A Quick Trip North

A Quick Trip North

7/26/11
On Tuesday, my wife, son and I embarked on a short vacation. After dropping our dog off at the kennel, we left home about 9:30 am and drove toward Canfield, Ohio where we were to visit with my cousin Lorraine and her husband John at their home. It was a beautiful day, sunny, with temperatures in the 80’s. The three of us hadn’t had a vacation together for a number of years as my son’s work had kept him from joining us in recent years, so it was interesting and kind of a treat having the whole family together on this one.

The drive to Canfield was uneventful and we arrived around 11:30 am. It’s always a treat to see my cousin and her husband John. They are gracious hosts and are always glad to see us. This time they extended their hospitality to my son and for that I was grateful. We sat and talked in their kitchen as Lorraine worked on our lunch, stirring this pot, adding ingredients to that one, checking on things. The dish she was preparing was to be something she got from a friend and involved pasta and various other tasty ingredients. Soon freshly shucked ears of sweet corn were bubbling in a big pot and not long after that the meal was ready to eat. Lorraine’s mother lives with them, so there was six of us sitting down in their dining room for lunch. Along with the delicious pasta dish there was the sweet corn, coleslaw, bread and a lemon drink Lorraine is fond of. For dessert she’d made a yellow cake with an icing incorporating bits of citrus fruit. It was quite good.

After lunch we talked some more about our family’s history and laughed at funny incidents we recounted to each other. My son Tony was enthralled with hearing all the historical facts of the family of which he was unaware. Talking with Lorraine and John is always a treat and the hours flew by effortlessly.

Not long after lunch, Lorraine’s daughter Cindy and her husband Mike and their daughter Megan visited us. Cindy and Mike were on their way to Heinz Field in Pittsburgh to see a concert by U2 and had stopped by to drop their daughter off and to say hi to us. They could only stay a short time, but we were able to chitchat a bit and renew our friendship. We wished them well on their visit to the concert and expressed our jealousy at their good fortune to see the group U2 and their lead singer Bono. We found out later that the concert was marvelous and they had enjoyed themselves immensely.

Not long after Mike and Cindy left we bid our hosts adieu ourselves and pointed our car north toward our first day’s final destination - Erie, Pennsylvania.

We arrived in Erie and found our hotel for the evening, the Country Inn and Suites. It was a quite new and beautiful hotel and we were quite pleased with our room. After checking in, Judy and I headed out to do a little geocaching and we ended up getting the six caches I had selected from home. Six for six and a new state! We were quite pleased. Tony stayed at the hotel and watched a little TV. After returning to the hotel and picking him up we went to Quaker Steak & Lube for supper. This is a regional restaurant that specializes in chicken wings and most of their restaurants reflect the décor of the original one, which resembles a gas station. We had a good supper and then drove a couple miles down the interstate to Presque Isle Downs & Casino. We knew that Lorraine and John had frequented the place in the past and we’d asked for tips on which slots to play. They recommended hitting a group of slots just inside the entrance. We did so and I was pleasantly surprised to hit a small jackpot on one almost immediately for $57. Judy and Tony weren’t quite as lucky. We didn’t stay long as we hadn’t budgeted much money for the casino and were through that amount quite quickly. Counting my win we walked out about even between us. We were back to the hotel before 11 o’clock and retired shortly afterward.

7/27/11
We ate breakfast at the hotel’s free buffet and it was quite acceptable. Some hotels are little more than doughnuts, bagels and coffee/juice with the odd apple or banana thrown in. This one was one of the better ones with waffles, boiled eggs, cereal, lots of bakery, drinks and coffees. Even some precooked sausage patties and pancakes. We were pleased. Afterward we drove along Lake Erie northeastward. We stopped at the Angola Rest Stop on the Thomas E. Dewey New York Expressway for a restroom break and to grab another geocache. Now we had another new state, New York! Wonderful! We continued onward toward Buffalo and crossed the Niagara River on the Peace Bridge into Canada. Canadian customs looked at our passports and asked some questions about our trip to their country. It wasn’t too trying and the wait in line wasn’t too long. We then drove to Old Ft. Erie. This was one of the most important forts during the War of 1812. The fort itself and the grounds have been remade to reflect exactly how it was in 1814 when the bloody battles between the British and the United States in the area were fought. The visitor’s center nearby is brand new, just having been opened weeks before our visit. We toured the fort and took lots of pictures. Judy and I had been there about 4 or 5 years ago and were pleased at all the renovations that had been done to the land, adding earthworks and revetments to reflect the area during the battles, since we were there last. Tony seemed impressed. After touring we ate a little ice cream in the visitor’s center (Tony passed on the ice cream – he was feeling a little queasy – maybe the sun or maybe a little low blood sugar) and grabbed some lunch at a local McDonald’s. I always like to eat the native food when I’m visiting a new place. Joke! I was reminded that I was in a foreign land by the price of lunch. The price itself in Canadian dollars was quite a bit higher than the U.S. price, plus the exchange rate is unfavorable to U.S. citizens. But the food was OK and we filled the empty spots in our stomachs.

