The Spectater

Pictures are updated!

The next few days are a bit of a blur. I also didn’t take any notes. Heather headed back to Calgary (but not before getting screwed over by London once again), we met up with a bunch of out-of-town people at a brunch hosted by Lesley’s mom, and then everyone else headed back to their respective homes.

The second (third?) part of my trip was just getting started, and I hopped in a car with Lesley, Eric, Paqui and Ana to head back out to the Weaver farm. The heat and humidity kicked in big time on the Sunday, and Bill took us on an amazing boat ride on Lake St. Clair, where we got to swim and enjoy a nice breeze! We then snacked on some wedding leftovers, opened presents (well, I watched), and jumped back in the car to drive to Windsor. We arrived at Gisele and Bernie’s late Sunday night and basically went right to bed.

The days seemed to just keep getting hotter and hotter. We all headed out to explore downtown Windsor, to wave to the people of Detroit on the People Mover (I still don’t believe that’s the real name), and to visit my special request: the sculpture park. Which I might have reconsidered had I known it would be about 500 degrees out that day. There was, of course, more eating, visiting and resting.

Tuesday, we were off to Niagara Falls. It was still crazy hot, and Ana and I suffered in the car while Paqui and Lesley checked into the hotel. Paqui wasn’t too sure about the sneaking in arrangement, and I think Lesley was having second thoughts when they gave her the guilt check-in cookies (only two of them, of course)!

We spent the day exploring Niagara Falls, doing the Maid of the Mist (very refreshing) and taking tons of pictures. Then it was siesta time at the hotel before we made our way out to dinner. I don’t know if it was the wine talking, or if we were just developing a closer friendship, but Paqui told a joke, and then, when I didn’t get it, she said “are you a leetle bit thick?” For the record, Paqui, it’s pink, and not ping

After dinner, we went to check out the falls at night, and had a very amusing encounter with a raccoon. I pointed out the Canadian wildlife to our Spanish visitors, and Lesley quickly jumped in with “They attack! THEY ATTACK!!!”. He didn’t attack. Though that didn’t stop Ana from saying “He iiizz about to attack!” when the little guy started rubbing his hands together.

The next day we checked out of the hotel and drove to the butterfly conservatory, where Lesley was a very brave girl and faced her fears. Now that she’s a married woman, she’s letting herself go and facing her fears! We also made a stop at the floral clock for me, before making our way to Anik’s place in Toronto. We had lunch there and watched the Spain/Germany World Cup game (yay Spain!). In the evening, we headed to downtown Toronto, where Eric’s friend Scott had invited us for a BBQ and a tour on his sailboat. We had an amazing evening (we were even picked up on the sailboat!) with great views of the Toronto skyline, and had to explain to Paqui and Ana that this kind of thing doesn’t happen often. Or ever.

The following day we did some shopping in Toronto, talked Paqui into buying some shoes, and then jumped in the car to head to Kingston. Or at least the direction of Kingston. We were stuck in traffic and took far too long to get out of Toronto, but we made it eventually to meet up with Eric for dinner. On Friday (happy birthday, Eric!), we had just enough time to do a little shopping before jumping in the car once again for the drive back to Ottawa. The rain hit just outside Ottawa, but that didn’t seem to cool things down much!

The first part of my southern Ontario trip was a visit to Stratford with Heather. I stopped in Toronto for a quick visit with Melodie and arrived in Stratford after midnight. Heather had been up for about 48 hours at that point, so we just made our way to the hotel and crashed.

She had had time to scope out some breakfast options, and we decided on Features, a restaurant that boasted homemade burgers, the Paul Bunyon breakfast special, and “stirfry’s”. Can’t go wrong with that. We spent the day wandering around Stratford, seeing The Tempest with Christopher Plummer (amazing), finding free parking for Lindsay (yay free!), buying mistake chocolates from a chocolate shop (mmmmm), and then trying our luck with those mistakes (not always so mmmmm).

The following day (Canada Day!) we made our way to the warehouse tour to check out assorted theatre props and costumes. Turned out that the other people on our tour didn’t show, so we had a private tour with Robert and Janeen, the most eager volunteer ever. The tour was really interesting, and even included a dress-up portion, which is always fun. We also learned a ton of interesting facts that I really should have written down at the time. But I swear they were interesting!

