Canada Road Trip: Turning 30 On the Road and into Ontario

The sojourn into Ontario was partly (mostly) in celebration of my 30th birthday. This trip had several itineraries in its planning stages. We went from biking throughout Europe to biking through, like, Luxembourg and Belgium because - guess what! - Europe is bigger than you think. Then we were going to bike to Ontario, via some trail I found on the internet one day. We could never work out the logistics of how we would get started from somewhere other than Pittsburgh or how we would get the bikes home without having to track back.

Finally we decided a road trip was in order. And through Canada is where we make the best road trips. See, we have been up there in the north for road trips before. After crossing Canada by train in the summer of 2008, Rob and I have made several trips up there to drive around. Idiotically, they've mostly been during the winter. You know what it does in Canada in the winter? It snows. We did our first winter trip to the Maritimes - starting in Halifax, driving to Moncton and St. John's during the day, and then continuing the trip with a basically death-defying nighttime drive to Prince Edward Island. We honestly sat there in the car, listening to the last songs we would want to listen to ever, because we were both really uncertain if we could get to our hotel safely. We've done a winter trip to Newfoundland, because that's really intelligent. Then we took some spring trips. Like starting in Winnipeg (I sincerely hope the return of the Jets has helped the denizens of that city get back to something slightly less zombie-like) and driving through Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta - three states our waiter at my birthday steak dinner referred to as "The Gap."

I'm getting off topic. And anyone who came here to read about Pittsburgh is probably seriously confused.

Basically, I celebrated by 30th birthday by going to some places in Canada I have never been before. Sure, there also were normal and previously visited places places - Ottawa, Toronto, Niagara Falls. But that was the back end of the trip. Our first couple days? Small towns with absolutely ridiculous reasons to stop in them.

But, of important note, this drive straight north started directly at the end of the Japandroids show at Mr. Smalls.

I'm Brian. That's David.

These guys. No better way to start the beginning of my birthday celebration than watching these nice Canadians be loud and fun and awesome. At the end of the show, we jumped in the car and were off. I was two hours from thirty.

By the time we got to our Howard Johnson's room in Hamilton, Ontario [please go back and reread that for full effect], I had been in my thirties for three and a half hours. When we pulled up to our classy lodgings for the night, we noticed it was attached to a Yuk Yuks as well as a Hooters. Happy Birthday to Me!

Click for a closer look. It's Hamilton, Ontario!

We slept a few hours, and then it was quickly to the ORIGINAL Tim Horton's, where I had my birthday donuts. I have been to this Tim Horton's location every year for the past three years. There is seriously something wrong with me. Then a day of driving hell began. From Hamilton we drove to Owen Sound, where my objective was to obtain an Owen Sound Attack t-shirt. (Owen is one of my favorite musicians, so this was a legit thing I needed to have.) We bought the shirt, stuck our hand in Lake Huron, and then got back on the road. We stopped off for gas in Peary Sound and stretched our legs walking up a pier.

This was supposed to be six donuts with five candles in each, but this did me perfectly fine after a long night of driving.

First dino sighting.

Canada is such a darling place.

My new plan? Buy a summer place in Parry Sound.

I have a tradition of having a good steak dinner on my birthday. We got to Sudbury, and we couldn't find the steak place we'd looked up online. When I get hungry, I get cranky and impatient. So I made Rob pull into a Super 8, where we went and asked the lady working the front desk about it. She basically told us we were making a mistake for going there for a steak dinner, and she pointed us in the direction of a place called The Keg.

Well, thank you Claire from Super 8 in Sudbury, because this meal was a major highlight of the week. We had the most earnest and happy waiter named Mark, who I think was pretty dumbfounded by our trip. When he learned we had driven there from Pittsburgh, his reaction was "Jesus, what the hell are you doing here?" The steak was good, there was beer, and they gave us free cake, which was actually ice cream in the shape of cake.

Mark's first question to us when he learned we were in Sudbury as "tourists" was, "Have you seen the nickel?!" Seriously. Question mark and exclamation point. We hadn't yet, but it was on our list of things to do in Sudbury. (1. Eat steak; 2. See the World's Largest Nickel.) We got there just as the sun was going down. The sunset looks lovely, which apparently it does every night in Sudbury, because there is so much pollution released into the air by nearby factories!

Dead bugs/beautiful sunset.

Oh, and there was a dinosaur at the nickel, which, brought the total count of dinosaur sightings on my 30th birthday tally to two.

From the nickel it was onward to our next accommodations ..in Sault Ste. Marie.

