Vacation to Toronto, Canada and Niagara Falls
Photos taken October 1, 2011 - October 9, 2011

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To get to Toronto, we drove from Cincinnati (500 miles, about 9 hours). Along the way, we stopped at a park along the Lake St. Clair (subsidiary of Lake Erie) in Michigan for lunch. It was a beautiful day, but brisk and very windy!
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Lake St. Clair in Michigan
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Crossing the border from Port Huron, Michigan to Point Edward in Ontario, Canada! My first time in Canada (not Kelly's).
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we arrived in Toronto on Saturday night, the same night as their all night Contemporary Arts Festival, called Nuit Blanche (French for White Night). There were about 50 art installations set up throughout town that were open from 7pm - 7am! This is one of those -- it featured about a dozen high definition projection screens all showing this bizarre 15-minute film where guests and staff at an exquisite hotel gradually transform roles.
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You can't really tell from this photo but we wanted to tell the story anyway: this is showing a Uhaul truck wired up with concert-size speakers blasting club music and traveling around the city at about 2 mph, followed by several hundred partiers. They basically shut down the street everywhere they traveled - it was a traveling party!
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Another installation - in the lobby of one of Toronto's business buildings, a reflecting pool was transformed into a "logging river". Tree logs were dumped into the pool and we could walk down the reflecting pool on the logs. Weird and silly...
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This was my favorite installation - it was reincarnated from Burning Man. Giant tree-shaped cylinders would blast out fire at seemingly random intervals.
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We spent a couple of hours in Toronto's Distillery District, where old distillery factories have been transformed into modern galleries and boutiques and cafes. Very cool space.
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Toronto's Distillery District
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Toronto's Distillery District
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Kelly liked this jewelry made out of zippers in one of the shops.
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One of the factories had old machinery on display -- we noticed that this one was manufactured in Cincinnati! It was some type of hand brake, I believe.
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We went to Cirque du Soleil! We saw the showing of Totem. Another great show.
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At Cirque du Soleil.
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Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum: it was both a museum of world culture (eastern, egyptian, greek, roman, native american artifacts), Canadian historical museum, and natural history museum featuring dinosaurs!
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Kelly in front of the Royal Ontario Museum
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A saber toothed tiger!
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A mastodon (I think). These fossil skeletons were my favorite part of the museum!
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A t-rex!
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A giant fish and a giant sea turtle.
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Casa Loma: Canada's "castle". An ultra-rich guy in the early 1900s (Henry Pellatt) built this castle from 1911-1914. Pellatt made his fortune in real estate in the Canadian Northwest as well as bringing hydro-electricity to Canada for the first time. Then he lost his fortune because Toronto made electricity a public institution a year later, and soon after the Great Depression hit. He only lived in this castle for 10 years, and ended up broke.
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anyway, it's a beautiful castle, and has been operating as a museum by the Kiwanas Club since the 1930s.
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Casa Loma
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Casa Loma
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View of the city from the tower at Casa Loma
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Toronto's CN Tower - when it was built - the tallest tower in the world, now just one of the tallest.
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Toronto's Financial District, as seen from the CN Tower
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Atop the CN Tower
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Part of the tower had a see-through floor - so, I had a rest on it.
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Looking down to the ground through the see-through tower.
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Panaromic view of the tiny airport on Toronto Island.
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Toronto's chinatown - fun place!
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After a Saturday night, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday in Toronto, we drove to Niagara Falls Tuesday night -- here's our first view of the falls!
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Viwe from our hotel window!! We booked our hotel in Niagara Falls through Priceline, and started off with a dark and depressing room with a fantastic view of...another wall. Kelly worked her magic and got us a free upgrade to a falls view room. Fantastic!
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We spent Wednesday visiting some wineries in the Niagara-on-the-Lake wine country -- here is a truck delivering a load of grapes to one of the wineries.
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Dumping a bunch of grapes
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a vineyard in Niagara-on-the-Lake
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Fermenting tanks in the winery
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Cellar filled with oak barrels at the winery
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Cellar filled with oak barrels at the winery
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To get from winery to winery, we rented bikes and rode around all afternoon. We had a fantastic day for it.