We then drove about 20 miles north to Lock Number 3 on the Welland Canal. The Welland Canal is the route that all the ship traffic from and to Lakes Erie and Ontario use. We watched a big grain boat, about 282 meters long, traverse the lock. She was going toward Ontario, so she went down in the lock. Tony was feeling better by now and enjoyed the sights. We even saw a Schnauzer dog that reminded us of our old one, Bailey, and again took pictures and movies.

We then drove to our hotel for the evening, the Best Western Rose City Suites in St. Catharines, where we checked in and were happy with the lodgings. We got a suite this time with a living room, kitchenette and bedroom. Tony was happiest there as he could stay up that night and watch TV while his ol’ parents snoozed. Judy and I went out looking for caches and did quite poorly. But we were able to find one and that gave us a new country and a Canadian province to boot to add to our tally. Quite acceptable! The weather was still nice although the clouds were beginning to move in and the weather would soon be rainy.

We ate supper at a quirky restaurant recommended by the hotel staff called M.T. Bellies. We smiled at the play on words of the restaurant’s title. She said they had “everything” there and she was right. Very busy place and great food. We all had something quite different and were all pleased. Our waiter gave indications that he might be of the gay persuasion and his speech and humor amused us. A nice guy, a nice restaurant and a nice dinner.

While we were out caching, Judy and I visited a nearby park and while there saw what looked to be a living room arrangement near a rose garden. With a gentleman sitting on the sofa! When we approached the furniture we saw the couch, two easy chairs, the coffee table and the gentleman sitting on the couch were all made out of bronze. It was all metal! Fascinating. We took Tony to see the thing after supper and he was amused also. Apparently, from the placard displayed near the statuary, the gentleman was the owner of a famous furniture store and was a big donor to the city or maybe he bequeathed the park? Something like that. He apparently was a well-known citizen of St. Catharines, Ontario.

After supper and returning to the hotel we eyeballed the pictures we’d taken during the day and retired around 11 pm. Tony watched TV until sometime later.

7/28/11
We ate at the free hotel buffet again for breakfast. It was quite good also. Our run of luck is continuing. We were on the road not long after eating as the rain started. Our drive up the QEW (the Queen Elizabeth Way – a main interstate-like road in Canada) toward Toronto was fairly unpleasant with lots of rain, fog and much road spray from the tons of semis on the road. Some areas were barely moving, especially around the big bridge at the west end of Lake Ontario. And there was LOTS of traffic on the highway. Apparently there’s a whole lot of commerce going on in Canada and lots of stuff that needs moved from “here” to “there” on semis.

We were able to see about half of the iconic CN Tower in Toronto as we drove by due to the low cloud deck and rain. We were heading to the Royal Ontario Museum and found a parking garage about two blocks beyond it. Of course the garage we found was probably the most expensive one in Toronto. My luck. It was under the Hazelton Lanes Shopping Centre, one of the classiest places to shop in the city, apparently. It was $25 out of my pocket before the gate would let us leave later that day.

We walked through the light rain to the museum and, after a half-hour wait or so were in. There were LOTS of visitors to the museum that day and a substantial majority of them were children on various field trips. Perhaps Canada has year-round school? I don’t know. But there were GOBS of kids and they all seemed to be screaming, yelling, jumping up and down or running around underfoot. I seriously would recommend taking earplugs if you were thinking of visiting there. Extremely noisy, especially around the stuffed animal exhibits.

There is way too much to see at the museum for a day trip, so we skimmed through this gallery and that, taking pictures here and there and occasionally movies. The last exhibit we went through was the dinosaur one, of which the R.O.M has a good one. Lots of bones and lots of big beasts from the Jurassic. (I remember that period from the movie, of course!) Tony was again feeling woozy and again, by eating lunch, felt better. I don’t think he had enough breakfast. That meal was in the museum’s lunchroom. I had a burger with tomato and pickled onions. Quite a different taste. And, of course, it was expensive.

