A little vacation time...

Back in Northern Ontario (at Jennifer and Scott’s place) after enjoying a few days in the city with the boys. We had a fun time visiting the CN Tower, the Royal Ontario Museum and taking in a Blue Jays game. It was all new for the boys and I enjoyed dropping in to Toronto for the first time in a few years. The boys really liked the museum; seeing a pre-ice age moose and mammoth skeletons. I guess I am getting old and jaded. The museum was fun and interesting, the ball game was fun, but the CN Tower and other parts of Toronto really don’t hold a lot of interest for me. Thanks to booking early through Expedia, we stayed at The Royal York hotel and I have to say the service was nothing short of outstanding. I have stayed in a lot of hotels in recent years and The Royal York is still one of the best in the world. The boys liked the idea of jumping on the beds and doing backflips from bed to bed. Hey, you only live once, right.

Another one of the fun parts of the trip was riding the train from Sudbury to Toronto and back again. I still enjoy the VIA train, but sadly it doesn’t appear the government of Canada is willing to re-invest in train travel. I say sadly because we are one of the largest countries in the world and our passenger train service is poor. Compared to the service offered by Amtrak in the U.S. and the trains being run in Europe and the U.K., Canada’s VIA Rail sorely needs to be improved. It’s 2012 and we are still running passenger cars built in the 1950s!

The boys liked eating in restaurants too and they were very well behaved. I think that’s because the rule was they could order whatever they wanted, as long as they ate it. So yes, chocolate and ice cream were popular choices. We enjoyed eating at Gretzky’s, the Hard Rock Café and even fine dining at the Royal York. If you’re going to Gretzky’s enjoy the décor of hockey memorabilia, because the food should be in the penalty box!

Hard Rock Café is always a good choice for me. Burgers, barbecue and beer always goes well on vacation. I never bother to buy the T-shirts, even though in the past two years I have visited the Hard Rocks in Vancouver, Seattle, London, Edinburgh and Toronto. Maybe I should think ahead eh. The best part of coming home to Northern Ontario was enjoying Jennifer's cooking. As a teenager, Jennifer had a hard time figuring out how to boil a pot of water. She is now pretty amazing with her own personal recipe book.

Finally, I have to admit I am enjoying my new smart-phone. The Blackberry enabled me to keep touch so easily with Jenn. It was nice to be able to send text messages so quickly