EvBetPGH Instagram: February 2013

We've passed the halfway-through-February point! We're less than a month away from Daylight Savings! It's continually staying lighter later! Sure, out my window Gross Street may have a coating of snow right now, meaning getting groceries today may take walking instead of biking (considerably more annoying of a task when it takes three times as long to walk). But! We're nearing the end of the long, gray, dark tunnel of winter in Pittsburgh. Soon more outdoor adventures will happen. Soon long bike rides will be possible. Soon leisurely walks of discovery will return.

The older I get, the grumpier I get about winter. I'm okay with that. This year I've enjoyed a bit of a hibernation, which causes fewer posts here, but more time daydreaming about all the awesome things to come in 2013 when it doesn't hurt to be outside. [NOTE: I love hot weather, so summer does not really bother me much.]

In lieu of anything actually happening of PGH-related note in my life the past couple weeks, here's a smattering of the things I found myself doing in the first half of February. 

Working on my first PGH Filmmakers assignment! More to come from this later. The pictures and negatives are currently in the teacher's hands for grading. Grading! Getting learned is weird!

This is a legitimate t-shirt you could purchase. At the Army-Navy store on Liberty downtown. I am doing everything in my power to keep this from ending up in my dresser drawer, but I can't promise anything.

Tyler Kennedy was my Valentine. I'm okay with that.

PHIL COLLINS DAY HAPPENED! There are few days during the year when I wake up feeling pointedly excited. Phil Collins Day is one of them. I celebrated with friends who love me enough to indulge my weird obsession. For them, I am grateful.

When things in my life just make sense: dinos in the Land of Confusion video, something watched countless times during my youth. 

On Saturday a bunch of us caravanned out to Greensburg where we helped one friend's parents move. I have never moved a whole house before! Only ever apartments. It was an exhausting and fun day. It made the excitement about potential homebuying in the not-too-distant future return to my brain in full force. 

EvBetPGH Down Under: Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens

Admittedly, I am not the girliest girl. I've always been a bit on the Sporty Spice side, even though in high school when my friends (hello, Milana, Eva, and Lindsey!) and I dressed up as the Spice Girls for fun (we really did), I was always Baby Spice. What I'm trying to say, is that I'm not about to wear a combination of pink and leopard and spend three hours on my hair and make-up. But I do like fun dresses, am starting to wear heels and lipstick (gasp!) more often, and there's always my tendency to love even the worst romantic comedies. Another girly thing I like: flowers. 

For that reason, Phipps Conservatory has always been a favorite spot of mine in Pittsburgh. 

Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens are like Phipps times at least one hundred.

My first few hours in Sydney were spent wandering around the Gardens as part of a scavenger hunt Marlana had prepared for me while she finished the rest of her working day after picking me up from the airport. I was so instantly charmed that I didn't want to leave. I visited them three more times during my trip, either for walks to take up time, walks to find things, or walks to steak dinners. They are absolutely beautiful, and more like walking through a dream because they are so immense. It's kind of funny to see that photo above with the city in the background, because being in the gardens makes you completely forget a bustling metropolis is just a few hundred yards away. 

Pretty lily pads!

I will take a dozen of these plants in my fantasy backyard garden, please!

A couple dozen or so of these guys too.

Sydney might not get a fall with the changing leaves like we do, but they have crazy purple trees! It's like being in a Dr. Seuss book.

So many carvings on all of the bamboo tress in the gardens.

A real treat was coming upon the Wollemi Pine!

Now, because I saw the word dinosaur and got excited, I think I jumped to te conclusion that these trees were around with dinosaurs. Rereading that sign now, it's a little unclear if that is true, but let's go with it cause I posed for the picture and all. (Note: very sleep deprived, the day after crazy Melbourne trip, and we'd been walking around all day long by this point.)

If I lived in Sydney, this would be one of my most favorite places. There are still so many nooks and crannies of it I've yet to explore. I'll have to hit those the next I'm down under.

30 Before 30: Oh Yeah, We're Going to a Laser Show

I love to let the mail pile up. It's usually nothing but bills and junk, so I find it kind of depressing to take it upstairs every day if it's a bunch of stupid stuff. (And I'm already lugging a bike and a bag up the stairs, so the lame mail gets left behind.) Whenever I worry that my mailcarrier might think I'm MIA in a not good way, I begrudgingly go through it. This happened the other day, and one of the pieces was a mailer from the Carnegie Science Center. I went through it to see if anything caught my eye. And something did! Three words: HALLOWEEN LASER SHOW.

I immediately took a picture of the ad and sent it to my friend Ross, who enjoys the Halloween season as well. Going to see a laser show was on my 30 Before 30 list, and to take care of it with one with these most excellent theme seemed perfect. The ad promised Ghostbusters! The Addams Family! Purple People Eater! All the best things! 