We gave up in the late afternoon and made our way back to our high-class parking garage. Traffic at 4 pm was, to our provincial eyes, horrendous. Busy, busy, busy. The surface streets were barely moving and the highways were either packed and slow or screamingly fast and scary in the extreme. We reached our new hotel, the Best Western Toronto Airport, eventually, with white knuckles from all the traffic and checked in. Another good one. We all took a catnap to recharge from the walking and eventually drove to a restaurant for supper. This was my choice and it wasn’t a particularly a good one. It was a Texas Longhorn. But the Canadian version isn’t like the U.S. one which we were familiar with. Mediocre food, at least mine was. Tony and Judy seemed OK with theirs. Maybe it was just my poor choice in my entrée.

We returned to the hotel afterward and I went to the exercise room for a half-hour or so. I didn’t really need the treadmill since we’d done all that walking at the museum, but used it anyhow. Also did some back exercises as I’d been neglecting them this week and was starting to hurt a bit. It seemed to help. I probably should have used the pool but was too tired to change into trunks.

Watched some TV before retiring and we all commented freely on the differences between Canadian TV and U.S. TV. Some things were very similar and others were quite different.

Sleep again around 11. All our beds on this trip were quite comfortable and we were thankful for that. We knew that Tony likes a very cold environment to sleep in, so we kept the rooms pretty cool. A bit too cool for us old folk, but we bundled up with the blankets and were OK.

7/29/11
Homeward bound. We ate breakfast at a Burger King near the hotel and started toward home around 9. Traffic was surprisingly not too bad and, although we had some off-and-on rain most of the trip home, it wasn’t as onerous as the trip up had been. Going through U.S. Customs was surprising quick after about a 45 minute to 1 hour wait in line. The customs agent was quick and only asked a couple questions. Quicker than going the other way had been. We were surprised at the quickness at the border as Judy’s boss had crossed just the previous week and had gone through a grilling. Guess it all depends on which agent you get and how much like a desperado you look. Judy’s boss must fit that bill more than we did! We stopped at the duty-free store before leaving Canada, bought some chocolate and a tee shirt for Tony. More to get rid of some of our Canadian dollars than any real need. We’re not big drinkers and that’s why most people stop at the store apparently. LOTS of folks buying up LOTS of various liquors.

The rest of the drive home was uneventful.

We were glad to return home and retrieve our dog from the kennels. He was glad to see us, too, by the furious wagging of his stumpy tail! The groomer who had watched him said he’d enjoyed his little vacation from us also.

To conclude, I guess you could say that a good time was had by all, mostly. But, as is true for most endeavors, there were some really good times and some fairly good times. And, occasionally, there were some maybe not so good times. But those were infrequent and easily forgettable.

If this were an Olympic event, I’d have scored it an 8.8 out of 10.

And thus concludes the tale of the short trip north.

Fish, Wizards and Dogs

Fish, Wizards and Dogs

I suppose you could say with some certainty that nothing really lasts forever and you'd be a hundred percent accurate in your statement. But, in your heart of hearts you always hope that some things would last forever. Or even just a shade this side of forever. Or maybe through next Tuesday? Even some dumb little things.

Let me give you an example.

As I've written about in the past, on most Fridays my wife and I eat lunch at a local restaurant which is only a short walk from our house. We can get there in 7 to 10 minutes, depending on how long a stride we take and how energetic we feel at the time. I usually walk, as I'm home during the lunch hour and my wife usually drives from work and meets me there. We go there, at least I go there, for the fish. Like a lot of restaurants, this one serves a fish special on Fridays. I guess that's a holdover from the old days when the Catholics had meatless Fridays. I happen to like fish so I'm happy for the holdover if that's what it is. Anyway, this restaurant serves your basic cornmeal battered whitefish fillets, french fries, slaw, roll/butter. And, over the years that we've been eating there, I've grown accustomed to the good fish that the restaurant serves. Do I eat their fish every week? No. You get jaded after a while, so I break it up with a club sandwich occasionally or maybe a roast beef sandwich of which they make a pretty decent one.

But fish is the primary draw for me.

But recently, sadly, it hasn't been quite the meal I remember. Last Friday, for example, the fish was definitely sub-par. I guess you could be generous and say it was edible. But it wasn't the juicy-centered, flaky, crunchy-coated yummy piece of fish it used to be. It was bad enough that I asked to have one of the fillets replaced. It was thin, tough and more resembled a piece of fish jerky. Overcooked? Definitely. Way, way, way over cooked. Perhaps a poorer fillet than what they normally serve? I think so. I was immediately given two new fresh fillets to replace the objectionable one when the owner saw my hand motions indicating a problem. And, to sadly tell the truth, the two replacements weren't all that much better. One, which was OK at best I ate. The other I left.

