October 22-23, 2016
Last weekend, E and I took a quick long road trip through Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York up to Niagara Falls and Toronto in Canada. In terms of traveling, I generally prefer to prioritize the quality of visiting countries over the quantity of countries visited. My favorite part of traveling is that it does not matter how many times I visit a country, I always learn something new. However, a year ago I noticed that I had visited 25 countries. Initially, I wanted to completely fill up my passport, but that proved to be much more difficult than expected since I have three pages to fill in 1 year and 1/2 before I have to renew. Instead, I decided that visiting 30 countries by the time I am 30 would be a much more reasonable goal. Since Canada is so close and I had yet to visit it, taking a road trip to Niagara Falls and Toronto during peak autumn season seemed perfect to add my 28th country.
We started in Maryland at 6am in the morning on Saturday and arrived at Niagara Falls just before sunset. The trip is supposed to take about 7 hours of continuous driving; however we took a few stops along the way. We first stopped in New York at Letchworth State Park. Of course, the multitude of fall colors lining the roadways painted a gorgeous vista. However, Letchworth’s waterfall combined with a perfectly aligning sun and rainbows contrasted against the falling leaves created a scenery that epitomizes why autumn is my favorite season. We took a small hike to a bridge passing over the largest waterfall, only to find it closed off. Even still, the scenery felt quite refreshing for a wonderful break from city life.
We did not spend too much time at Letchworth State Park, so we were back on the road and on our way to Buffalo. We ate a dinner of buffalo wings in Buffalo at Duff’s Famous Wings. Although Duff’s is a well-known wings restaurant, I found their wings a little over-rated, but their beer was pretty good. We then continued onto the US-Canada border and into Niagara Falls. We arrived at Niagara Falls right around sunset. We considered going back in the morning, but I felt that we could not have arrived at Niagara Falls at a better time. When it started to turn dark, we returned to our car and headed to our bed and breakfast, A Robinsong Bed and Breakfast in Thorold. If anyone is looking for a place to stay near Niagara Falls that isn’t in a touristic area, I highly suggest this B&B. The owners run it out of their house and showed excellent hospitality. They provided us with a homemade breakfast in the morning and have been quite flexible with our stay. One word of notice, we organized our stay via Expedia by using our credit card. However, Expedia did not notify us that this B&B does not take credit card even though the owners have frequently alerted Expedia to this problem. Since we did not have enough cash or any checks, We had to send them a check when we returned home on Monday.
We left mid-morning on Sunday to finish our drive to Toronto. We did not have a lot of time in Toronto, so after visiting the CN Tower, we walked around the city, grabbed some lunch and then left. Honestly, I found Toronto a little underwhelming because it did not feel like a dynamic city with a lot of activity. Maybe Toronto seemed quiet because it was a Sunday, but I guess that I just have to go back sometime and experience Toronto to deeper extent.
After Toronto, we had one more stop to go before driving home. E told me about the wineries around Niagara that specialize in ice wine. Ice wine is a type of wine fermented from frozen grapes, making the wine much more concentrated and much sweeter. With me and my sweet tooth, I of course wanted to go for a wine tasting. We stopped in the Ice House Winery and enjoyed a tasting of slushie cabernet sauvignon, vidal, riesling, cabernet franc, and cabernet franc mixed with a dry white wine. All were quite interesting and honestly, I am not sure how I feel about the sweetness of wine. I generally do not like alcoholic drinks to be sweetened (unless it is a cocktail) because the sweetness often feels out of place. Ice wine pushed this opinion. I loved it as a slushie and mixed with a dry white wine. Yet, I am still not quite sure what I think of ice wine on its own. Well, we bought two bottles, vidal and cabernet franc, so I do get another chance at trying ice wine.
We left Canada at around sunset on Sunday and drove directly home, only to stop for gas, to switch drivers, or to stretch our legs. Although the trip exhausted us, I am glad we went. Traveling always provides some stress relief and with a hectic life in DC, getting out of the city is a much needed reprieve.
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