Canada Officially

Thursday, July 5:      Quote of the Day:  This quote requires a little bit of background into our conversation.  Scott, JB, and I were discussing Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, and how he is so conservative, anti-socialistic, pro-Israel, and has been turning Canada's liberal policies upside down.  I imagine he still has Lots more work to do.  There was an article recently in "The Times Examiner" in Greenville all about how wonderful he is.  If you are "wonderful" in the Times Examiner" or even get mentioned in a favorable light, that is stating a lot!  So, we are discussing this and I mentioned how surprised I am at his popularity.  The people love him, a liberal country just adores it's prime minister and I am wondering how he gets so much support for his policies when Scott says, "The people probably like him because what he's doing actually works."  So, there's the quote of the day.

After crossing over the border, we went straight to the viewing areas for the Falls on the Canadian side.  Saranne (Whitney) had told us that this was the best place to view them and boy was she right!  It made such a difference seeing them straight on than from an angle or from the side.  Now we have better pictures and it was awesome getting to walk along the falls along a large sidewalk area along the roadside.  Now, this is where the major differences are between the 2 countries.  Here they are, only a river apart but yet distinctly different in appearance.  It's all about the plants. On the Canadian side there are flowers, and I don't just mean a few here and there; they are everywhere and very abundantly.  It's a dramatic difference and it would be very unsual not to notice this.  Of course, I am loving this.  The Canadians love their flowers so much, they put them everywhere, even outside the edges and walls of public washrooms (restrooms).  It makes for such a beautiful pretty environment.  There is one exception, what JB and I decided to call "Myrtle Beach in Canada".  Right back from the falls is a type of strip mall touristy type of atmosphere, very very much like Myrtle Beach without the beach.  It is not appealing for that area at all, but easily avoided. 

After viewing the falls and taking some pictures, we got back into the car and drove all along the Niagara River, up the gorge.  There is awesome scenery along this Niagara Parkway and we stopped to take some pictures especially when we got to the whirlpool part of the river.  We found this amazing floral clock as well.  Since 1950, it has been designed differently every year and is an real working clock.  The design this year is based on the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812.  The best part is to go underneath the clock and see the mechanism, the drawing plans for it, and all the pictures over the last 61 years of clock designs. 
We followed the parkway into a little town called:  Niagara-on-the-Lake.  What a quaint, heavily flowered town.  It is adorable and obviously a great vacation spot.  JB and I decided we could come back here together some year and stay in one of the inns.  The children had been asking and asking if they could trade some of their coins for Canadian money, so we went into a bank here and did just that.  The clerk was so enamored with them that she waived the exchange fee.  We drove by some really beautiful homes and Lake Ontario (the Niagara River empties into this Great Lake) scenery here before heading on up the Queen Elizabeth Way (called QEW) to Toronto, Canada's largest city.  We drove by the CN Tower or space needle but did not go up in.  It's amazing what it costs to do so and several of us are not good with heights, especially with a glass bottomed elevator to boot! 
On the way to Montreal, we drove into the town of Kingston where Lake Ontario, the Rideau Canal, and the St. Lawrence River all come together.  From here we are loosely following the St. Lawrence.  We stopped for a "washroom" break  there in Kingston and let everyone run around in a quaint park there and see the ducks and we read about the military stone round houses that we could see, one completely surrounded by water.  We really wanted to take the Free car ferry over to Wolfe Island but we were short on time.  We will be taking a car ferry another day.  The weather was absolutely beautiful and breathtaking.  A nice breeze, a blue sky with few clouds, a warmth but not too hot, just delightful. 
At this point getting back into the car was difficult but we need to be in Nova Scotia by Sunday so we must move ahead.  Originally this trip was to be a little longer on this end but that did not work out with JB's work schedule so that's just the way it goes.  Deciding to make this next leg more scenic, we drove along the 1000 Islands Parkway which is right along the St. Lawrence and then comes back out onto the main highway later.  1000 islands refers to all the island in and along the river.  If a section of land stays above water for 365 days a year and has at least 2 trees on it, it is an island.  We saw some exactly that size, some large ones, some in between, some with houses on them, and some with garages, some with bridges to cross between.  Very different.  Some of the way, you could see New York on the other side of the river.  Everyone was really tired in the car so it was time to pull out some new activity books, word searches, crosswords, a calcuator game book, etc... to keep everyone happy and this worked for us until we made it to Montreal and oh what a night we had there, nothing like a little drama to keep you on your toes. That's another story!

 Some delicious golden plums we found on a roadside stand.

The back entrance to the clock face.  Inside is the original 1950 mechanism that is now mechanized to turn the gears.  There are also pictures inside that show the design every year since 1950.




The Space Needle in Toronto, or the CN Tower Building, the second tallest structure in the world.







Land of 1000 Islands, here's one of them.




Another island in the St. Lawrence

Niagara-on-the-Lake with beautiful flowers everywhere

 Changing American money into Canadian money at the Bank of Montreal in Niagara-on-the-Lake

Harris eating a celebration stick!


Some "down time" in Kingston

Shoal Towers at Kinsgton.  There were 16 of these built to defend the convergence of the Great Lakes with the St Lawrence River and the Rideau Canal.  The one in front is the only one of the 16 to be completely surrounded by water  There is another one on the other side of the canal in the back left.  The St. Lawrence River is on beyond.