My wife and I are Friday regulars there and are treated like family. Our drink orders are brought without our having to state what we want, we know most of the wait staff's names and the owner's also. We're on friendly terms with everyone and we genuinely like going there. But recently... There is that less-than-optimal fish to contemplate. And last Friday wasn't the first time. I've decided to have a chat with the owner the next time this happens. I am generally known as an easily satisfied man. Most things are fine with me. If things are a little better or sometimes a little worse – I don't generally worry. But... if I am noticing a deterioration in the quality of the fish, I'll bet others are too. And I surely don't want the place to go downhill.

Like I said earlier, they're almost family!

So maybe they got a bad batch from the supplier. Maybe the oil in the fryer needed changed. Maybe it was a new fry cook or that particular day the fry cook was not 100 percent and left the fish in too long. Maybe a lot of stuff. So that's why I won't worry too much about it. But I think we might patronize another restaurant next Friday. No offense old friend, but I want a little time to recuperate from the “fish jerky”.

In a week or two I'm sure we'll go back. I'll pay attention to the fish on other patron's plates on my way to my table and make a decision then whether to try it again.

But how many chances do you give a place before it starts becoming not your favorite Friday place?

Stand by for more news later on this alarming story.

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I went to see the latest Harry Potter movie on Saturday night. I am happy to report that the movie was GREAT and it met all my expectations for the culmination of the series. Now I know there are those of you out there that are not Harry Potter fans and could give a flying whatever about the end of the series. So go ahead and skip on down to the next topic. That's OK. I need to talk to my wizard-loving friends for a minute. I'll meet you down below shortly.

My wife, my son and I have been “on board” with the young wizard from the first get go, have read all the books and seen all the movies. We anticipated the release of each book and each movie and happily read and watched them as appropriate. So I guess you could call us fans. So be it. Fan or not, the movie was, as I said earlier, great! The only negative I could communicate to you would be that that this is the last one. No more Hogwarts, no more Harry, Ron, Hermione. No more Hagrid, Dumbledore, Snape and all the other fascinating characters from the fertile imagination of J.K. Rowling and the awesome abilities of the actors who have portrayed them. No more watching the principal characters grow from bright children through their awkward teen years into fascinating young adults.

We're surely going to miss them. And, from the box-office returns, so are a lot of other folks!

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Took a drive on Sunday down to Wheeling, West Virginia to visit Wheeling Island Casino and Racetrack. Over the past few years we've grown to enjoy going to the greyhound races there and trying to guess which of the marvelous dogs were going to be the fastest in each race. I like to think that, with the help of the racing form and all the statistics that are displayed there, I can calculate what the winners will be a majority of the time. Sometimes my calculations seem to be “on the money” and I'll pocket a dollar or two. But, sadly, the majority of the time the pups in the races have ideas of their own and decide to finish the race in wildly different order than I anticipated. I guess that's one of the draws. Man against dog or something like that. As I always say, at least you don't have to factor in a jockey on the back of the dogs! They do their thing all alone.

As usual when the wife and I go there, one of us is usually “up” at the end of the races and the other one is “down”. Sunday was my turn to be down. Not terribly down, but definitely down. She played all the races on her original $10 and cashed out $14. Four hours of fun and she got paid for it! We shared the afternoon with two of our friends from where I work, so it was even more fun than it usually was. We ate at the casino buffet after the dog races and were pleasantly surprised at the increase in quality of the food there. They'd redecorated and obviously upped the food budget. We then paid our obligatory visit to Mr. and Mrs. One-Armed-Bandit. They were more than happy to see us and to closely examine the color of our money. We thoroughly enjoy playing the slot machines but almost never come out ahead. Sunday was no different. We wandered through the maze of blinking, shiny machines, each of which was singing that familiar slot machine tune. We tried out a number of them. Some were tight and kept about everything we gave them. Others were a bit more generous and teased us a bit with smaller jackpots. In the end we bid them farewell along with the dollars we'd allocated to our fun. I'm again always thankful that we don't have any addiction to the activity and are quite content to walk away when our budget for the day has been met.

A quiet drive back home capped the festivities for the weekend.

So now it's time to get heavily involved in last-minute planning for our 4-day escape to Canada. Stay tuned for developments!

Visits and Plans

Visits and Plans

Once again it's been way too long since I spent some time on the keyboard and put together another edition of my notoriously intermittent blog. I probably shouldn't even call it a blog anymore. The word blog seems to describe, at least to me, a piece of writing that is frequently written. The term frequently has to be very loosely applied to describe this one. Oh well, for better or worse, let's keep the name and get on with the key-pounding and word-making.