Lindsay had to make her way back to Kingston that afternoon, so Heather and I went out in search of lunch (a picnic lunch in a pail), did some more shopping, and then went to check out the Canada Day festivities, where Stephen Page was doing a free concert. We then went to scope out some dinner possibilities. We knew that we had to try some ice cream from Cool Runnins, so we went by to ask what time they were going to close, since we’d been denied the night before. The nice lady informed us that they were going to stay open late because the PARADE(!!!) was coming right by the shop. I knew we couldn’t miss an opportunity to compare small-town Canada Day parades!

We killed too much time playing duck, duck goose along the waterfront, and missed our opportunity to have some gourmet fries, so we settled on our backup plan for dinner: Gene’s Chinese and Canadian cuisine. As we waiting for dinner, we came up with a wish list for the parade. All the things we hoped (and expected) to see from a small-town parade (although we would later find out that Stratford isn’t as small as it would have you believe). We were just wrapping up with dinner when we heard the sounds of the parade starting, so we rushed out to the street.

I have to say that Smiths Falls has nothing on the Stratford parade. It lasted well over 20 minutes and delivered on almost every single one of our wish list items! (Although our token celebrity sighting wasn’t crossed off on the technicality that the celebrity happened to walk past during the parade, though he wasn’t actually in it.) There were marching bands (multiple ones), candy throwers (even more of those), girls (and boy) in sashes, and of course the tiny Shriners cars.

After the parade ended, we rushed down to Cool Runnins before it could close on us. It did not disappoint. They had Cool Runnings playing on TV (I’m guessing that it just plays on a loop) and the one guy didn’t stop talking about seeing the bobsled at the airport in Jamaica.

Our next day was filled with some more shopping and wandering before we had to catch our train to head to Chatham. We realied that we only had about 12 minutes to make our connection in London, but the nice VIA man assured us that we would be fine and they would hold the train. Then he promptly announced that our train would be 20 minutes late arriving. We asked him about that, and again, he assured us that the other train was also late, and that they would hold the train.

Cut to us on the train, just a few minutes outside of London, when another nice VIA man comes into our car saying “Anyone going to Chatham or Windsor? Your train just left.” Turns out they don’t hold trains! They did, however, put us in a cab from London to Chatham. My southern Ontario geography is a bit fuzzy, but Google tells me that’s far.

It was an interesting cab ride. They sent two cabs with 3 people each (we shared with an angsty teenage girl), and no one seemed to know where we were going. The cab driver asked us if we knew where the train station was. The mysterious teenage girl, travelling by herself, to Chatham (?????) had also never been there before. We ended up arriving in Chatham only about 45 minutes late, and made our way to the Retro Suites Hotel. You’ll have to check out the website, because I don’t know how to describe the awesomeness of this hotel. Or the confusion about why it exists in Chatham.

The next day and a half were filled mostly with wedding activities. Eric’s parents hosted a BBQ at their farm on the Friday night, we met our Spanish roommates, Paqui and Ana, and then on the Saturday we headed out to the farm in the afternoon for the strawberry social kickoff to the wedding. It was a perfect day. Sunny and hot, but the overwhelming humidity held off until the next day. (Check out some of Lesley and Eric’s amazing wedding pictures here!) It was so great to be able to be there and everyone had a fun time! So happy for Lesley and Eric

Lesley’s birthday:

Gwen’s birthday:

More pictures in the gallery!

The Olympic torch relay ran right by my apartment last night, so I decided to test out the video on my camera.

False alarm! This was the pre-torch relay portion.

And then I stopped filming to take this masterpiece:

Dear Mouse,

I know you think that you’re so smart. Three times in a row now, you’ve licked the peanut butter clean off the mouse trap I set for you. I guess it serves me right for buying a mouse trap at the dollar store, but what do you want. It was my only option.

But how smart can you really be if you’re climbing onto a death trap that has a giant red picture of a mouse on it (just in case you weren’t sure what it was for)? All for a little taste of peanut butter. I know you think you have it figured out, but one of these days I’ll have a better trap and you’ll be sorry!

