Vermont 2023 {Getting There: Canada!}

4 September 2023 - On Monday, we detoured from any route we've ever taken to New England, by heading to Detroit, crossing the Detroit River into Ontario, and then driving on the Canadian side of the border until we got to Vermont (on Tuesday the 5th). It was a fun adventure to see the signs in English and French (and then only French once we crossed into Quebec on Tuesday), to drive over 100 (!!) (km/h) on the freeways, to eat poutine for dinner (when in Canada!), to try to convert gas prices from cents per litre to dollars per gallon, and to figure out how to make our phones work in another country (turns out you have to turn on data roaming, even when you have Canada included in your plan - lesson learned!).

These are the toll gates to pay to cross Ambassador Bridge
into Ontario.

"To Canada ONLY beyond this point.
You are now leaving the United States."

Approaching the bridge.

Looks like a new bridge is being built out yonder.
(Some quick googling says it's the Gordie Howe International
Bridge and may open in 2025.)

A glimpse of Detroit from the bridge.

Welcome to Canada.

It says I have service, but it took both
Gregg and me a good few hours to figure
out how to get our texting and data working.

This was a lot of Ontario (which, by the way, is a ginormous
province!).

Stretch stop at, you guessed it, a disc golf course
in Chatham-Kent, ON.

The course was in a place called Thames
Grove, and it was lovely.

Oh Canada!

After disc golf we grabbed dinner nearby at Harvey's.
(This was fun because we have a friend named Harvey.)

Poutine! (It was delish!)

These are the "toys" in the kids meals!

I am a fan!

Meanwhile, back home in Ogden Valley,
my friend Holly (mother of our friend Harvey,
in fact), sent me this pic of the storm totals
from Sunday - Monday. Yes, that is over 2.5"
of rain in Liberty!! Sheesh!

We drove and drove through Ontario all Monday afternoon, and stayed the night near the Toronto airport. I wanted to not just breeze through Canada, but do something fun along the way, so one night in a hotel I was looking up parks in Toronto (we had enough of big city stuff in Chicago Sunday night, so yes, I was looking up outdoor things in the city). Well, I lucked out and came across a list of great parks in and around Toronto, and on that list was Toronto Island Park. You take a ferry from the city out to this island, and no cars are allowed but you can bring bikes, and there are great views of the city from a distance, and there are sandy beaches, and THERE IS A DISC GOLF COURSE on the island! 

So, thankfully, on Tuesday (5 Sep) morning, Gregg went along with my hairbrained idea and even drove into the city through the nasty traffic and paid the money to park next to the dock and we loaded up some snacks and our bikes and hopped on the ferry. Spoiler alert: It was so great! 

We spent a couple hours out there, riding from Ward's Island dock on one end, played on the playground, played a handful of holes of disc golf (funny story: after we got to Vermont, one of the disc golf channels Gregg follows on youtube posted this video of them playing this very course on their way to Vermont a couple weeks ago for the world championships!), skipped rocks at the beach, stopped to visit the (maybe haunted?) lighthouse, rode past the clothing optional beach (just the turnoff - eek!), watched the planes land at the airport next door, and hopped on the ferry back from Hanlan's Island. Such a fun little detour and very much our speed type of touristy place (especially since it was the Tuesday after Labour Day and the place was pretty quiet).

Coming into downtown Toronto.

That dome thing is the home of the Toronto
Bluejays Baseball team. And that tall Space Needle-looking thing
is called CN Tower.

Ah, yes, such a nice distance from all that hubub.

There's our first ferry.

Yachts all over - apparently some people actually live
on the island!

I thought this was cool - though I didn't
actually pay attention to any trees after
I looked at this sign.

The course was amazing!

Oh! Peekaboo!

He loved it!

There's a pier you can walk out on into Lake Ontario,
so I did, and I took this pic looking back at the beach.

The sign said NYC was this way 600-something
kilometers.

The water felt great! (It was HOT and STICKY
for our whole drive from UT, so sticking our feet in
the lake was so refreshing!)

This rock skipper had some amazing skips!
This one was her record - 10 skips!

So fun!

What I thought was a lovely park with great views.

It's actually a yacht campground. I had no idea that
was a thing. But here it is.

Back at the other ferry dock (there are actually
three on the island(s) but we just visited
two) we learned some history about Ned
Hanlan, a famous rower.

Also, this was kind of interesting.

On the ferry back, we stood outside with the dump truck
and utility trucks (so yes, some very limited vehicles are
allowed on the island) and our bikes on a more industrial
type ferry.

That green strip is the runway for an airport!

Our fellow ferry riders.

Pulling into the dock. I spy our car in the lot on the right
of the picture.

This really hurts my brain!

All along Highway 401 through Ontario were
these little OnRoute rest areas with fast food
and bathrooms and gas, kind of like the stations
I've seen on long tollways, but this road was free.
Anyway, this moose was cute and the kids were cute
so I took a pic while we waited for our dinner from 
Tim Horton's (when in Canada . . .).

Not sure what this is all about - I think Gregg was trying to
catch the sunset? - but it certainly shows how loopy
everyone was getting by the end of our drive.

I didn't get any pics of the entry into Vermont, but it was nearly dark when we got there, and I'm still laughing at the reaction of the border agent as he was asking us the usual questions: What were you doing in Canada? (We're on our way from Utah to Vermont.) How long were you in Canada? (2 days, 1 night, we stayed in Toronto last night.) Wait, where? So you just drove across Canada? (Yep.) Did you buy anything while you were in Canada? (Just food and gas.) Really, no souvenirs? (Nope.) (I actually didn't even think of buying souvenirs.) Why, of all places, would you come to Jay Peak from Utah? (Ha! We love it!)