Last Wednesday an dear friend of ours flew back to Ohio from her home in the deserts of Arizona. Sadly, she came back to initiate the process of moving her mother into an assisted care living facility. But before actually starting that process, she has to go through the preceding process of convincing her mom that this procedure is necessary, even vital. Apparently the older woman has fallen down a number of times and has been unable to get back up off the floor. This has necessitated calls to the emergency squad and to other nearby people to lend a hand. The fear, of course, is that she will fall and be unable to summon help. It is no longer a question of if this will happen, only when. It's inevitable. In an assisted living facility this problem would be eliminated. I don't envy Pam this duty she's undertaking. It's can't be easy doing what she has to do. But I agree with her that it's totally necessary, even if very difficult.

Pam took time out from her discussions with her mother and other obligations she needed to take care of to visit us on Sunday. We picked her up at her mom's place in the early afternoon and took her home with us as she had no car this time. We sat and did some old-fashioned visiting for a number of hours, laughing and talking about our lives and what's been happening since the last time we visited with each other. We commiserated on each others aches and pains from the inexorable process of aging and viewed each others battle scars. Pam had made her trip back sans husband this time. He's recuperating from a shoulder surgery and had remained in Arizona. It was a shame as my wife and I liked Ray and missed his company. He's a corker! Pam also is in recovery mode from a recent surgery. Or perhaps I should say surgeries. She's had both knees replaced recently (and a shoulder not that long ago) and is in the middle of the recovery periods for both of them. She is suffering perhaps more than the average recipient of new knees as she also suffers from fibromyalgia and one of the variants of rheumatism. She always impresses me (and did again) with her fighting spirit even though her body is wracked with miseries. Her startlingly blue eyes, always Pam's best feature, seemed to say I may be down for this round, but there's plenty of fight in this old girl! I halfway expected more of a convalescent than what we actually saw. She was surprisingly spry and agile for someone in recovery from her recent episodes with her orthopedic surgeon. Now I surely don't mean she was ready for a marathon. Far from it. But her disposition was totally upbeat. She even surprised us by emphatically stating that she needed to walk that day, for therapy and to maintain the gains she'd made so far, and we acquiesced by strolling around a nearby park for a half hour or so. She did quite well on that hot day and made an entire circuit of the park before finishing.

We were quite proud of her! She was actually in better shape than our poor old dog who suffered greatly from the heat of the day as he walked along with us in the park.

On returning from our perambulations we returned home to our conversations and more catching up. She related more stories about her family and their ups and downs and we reciprocated with some stories of our own. After a while we admitted to ourselves that we were getting hungry, so we drove up to a nice restaurant in town and had an early supper.

And while I was there I had a thought.

Several weeks ago my wife and I had made plans to visit with another couple down in Wheeling, West Virginia at the Casino/Racetrack on Wheeling Island. This would be next Sunday. Since Pam was going to be still in Ohio then, we asked if she'd like to accompany us there. She wasn't sure if she could, but promised to call and let us know later in the week. We made sure she knew that she wasn't obligated to do it. We know her health was a bit iffy and we surely didn't want to overtire her. So we'll see if she can.

Pam has plans to return to Ohio in late August or early September with her husband in their motor home for a longer visit. They intend to finalize her mom's move to the assisted living facility and to take a longer vacation that has been denied them recently by their respective surgeries. So if she cannot join us at the greyhound track this coming Sunday, it's almost a certainty that they will be able to when they return.

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In a little less than two weeks, my wife, my son and myself are planning to take a short trip. When my son was four years old, we took him on his first vacation up to Toronto, Canada. He enjoyed himself immensely as a little kid but remembers little to nothing of it now. So we thought that might make an interesting trip to take again now that he's almost 30. We'll first visit my dear cousin Lorraine up in Canfield, Ohio. She's never seen my son and we're glad we can bring him to see her at last. Then we're planning on visiting Ft. Erie across the Niagara River from Buffalo, watching the ore boats locking through the Welland Canal on the Niagara Peninsula and also visiting one of the premier museums in Canada, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. He saw it as a toddler but obviously doesn't remember. I think it'll be cool to see it again, too. Just a 3-night, 4-day trip to visit a friendly relative and our friendly neighbors to the north. Plus to get a change of scenery for us. To maybe blow off a little dust and to stretch our muscles. And of course, as loyal readers of this blog will recall, to find some geocaches in the new states and country we'll be in.

Wish us all luck for the upcoming weeks.