Day 8-9: TO on the Downlow (by Patrick)

The kids have been tucked into bed inside the camper. As with most nights, they fell asleep within minutes. This is one of my favorite parts of the day on Hattie-planned road trips. We adventure all day, pack 10 pounds of fun into a 5 pound bag, and finally retreat to the camper where everybody collapses in a tantrum-filled, snot-covered, ice-cream bathed heap. Once they are put to bed, Hattie and I retire to the campfire and just enjoy some nice conversation. And I enjoy a handful of beers. So here we are at 9:45. Kids are down, and we stepped outside. This is the first night in our last destination on #thosetruckinmaguires trip through all five Great Lakes. Current situation: Lake Erie. No camp fire. Not allowed. Luckily, we got used to no campfires during our stay in Massey Canada. You've probably never heard of Massey because there is no reason to go there. What REALLY makes tonight different is that our site is quite literally UNDERNEATH Steel Vengence at Cedar Point. Like seriously, underneath it. If somebody pukes on the first hill, we are in for it. I am convinced that there will be a pile of lost sunglasses and hats on top of our camper when we leave. It's kinda cool. Except that it is so loud, casual conversation in this site is almost impossible. So Hattie suggested I blog. So here it is.

I have been tasked with updating you all on our trip to Toronto. We woke up early from our campsite at Darlington Provincial Park. It was a lovely sight. Very large and right on the water of Lake Ontario. The beach and swimming were very nice there. We were a bit east of town so we took a 45 minute train ride to the city and tried to tackle all the things. All of them. In one afternoon. 

First we hit the CN Tower. I have been twice before, once as a kid. I remembered how much I loved the glass floor. You are 1100+ feet (like 5,783 meters) above ground and there is a section of the observation deck which has a glass floor. They have all kids of signs reminding you just how strong and safe it is. They let you know that it was designed to hold 14 hippos without breaking. Which would be intriguing to see. The elevators were designed to hold maybe two sand hill cranes, yet they pack about 47 humans into them. Not sure how they would ever get test hippos up there. Regardless, I remembered being a kid and thinking it was so cool to walk on that floor and look straight down to see little specs which were people. Now as an adult, I have apparently developed an appreciation for heights, or death, or something. Just putting a toe on the glass floor made my stomach knot up a little. I DID go on it, but I may have smacked a small child next to me as he jumped up and down fearlessly.

After the tower, we went on a Hattie March (many of you have fallen victim to these). Our hike to lunch was "just a little further". Or about a mile and a half in the heat of the day. Personally, I am okay with a little hike. Molly and her 6 year old legs... not so much. And to make it worse, I have like zero patience for her whines of "I'm hot", "I'm thirsty", "my tummy hurts", or "my feet have turned to bloody stumps". Alas we made it to Eggspectations. A super-unique eatery that specializes in breakfast foods all day with specials like Reese's Cup pancakes and Waffles covered in chocolate syrup covered in sugar cane, covered in donuts or something. The kids each picked out their favorites and I must say that our "eggspectations" were quite high. Sadly, this ended up being more of a unique restaurant than we anticipated. After a half hour, we still had not gotten drinks. This became the first ever restaurant that #thosetruckinmaguires have ever walked out on. From there we hiked "just a bit further" to the Eaton Center where we hit up a food court. All was not lost. Charlie got to eat at A&W while Molly enjoyed a sandwich and donut from Timmy's. The Wife and I ate at Jimmy the Greeks. So all in all, it was a win.

From there, I convinced Sacajawea to abandon the Great Toronto Crossing and we hit up the subway on our way to the Royal Ontario Museum. Because old stuff is so fun. In keeping with historical ways, the ROM apparently does not believe in the modern atrocity that is air conditioning. Also, it was full of Europeans and Canadians who are clearly not big on personal space. But the kids loved it. There was an exhibit on rocks and I thought I was going to be able to leave the kids there for the night. Seriously rocks. Come on. As if the museum could not be any more boring. Rocks.  But at least I was the oddball out on this stop. Everybody else loved sweltering rocks and old pictures of older stuff. Next summer, I am dropping the three of them off at a coal mine on my way to a summer vacation someplace nice.

After rocking out at the ROM, we did a little window shopping on our way back to Union Station. The kids wanted desperately to shop at Eaton Center (seriously, whose kids are these?) but we convinced them that there is something called a 'mall' back home and that we would take them sometime on a rainy day. It was time to take the train back to Oshawa and hit the beach. Our only detour was a quick grocery stop at Wal-Mart. If you think Wal-Mart is bad, a Canadian Wal-Mart may be worthy of its own blog post. We got back to the site in time to swim, have ice cream, and hide some rocks that we painted. Also, there WILL be another blog post about these kids (mostly Molly) and their damn rocks.

After our last dip in Lake Ontario, we dumped the kids in bed and Hattie and I drank Canadian beers by our last campfire of the trip. If only we had known then. This morning it was early on the road for a looong drive through Toronto, the border (no sense of humor there today), Buffalo, and Cleveland. Luckily, we managed to hit construction or rush hour in each town so we traveled through them all slowly enough to really see the sites. 

Tomorrow is day one in Cedar Point. Pray for me.