Roadtrip: Days 3 - 11; No Internet Days

Toronto, Canandaigua, Schroon Lake, Ocean City, Columbia and a few other stops along the way. Almost 3000 miles in total covered in this latest trip. No McDonald stops.

Toronto we went on some kind of sailboat that went along Lake Ontario. It was nice and hot. We were sailing on a ship built in Germany in the early 1930's, was bought and sold a few times and a few years ago ended up being purchased and refitted to its original specifications to take tourists on a 90 minute ride along the Toronto/Lake Ontario coast.

After that my brother and mom went on to go to the top of the CN Tower. Being that I have already done that (see here) I decided to just find a nice park bench and people watch.

I must say that there are a lot of interesting people in Toronto. Canada being a bit different in their social norms than America is, it is a lot more common to see very open gay couples. Not being unacoustomed to this fact of life, it did catch my attention on how many gay couples there were in Toronto.

The next day we headed back for America (but not before hitting up Tim Hortons at least 3 times in the span of 24 hours). Expecting a repeat of the last time I crossed (in short, I was taken into a holding area as they searched the car and my cousin was yelled at because he used his phone while we were waiting to get back on the road - not to mention the hour-plus line it took to even get to the boarder guard) I was pleasantly surprised by a very nice American boarder agent and a line no longer than 10 minutes. I guess things do even out eventually...

That night we made it Syracuse. I think the south gets unfair attention for having a high population of uneducated rednecks. That's all I'm going to say about Syracuse.

The next day we went to some fort/mission place in the morning and headed on to Canandaigua for the afternoon. The pigeons in Canandaigua seem very well fed and willing to eat shark outlined Cheeze-Its.

Somewhere along the way between Syracuse and Schroon Lake we stopped at some Williamsburg type model 19th century town. It included an octagon house, the nations only authentic 19th century brewery, and more 19th century townness than you will find even in Columbia.

After that we spent the next 2 days at Schroon Lake in New York, where we have some family. It was a nice relaxing time once we were there. Got to ride on a really nice boat, do some water sports and do an authentic firepit cookout. Unfortunatley New York being that it is New York, I couldn't LEGALLY fish in the lake because I didn't have a license. And those DNR people are as pesky as those kids in the green van with a dog.

The last stop before heading back to Columbia was to Ocean City. More of our family lives there and we spent the first 24 hours battling it out with the neighbors. Now these friendly neighbors of ours were early/mid 20 kids that just recently moved in. They also liked to play their music REALLY loud on the outside porch - at all hours of the day and night (not to mention a few other things that would make Cheech and Chong proud).

In short, the war raged (pretty good) for about 24 hours but for the next 3 days I think we can claim victory. During the time there I went to the beach and walked the boardwalk. I think Venice Beach is nicer, but Ocean City has a bit of uniqueness that you can't find in a lot of other places.

Oh and I found out that you can buy one of those small floaties made for 3 year olds at Wal-Mart, cut out the bottom (where the kids legs would go) and use it as a body board. Just keep the animals head that is popping out of the side of the float in front of you. It works pretty well.

Finally, yesterday I arrived back to Columbia. To the heat, rain and thunderstorms. In upstate New York it was at most in the mid-70'a. In Ocean City it was only hot one day and the rest of the time was in the mid-70's to low-80's. Once we hit the South Carolina line it was 95.

It's good to be home...