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Originally Posted by Ksyrup
We're about halfway through our trip and right now back in the US for a brief stay in Lake Placid. A few observations from our time so far in Canada (mainly Niagara, Toronto and Ottawa):
- We happened to be in Toronto during pride weekend. Very cool. The whole vibe was positive and pretty much everyone took part. Strange to see, honestly. The weirdest sight for me was a white dude driving a big ass pickup truck with pride flags sticking out of his doors like you'd see on a CFB weekend.
- It is really striking when you've lived in the south and small cities for so long how diverse other places can be. Again, very cool.
- Went to the Friday Jays/A's game and the A's won. So we saw a pretty rare feat. Rogers Centre was cool.
- The MPH/Km thing is a mindfuck. I missed 2 exits simply because the baked-in timing in my head when seeing, say, 4.6 left made me think in terms of miles not kilometers and I zoomed right past. It's like if they suddenly made FB broadcast commercials half as long and my innate ability to know exactly when to turn a game back on as the commercials end has been thrown into chaos.
- Also, the speed limits are too slow. There were whole stretches of nothing for dozens of kilometers and it was still 100 KPH. When there's nothing but a Tim Hortons every 30 kilometers, you should be able to drive faster than 63 MPH.
- We didn't spend much time in Ottawa but it was very smoky on Sunday night when we got in. We drove around a bit on Monday morning before heading south. Parliament buildings and the arboretum/Hog's Back Falls we're cool.
- We stopped for lunch in Cornwall just before the border. Decided to go into a Walmart. Holy shit! It was like being in Jungle Jim's there was so much cool stuff we don't get in the US. We walked out with half a dozen boxes of cereal we had never seen (different flavors of cheerios and oatmeal crisp). They had Honeycomb and Sugar Smacks which I swear we haven't seen in the US in 30 years. They had Oh Henry and Mars bars - MIA in the US for years. We were like kids in a candy store.
- It took about 3 minutes to get through Canada customs and 10 minutes getting back into the US. Dude couldn't figure out our license plate (my wife has a specialty KY breast cancer awareness plate) and then started grilling us about where we'd been and where we were going. He finally let us go. It was weird.
We're going to get out and enjoy the mountains here while we can. It's supposed to rain for days but it's clear this morning. Tomorrow headed back into Canada to Montreal and then Quebec city.
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Small world!
We just came from Cincinnati, up to Toronto, and have been in Lake Placid the past 2 days.
The rain while driving out of Toronto a few days ago was INTENSE. I don’t know how driving under water could have been more wet,
Lake Placid has been great and well worth it…. Well, except for when we came in to town at 12:30 am and I got a ticket for not using my blinker at a stop sign…still upset with that.
My daughter plays hockey and we’re on our way to CT for yet another hockey thing…. The Hockey HOF was good with all the memorabilia. Lake Placid is great with the sense of real hockey history. Unfortunately she can’t skate here until they open up the ice on July 3rd.