Day 7 ~ Back to the States

As they say, all good things must come to an end. Even though we were looking forward to seeing Isaiah and Mallory again, it was really hard to leave Toronto. It had been such a fantastic week for us.

Road construction in front of our hotel made for a tight squeeze to leave town.

Bye-bye Royal York. *sniffles sadly*

Just outside Toronto, we noticed a traffic back-up going the other direction. The radio newscaster mentioned a semi was overturned and drivers were "taking a peek" to see what was going on. We giggled at his word choice. Here is the states, we use less polite terms like "rubber necking" or "gawking".

When you get bored in the car, it's always fun to take pictures of the handsome driver. 

Almost to customs...perhaps we should stop for a restroom... Nah, traffic doesn't look bad at all...

Yeah, what we didn't see was the parking lot of cars just over the hill waiting on the bridge to cross the border. Ugh. An hour. On a bridge. Fantastic. We really should have stopped. :/

Just a little advice:

OK - I think I got it. Won't be running on empty with this! Woot Woot!

Chicago. We meet again. :P

Well, hello there, handsome driver.  

Almost there...

Home safe and sound! 

Many, many thanks to my mom for staying with the kids for us!!! 

Love how Mallory drew Niagara Falls. :) (See top drawing.)

What a fantastic trip. I feel badly admitting it, but this trip was even better than our Honeymoon. We had so much fun enjoying eachother's company and seeing so many new things. 

The big question - where are we going next?! And WHEN?!

- becky

Day 6 ~ Hockey Hall of Fame

We had traveled all the way to Toronto, and it was almost time for us to return home. But, our trip would not have been complete without a visit to Tim's Disney World - the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Below is the building from the outside. An old bank was remodeled to store the Stanley Cup. Quite appropriate that the building was a bank, as the Cup is stored in - of course - the Vault.

The entrance to the musuem was underground on the Path. See the escalator straight ahead in the picture? I think these archways should have been made to look like hockey sticks.

So, as you can see, Tim was really excited to be here. I wanted him to fully enjoy his experience and time here, so I just kind of wandered around and let him look.

Finding the local hockey teams was just as fun as finding all of Tim's fave Blues.

I *might* have been getting a little bored. Better go find a movie to watch...

The movie showing was actually quite good. Much to Tim's chagrin I have a new fave player - Sidney Crosby! Tim just rolled his eyes and me and blamed the "hockumentary". HA! LOVE that new word!!

Well, better get our pads on and get ready for the big game.

Many trophies were on display upstairs. It really was a beautiful place.

There are 3 Stanley Cups - the one in the picture below, one in the Vault, and one on tour.

The Vault. The Stanley Cup. 

And Tim missed it. We were back at the hotel later that evening, and I commented about going into the vault, to which Tim replied, "What vault?" 

I could not take him back to the States without his seeing the REAL Stanley Cup. With 15 minutes left until closing, we returned to the museum to take a look...

...and to shoot some pucks. Just ask Tim who scored more goals. Ahem. That would be ME!

We ended up with some great souvenirs from the museum's gift shop. Our basement now has a super cool St. Louis Blues Man Cave sign hanging on the wall, I got a great purse made out of a hockey jersey, and Tim has an insulated travel cup. He didn't get the Tervis cup that he wanted...there was one Tervis (50% off too!) left in the display window, but the store absolutely refused to part with it. We tried. Twice - asking different employees on different days. Whatever. Your museum was still awesome.

- becky

Day 5 - Casa Loma

On Saturday morning, we ventrued outside the city via the subway to see Casa Loma. It was definitely worth figuring out the rail system to see such a beautiful castle. Sir Henry and Lady Mary Pellatt began building Casa Loma in 1911. Unfortunately, the Pellatts lost their beautiful home because of debt in a little over 10 years. Today, Casa Loma is a beautiful tourist attraction atop a hill overlooking Toronto. In addition to self-guided tours, weddings - we saw one about to take place! - and symphony events also are held at the beautiful gardens and grounds.

Don't ask me how to pay your subway fare. But do ask me our subway fare story. (I don't want to publish it online for the world to read. LOL)

Located just outside the city, Casa Loma was a very short walk up a large hill from the subway station. Please note the beautiful sky. We were so fortunate to have such beautiful weather for our entire trip.

Lady Pellatt's sitting room

Other side of Lady's sitting room

Just imagine this is your hallway overlooking the main floor of your home. Goodness.

Round Room - called such because of its shape, of course. Even the doors were curved. Pretty nifty!

Passageway and stairs to the tower! Eek!

There was a second staircase above this one. I made it up this one, but I couldn't bring myself to climb to the very top level. 

Smoking Room - the Pellatt's spent much time entertaining guests in this room.

My fave room was the library (of course).

One should always whip a book out of one's purse and read when in a library. (Little Mercies by Heather Gudenkauf. It's good. Check it out. From your library.)

Conservatory 

Funny story - we heard a man say, "This place is like being in the movie Clue. Colonel Mustard, in the study, with the candlestick." Ha! So very true!

Family crests for Sir Henry and Lady Mary were separated and joined together - see picture below - on the ceiling of the library. 

The Billiard Room...which we like to call the Man Cave. That's not a telephone! That's a self-guided audio tour. It was, in a word, FANTASTIC. We learned lots, and did not feel as though we missed anything at Casa Loma. Our only boo-boo was not going through the tour in numerical order, but it still worked great.

Oh, those beautiful gardens! 

See the bunny?

Sir Henry was not a fan of having to cross the street to get to the stables and garage, so he built a tunnel. Makes sense.

- becky