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Visiting another winery
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Visiting another winery
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Closeup of grapes on a vine
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Kelly in a vineyard
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Both of us in the vineyard
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At another winery - Kelly finding her new love -- this was a winery specializing in Icewine - thus the polar bear.
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Niagara-on-the-Lake
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Kelly on her bike
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Relaxing at the end of our day
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Relaxing at the end of our day
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On Thursday, we visited the falls up close and personal - though not quite as close as this guy, what a job! He's about 2 feet from the water, about 40 feet from the falls. And yes, he is fastened to a railing with climbing gear.
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The Niagara river violently flowing a bit upriver from th efalls
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The horseshoe falls with a Maid of the Mist ferry getting ready to enter the basin of the falls. We took a ride on this boat later this afternoon! The horseshoe falls are apparently always very, very misty, making it difficult to ever get a clear view of them!
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Niagara Falls has two separate waterfalls separated by an island - here is the American Falls - typically much clearer with less mist.
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Here we are in front of the American falls
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A panoramic shot showing both falls with so-named Goat Island in the middle.
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Another shot of the American Falls - traveler's tip -- make sure to visit the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, that's where all the views are!
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The Horseshoe Falls once again
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American Falls
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Next to the American Falls is a series of scaffolding allowing tourists to get up close and personal with the falls -- this tour is called the Cave of the Winds, though you don't go through any caves...
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We're now taking our turn on the Maid of the Mist, preparing to get drenched!
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Viewing the falls from the Maid of the Mist ferry boat
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Viewing the falls from the Maid of the Mist ferry boat
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Viewing the falls from the Maid of the Mist ferry boat -- another rainbow!
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On the Maid of the Mist -- getting soaked in the basin of the Horsehoe Falls! Part of your ride fee includes the blue ponchos.
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Some of of fellow tourists on the ferry, all sporting the ponchos.
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Back at the dock to depart, poncho off, looks completely different!
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Getting ready to go out for dinner.
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I think Kelly wanted me to smile. Instead, I guess I was demonstrating my hunger!
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Kelly being normal - that's no fun!
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Niagara's Clifton Hill street, where all the terrible touristy crap is -- lots of awful neon -- though, it was amusing.
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Niagara's Clifton Hill street.
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We spent our Friday on the New York side, starting off with a 4 hour hike downstream from the falls. We traveled down 450 steps into the gorge created by the Niagara Rver, and then along the river to see some incredibly powerful Stage 6 rapids (no rafting here - much too powerful), and back up.
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Jay along the hike.
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Jay along the hike.
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Kelly along the hike.
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We did it! At the "End of Trail". Kelly wouldn't let me go much further... We did climb atop that big rock to my left to eat our lunch.
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The mighty Niagara River
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Kelly hiking
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Self shot of us
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Jay contemplating whether it was worth getting yelled at by Kelly to get a little closer.
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More rapids on the River
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Another self shot of us.
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Finally we found someone to take a proper photo of us!
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Hiking through a pile of rocks leftover from a landslide in the past - the trail had several areas like this, always my favorite part!
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The beginning of the 450 steps back to the top.
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Climbing back up.
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Now, visiting the falls from the American side of the river. You can get quite close to them! But you can only ever see the American Falls, never getting a proper view the Horseshoe Falls.
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Across the river is some of the hotels on the Canada side. We stayed at the tower on the far right (the tallest one). We were on floor 25 of 51.
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At a park with the up close view of the Horseshoe Falls
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The best view of the American Falls from New York.
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There is a five-minute fireworks show every Friday night over the American Falls. We enjoyed from the comfort of our hotel room!
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Fireworks.
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On Saturday, we drove halfway home to Cleveland, and stopped to visit Kelly's brother Kevin and his fiance Kyleen. On Sunday morning, we went for a short hike before heading home. On our hike.
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Jay, Kelly, Kyleen and Kevin.
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A pretty trail.
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Walking along the trail.
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