Just look how excited we were!

I think I've forgotten how to not smile like a total goober every time I take a picture.

We settle into our seats. So do the six other people there. The show starts. Wonderfully creepy images and awesome tunes are coming our way! Only! They weren't! Well, the wonderfully creepy images were great, but the 45 minutes of '90s nu metal were kind of strange. That's it. All nu metal. No "invisible man hiding under your bed" or "bustin' makes me feel good." Just a bunch of '90s nu metal. (Though, we did get to hear "Dragula," which was funny for Ross and me, because it had been a song of the Labor Day Toronto trip just a few weeks prior.)

Nu metal listening session aside, I really liked the laser show! It was super neat to look at! And it was only $2 (because of my Carnegie Museums membership). I'll definitely go to more, so long as the music is a little less...something I don't ever need to listen to.

Now, the laser show topped off the crazy day that Ross and I laid out for ourselves. We first biked from Bloomfield to the South Side for the South Side Slopes StepTrek. Then we had a couple burgers and a couple beers at Winghart's. (Market Square location: Will you ever be done with renovations? I miss you!) We followed up with beers at Jekyll & Hyde's (where we listened to the X on the radio and watched Wipeout on TV - perfect combo?) before biking over to Bicycle Heaven on the Northside for a party before the laser show. That's where we met this guy:

And where I experienced much bike lust, especially of the orange variety.

That Ain't Pittsburgh: The Authentic (and Inauthentic?) Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls, the "authentic" one, from the Canadian side.

After a late night out in Buffalo, we started our Canadian adventure by spending a morning on the Canadian side of the Falls. It had been many years since I was last there, and I'm pretty sure my parents took us kiddos to the American side. One of my traveling companions, Ross, had been on the American side a couple times in recent years. And the other, Rob, had never ever been there before. What you see above is not what you are immediately greeted by after rolling into town. Nope. What you enter is an overwhelming and mostly ridiculous cartoon town:

So, like any good tourists, we hung out in the "inauthentic" Niagara Falls before venturing down the hill to the natural wonder. There's no shortage of "things to do" at Niagara Falls. Countless wax museums, haunted houses, lazer tag places, arcades... If you had $500 in your pocket, you still probably wouldn't have enough cash on you to take in all of this ridiculousness. If I ever win the lottery, I'm heading straight back to Niagara Falls to take them all in in a single day.

It took us a while to figure out who the guy all the way to the right may be. We thought perhaps the lead singer of Crash Test Dummies (they are Canadian, after all), but it's likely Eddie Vedder.

I guess next time I'm craving Halloween outside of the month of October, Niagara Falls should be my destination.

Everything is oversized and exaggerated in Niagara Falls. Which makes it completely awesome.

Fun fact: As we were walking by this "Hall of Fame," we heard some announcements about Freddy Kreuger and Pinhead... Didn't know they were criminals. Thought there were more like fictitious horror movie villains. Tomato/Tomatoe.

Rob and I are common travel companions to Canada. In fact, I can't recall a time since 2008 that I have been to Canada without him. One of our first objectives on any Canada trip, as soon as humanly possible after crossing the border is to hit up Tim Hortons. 

Heaven is a full Tim Hortons' bakery case. Yum.

As we were bee-lining to Tim Hortons, Rob stopped and simply said, "Allison," and pointed. And in that moment, I was delighted.

BEAVERTAIL

Oh, Beavertail. How I love thee. This is a Canada-only treat that I first experience in Ottawa. It's sort of like funnel cake, but less doughy and with more options for toppings, as shown below:

Now, I opt for the plain ol' cinnamon and sugar beavertail (because this treat is already sugary enough), but some like to ensure they are going to have 1,000 cavities and order the one that's covered in Nutella, peanut butter, and Reese's Pieces. Not naming names or anything.

By the way, when we encountered Beavertail for the second time, in Quebec City, this one was dubbed the "Obama." Apparently, this is his favorite?

Well, looky here! Malkin and Obama both taking a taste of Canadian greatness.

We ate our Beavertail and drank our Tim Hortons coffees and were making our way toward the real deal, but I got a bit sidetracked.

Found them! They've been chilling at the Falls all this time.

Once you get past all the excellent, oversized, touristy nonsense, you arrive at a true wonder. The "authentic" Niagara Falls.

Across the street from the Falls is a nice little park. Instead of trying to wade through the crowds on the side of the road with the views, we crossed over and continued enjoying an "authentic" Niagara Falls greenspace.

Told you it was "authentic."

Rob explains electricity to Ross. Nikola Tesla stands by.

After picking up some Canadian souvenirs, we were on our way to Toronto.