Now you’re just making me angry. If this is some kind of revenge for my attempted murder of your buddy last year, then I’m sorry. But I’ll throw you off the balcony too if I have to! (Next time I might drown you first though.)

Sincerely,

Katey

Gallery is open!

Number of kilometres: 9,333
Number of states: 15
Cheapest gas: $2.37/gallon USD in Corbin, KY
Most expensive gas: $2.59/gallon USD in Black River Falls, WI
Number of squirrels killed: 1
Number of speeding tickets: 0
Number of fingers lost to alligators: 0
Number of servings of toasted ravioli: 2
Number of baseball games seen: 1
Number of runs in the baseball game: 8
Number of cupcakes eaten: 12.5 each
Number of Elvis movies watched: 1.5
Number of Georgia peaches eaten: 4 each
Number of giant peach orbs: 2
Number of Cabbage Patch Kids born: 1
Number of Cabbage Patch Kids held: 5
Number of Cabbage Patch Kids with messed up names: too many to count
Top 3 cities: New Orleans, Nashville, St. Louis
Top 5 free: Babyland General Hospital, Golden Flake factory tour, St. Louis Zoo, Laser Show Spectacular, Laumeier Sculpture Park
Top 5 overrated: Georgia Aquarium; Memphis city tour; McDonald’s in a pink victorian house; Laurel, MS; Jilly’s Cupcakes; “giant” rocking chair in Eureka Springs
Top 5 surprises: Nashville, Kelly Ingram Park (Birmingham, AL), Christ of the Ozarks (Eureka Springs, AR), Graceland, toasted ravioli (St. Louis, MO)
Hardest accent to understand: Louisiana (runner up: Tennessee)
Cheapest parking: 25¢ for 2 hours in Birmingham, AL
Most expensive parking: $10 for 2 hours in New Orleans, LA
Best cinnamon bun: 1896 O’Malley House in New Orleans, LA
Most comfortable bed: Dupont Lodge in Corbin, KY
Hardest restaurant to find: Sanders’ Cafe in Corbin, KY
Cities I most want to go back to: New Orleans, Nashville
Worst customer service: La Quinta Inn in Birmingham, AL
Best restaurant: Mary Mac’s Tea Room in Atlanta, GA
Best temperature: St. Louis, MO
Best non-B&B breakfast: Magnolia Plantation Hotel in Gulfport, MS
Best street signage: St. Louis, MO
Worst street signage: Atlanta, GA
Best new fast food discovery: Sonic
Worst new fast food discovery: White Castle

Cupcake ranking:
1 - Muddy’s Bake Shop, Memphis, TN (great size, price, selection, icing)
2 - The Cupcakery, St. Louis, MO (great selection, icing)
3 - Atlanta Cupcake Factory, Atlanta, GA (best red velvet)
4 - Gigi’s Cupcakes, Nashville, TN (great cake and icing, but very heavy on the icing; little selection)
5 - Buttersweet, Hapeville, GA (average, not great buttercream)
6 - Jilly’s Cupcake Bar, St. Louis, MO (too big and bad icing)
I think the only one of the above I wouldn’t recommend is Jilly’s Cupcake Bar.

Best B&Bs: 1896 O’Malley House (New Orleans, LA), Mistletoe Bough (Alexander City, AL), Heartfield Manor (Atlanta, GA)

August 23, 2009

Today was the start of our journey home. All of our sightseeing is done and we just have 2 full days of driving left. We left St. Louis early morning and headed north. I should have taken it as a bad sign when not too long into our trip I ran over and killed a squirrel.
(Read on …)

August 22, 2009

We headed out early in the morning for the St. Louis Zoo in Forest Park, a huge park in the middle of the city. It was actually chilly in the morning. A first! We’d planned on spending the morning there and then found out that the zoo was free. It was one of the nicer zoos I’ve been too (and once again, free doesn’t hurt!). They had tons of animals and you get up close to the animals, but they’re all out in the open—they’re not all behind fences and screens. We spent a few hours at the zoo and then headed over to the Boathouse restaurant, also in Forest Park. By that time it was almost 1:00 and the park was packed. There was a huge traffic jam along the main street through the park and no parking to be found. We were glad we’d arrived when we did!
(Read on …)