Niagara Falls Vacation

After 18 years of marriage and 3 kids Clair and I decided it was time to try to go away on vacation. A real vacation. Away from the house, parents, in-laws, work, the house, the ongoing repairs, the kitchen etc…Some place new.

Usually Clair and I would take time off each year, a week in July, a week in August and just go sightseeing in our own city, Toronto. There is so much around us that we have been able to keep ourselves busy for the 10 days we take off with the kids in the summer. Ontario Place, Centre Island, The ROM, Science Centre, High Park, Wonderland (once), CNE , the beach etc. Its never been an issue with our kids but this time we wanted to try something different.

Katie suggested we go to Ottawa, since she had missed out on going there last year with her class. Yes we were paranoid and didn’t let her go. But Ottawa sounded boring and I didn’t think that there would be much to do there for the smaller kids or myself for that matter.

Clair suggested Montreal but currently the Quebecer French and I are not on good speaking terms. They refuse to speak English and I refuse to visit a place that’s going to have me clench my butt in anger each time I try to ask someone a question only to be told. “Es que vous parle Francais?”…I know they speak English and understand. Truth be told, I can actually speak and understand enough French to probably get by but I am just as stubborn.

Emily was the one that had the clever idea of going to Niagara Falls. Actually she wanted to go to Marineland after seeing and hearing the incessant amount of advertising on television and radio.

Clair and I looked into it and before we knew it, our first trip in 18 years was booked. 5 days and 4 nights at the Comfort Inn on Cliffton Hills. We even booked a pool-side room. I haven’t been swimming in years and contrary to popular belief not all Portuguese instinctively know how to swim. Everyone figures we do.

We booked it for August the 4th and we would be travelling on Via Rail. What a deal too. Kids under 10 travelled free so we only had to pay for Clair, Katie and myself. All-round trip for 5 people $126.00. We booked the hotel and even took them up on their Fun Pass offers to see some sights including the wax museums, rides and the maid of the mist experience.

As the day got closer, we became more and more anxious . Its only for 5 days and its only to Niagara Falls but when you haven’t left your city for 18 years, it may as well be Rome or Egypt, which we will also do one day.

Two weeks before our trip we heard the bad news. Via Rail was going on strike. We couldn’t believe it. The city was already going through some other strikes. Outside workers (garbage), inside workers and now this. What rotten luck. Of all the times for them to go on strike it would be during the time we had chosen to finally get away. We scrambled to figure out how to get there and settled on purchasing tickets on the Grey Hound. No offence to Grey Hound but compared to Via Rail, It felt like booking a 4 star hotel and ending up in a trailer park. Luckily though, the strike lasted one day and so the vacation was back on.

We bought all the final supplies we figured we would need including new suit cases. In actuality these were our first and only suitcases we had ever owned. Prior to this, whenever we had to go somewhere overnight, if that ever occurred, we used school and shopping bags to haul our stuff. We also bought some new T-shirts for all of us and shorts, swimming trunks, extra memory for the cameras, even new sandals.

On the night before, we had everything packed and ready in the hallway for the next morning. I had even arranged for my mom to come over to the house and look in on things including Salem the cat. He had enough food and water to last him 2 weeks but he needed the company. She would also be bringing in the mail and the green and blue bins into the backyard. The day we left was also going to be the first day of garbage collection after the 5 week garbage strike and I didn’t want the bins lying around all week on the sidewalk. Toronto Garbage collectors are notorious for tossing the bins back onto the sidewalk and where they lie is where they stay.

The kids went to bed early at around 8:30-9pm. Emily and Brandyn were out even before their heads hit the pillow. Katie was doing her “thing”, whatever that was, for a bit after 9pm and even I decided, for a change, that I would go to bed early myself at 10pm. My usual down time is normally 1:30-2:00am .

We figured we needed to be up by 5:30am to leave the house by 7:30am to be at Union Station to catch the Via Train by 8:30am. I had been told that Via Rail prides itself on being on time. It took me about 30 minutes to fall asleep and the last thing I saw was 10:28 displayed on the clock and thinking I’m never going to fall asleep and we are going to miss the train…but I slept and spent the night dreaming that we had missed the train and then also dreamt that we had caught up to the train but I had forgotten the tickets at home….but that was just a dream……