Travels with Owen

Baba and Grandpa have more fun adventures planned for Stanley tomorrow.  There’s no snow here and it’ll be 86 degrees F today and tomorrow so we’ll do some outdoor stuff. 

Called a sea day even though we’re on a lake!  We started with a beautiful sunrise

Monkey

Lots of fun historical sites here including a lighthouse, the chamber of commerce museums of an outdoor innovator and Escanaba’s contributions to various wars, and the history association museum.

Fabulous displays at Ford museum in Dearborn

Saying goodbye to Cleveland

A fun town with brightly colored buildings and an awesome farmers market

Toronto has one of the easiest and fastest customs systems I’ve used.  They have sleek entry modules (basically a laptop keyboard, screen and fancy camera) after you get off the plane.  You enter in your information, scan your passport, take a selfie, and get a strip of paper with your group’s photos that you take to the next station. They check it over, put a checkmark that it’s ok and off to the next station where they take it away and you go pick up your baggage.  No stamp in  your passport though at least for short visits.

At the airport, we took the train from the airpott ($1Canadian) to Union station.  It was a bit confusing getting to the train, (just keep following the signs, and ask questions if necessary) but ticketing was a breeze, just wave your credit card or phone over a presto reader and then hop on the train. There are luggage racks at the train entrance, which I highly recommend using.  The train starts out empty but is quickly standing room only.   Union station is the last stop and is well situated downtown. 

If you take a taxi from union station, make sure it’s an authorized taxi not a gypsy cab.  Uber and Lyft are available too.  Depending on where your hotel is located and how much luggage you have, you may find it easiest to walk there.  We had been traveling since 4 am so we took a Lyft to the Westin Harbour Castle, a huge hotel complex on the shores of Lake Ontario.

We lucked out and got a lake view room.  Stunning.

We spent the morning walking around the harbour. Toronto is a great city for walking, and has an extensive trolley system which uses the same presto system as the trains.  (More expensive, though — around $3.60/ trip.  That includes two hours of transfers, so you only have to swipe your phone the first time until the two hours are up.)

We also saw some fun buildings yesterday while waiting for our Lyft yesterday

Meanwhile, back at home, our dog Luca is having a grand time at doggy day care