an area we could enjoy spending some time at. But we continued north on 18 where we encountered much hillier land that was more heavily wooded and it was quite beautiful through this area. Before we knew it we had reentered civilization and were nearing Wasaga Beach, a town on Lake Huron. This area is also home to Wasaga Beach Provincial Park which has a 14 kilometer sandy beach located on Georgian Bay and said to be the Longest Freshwater Beach in the World!!!

After checking out the “well manicured” beach we also drove on to the town of Barrie which we stopped to walk along the shorefront of Lake Simcoe and the harbor of Barrie. This looked like a fun town and a place where we would enjoy ourselves for a short stay as the there seems to a lot to do with many quaint bars and inviting bistros to visit.

The next day we took a day trip over to our tour guides' house since Jeff and Martine offered to show us Toronto. Jeff drove us all over the city and we saw every sight imaginable in a city of nearly 3 million. Highlights? The CN Tower for sure, but the waterfront was gorgeous especially since there were many tall ships in commemorating the war of 1812 at the waterfront festival. It was there that Martine suggested we stop at a Poutine Vendor to have fresh cut french fries.  Poutine is fries with gravy and cheese, but we opted to share jumbo regular fries...yum!  Next we drove all around the city enjoying beautiful towering new and old buildings then into many of the cultural areas such as little Italy and Chinatown.  Meandering through neighborhoods we were treated to what it must be like to be a resident in one of the many unique districts within Toronto… ohhh and to add to the festive energy that day, the Blue Jays won the 11th game in a row while we were there.

The whirlwind tour gave us lots of ideas for where we want to visit a bit longer the next time we pass through this neck of the woods in Canada. We were very impressed by the cleanliness, the green countryside and the celebration of summer seen in the floral displays in the towns and yards everywhere we traveled.

Oh and the best part was that Jeff and Martine took us back to their lovely home north of the city and treated to some fine micro brewed Canadian beverages and a great homemade Italian dinner complete with wine and dessert… magnifico!!!

Today we head down the road and not sure where we will spend tonight… looking at a stay near Lucan Ontario if they have a spot…

Border crossing and back into Canada…

As our mini-vacation came to an end we packed up and made our way back down to Tonawanda New York where we had left our RV. We heard that the border crossing back into the USA was always long and tedious but we must have timed it pretty well as there were only a few cars ahead of us in our line. The USA customs officer asked us several questions and then we asked him one about bringing back any live plants. We were concerned that when we bring our live herbs back into the USA after we cross over again in the RV that we might have them confiscated and he pretty much assured us that it was true… Sigh… The USA customs officer was also much less pleasant than the Canadian fellow and seemed to have more of a power chip on his shoulder though we passed through unscathed.

We got back to Colton RV and paid the bill for the installation of our 135 watts solar system. The system looked nicely installed but we really didn’t care much for where they selected to mount the solar charge controller but we take partial blame since it didn’t occur to us to ask where they were planning to install it. After we paid we were also a little surprised that no one really came out to summarize what was done so we were left to do our own walk through.  We did find the users manual as well as the new panel inside and I climbed on top to peek at their handiwork. Our receipt also reflected that the technician replaced the DC fuse to our generator as we asked but upon testing, we discovered the generator still wouldn’t start. Apparently they didn’t test to see if the fuse was indeed the problem so I took off the panel where the fuses are located on the generator and pulled all three only to find one was blown. I walked back inside to get a fuse, replaced it and now the generator works just fine.

We spent one more night at Colton RV and really appreciated not having to leave right away. We met some nice folks on either side of us who both traded in their 5th wheels and purchased new Tiffin Allegro Open Road motorhomes. Early the next morning we packed up the RV and started our journey back into Canada to stay at the Toronto North/Cookstown KOA near Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This park is out of our budget as it will cost nearly 58 per night but we wanted to visit Toronto to be near our friends Jeff and Martine before heading on. This time I made sure the Canadian maps were working properly in our Garmin before heading across.

Once we arrived at the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara we queued up in the far left lane right behind one other 5th wheel. A few minutes later a nice Canadian Border Agent lady asked me a few questions and asked for our passports. Then she and another fellow boarded the motorhome to look around asking us to remain outside.  They really didn’t stay too long before coming out and handing us our passports saying we were good to go. While waiting for the agents look over the motorhome we were able to enjoy the view of the Niagara Falls one last time.

With a happy Garmin loaded with Canadian mapping we made our way toward Toronto. As we neared the city the traffic picked up noticeably and at times came to a complete stop. Once we headed north on the 400 we thought all was going to be great but the traffic was actually worse there. Our friends warned us about the traffic and since we are retired and patient we took it easy as we plodded along. Eventually we ventured off the highway and pulled into the Toronto North/Cookstown KOA. Happily there happened to be a promotion going on this weekend so the site fees were less than anticipated!

After setting up we took a short drive over the Lake Simcoe and picked up some groceries at a No Frills grocery. We went down every row and enjoyed browsing the Canadian brands and offerings.  After touring the shoreline of Lake Simcoe we headed back to the park but stopped by the nearby Outlet Mall before going home. And lo and behold we actually bought something as Sharon found a pair of purple-liscious tennis shoes she just HAD have and for the super sale price of only twenty bucks… score Sharon!  We will stay here for a few days to tour Toronto with our very own fantastic tour guides Jeff and Martine…  really looking forward to this time with them…