Category: Away we go

Planning for Nova Scotia

When we started planning our cross-country road trip to the east coast, we didn’t have much of an idea of what we wanted. East, because none of us have been further east in Canada than Quebec City, and ocean because we loved our family vacation to Bar Harbor, Maine in 2007, and because I love anything to do with water and beaches and boating.

After weeks of poking through links to vacation rentals, maps and family activities, and talking to anyone who would offer an opinion, we managed to narrow our focus from “east” to Nova Scotia, and then to the Lunenburg area. I figured if we were going to drive 18 hours to get near the ocean, we simply must stay somewhere actually adjacent to the ocean or at least with easy access or direct sight of it. I found this adorable seaside cottage that’s literally across the road from the ocean — the beach crawls right up to the road in front of the house, there’s a harbour a stone’s throw away, and you look out across the bay to the town of Lunenburg. I’m so excited I can barely stand it!!

Other than booking five nights at the cottage, though, our plans are pretty wide open. We figure we’ll make the hour and a half trek into Halifax one day, and maybe stop by Peggy’s Cove on the way home. Lunenburg is only 15 minutes away, so I’m sure we’ll spend a bit of time there. The cottage rental includes day passes to nearby Ovens Natural Park, which has some wicked-cool looking oceanside cliffs and caves — which I’m sure are completely appropriate for toddlers — but also a swimming pool and playground and a place where you can pan for gold! And since we’ve gone to the bother of making our way all the way to the ocean, there will be boating of some kind. And, um, I might take a picture or two. Ahem.

So talk to me, bloggy peeps. Do you have any recommendations for must-see family activities around Lunenburg, or Halifax? We’re planning on staying at a Days Inn or Comfort Inn or one of those non-descript, no more than a place to lie your head kind of hotels in Edmunston NB on the way down and back, simply because it’s cheap and half way, but I’d be open to your suggestions of other places to stay to break up the trip.

We’re facing about 18 hours of driving each way, which is a bit intimidating (especially given that two of the three kids have tendencies toward car sickness) but not the least of my worries. You know what really freaks me out?

The ocean. And I’ll blog about that tomorrow!

Talk to me about Nova Scotia!

Hey bloggy peeps, talk to me about Nova Scotia. We’ve been to Bar Harbor in Maine and Quebec City, but we’ve always wanted to go to Nova Scotia and have started talking about driving out there this summer. Three little kids in the car for four or five solid days of driving? Who wouldn’t want to do that? *wink*

I know some of you either have done a similar trip, live out there now or have lived there in the past, so I’m crowdsourcing your thoughts and opinions. I’m not even completely married to the idea of NS, if you think I should stop in New Brunswick or head over to PEI instead. I’d *really* like to visit Newfoundland, but I’m worried that the drive to Nova Scotia might be on the outer reaches of too far, let alone all the way up to the Rock.

I’m leaning toward Lunenburg, simply because someone suggested it to me and from what I’ve read it sounds lovely. Ideally, we’d find a seaside cottage big enough to accommodate all five of us with kid-friendly amenities. This looks like a good choice, for example, although I’m a little concerned about the size.

So tell me — what must we see in the Maritimes? What should we avoid? And, for those of you who travel regularly between Ontario and Nova Scotia, could you suggest a good place to break the trip into two manageable days? 16 hours of driving is out of the question right now, but eight hours times two days is feasible if we can find something fun to do along the way. I’m even open to making the trip out in three days, if we can find things worth seeing and doing on the way out there.

Any advice, insight or tips would be greatly appreciated!

The lion that roared

We zipped down to Southern Ontario this weekend to visit my brother’s family for my neice’s and nephew’s joint birthday party. The low point was standing at the side of the 401 on Friday afternoon, having just cleaned vomit off a toddler and his car seat, unable to get the lock on the Thule roof rack to engage and making contingency plans in my head like “if we pile the contents of the suitcases in the car around our feet and leave the suitcases themselves on the side of the road, we might be able to fit everything into the vehicle.” Luckily, it didn’t come to that, but I am not overly impressed by the fickleness of the lock system on the Thule.

The high point was visiting the Toronto Zoo with my brother’s family on Sunday afternoon. I love the Toronto Zoo madly, and we make it out there about every second or third year.

Tristan has been working on a Grade 2 science project, in which he had to choose an animal and make a diorama of the animal in its habitat out of a shoe box. We blew off most of last Sunday afternoon actually constructing the diorama (have I mentioned how much I love the homework?) but thought stopping off to visit the lions on the way home from our mini-vacation would give him some real-life perspective to add to his oral presentation.

The weather was perfect for a visit to the zoo. It was mild for November, although grey and cloudy. Because we visited off-season, the parking was free but a few animals had been removed from their habitats for the winter. I’m not sure if it was a factor of the time of day we visited or the weather conditions or dumb luck, but every animal seemed to be out frolicking and putting on a show. It was easily the most interesting visit to the zoo I can recall.

Since we were still facing a four-hour drive home to Ottawa after the zoo, we didn’t have time to meander as much as I might have liked. We peeked in at the elephants, laughed at the bathing hippopotamuses, admired the gangly giraffes, and were delighted by the antics of the baboon family.

The lions are at more or less the farthest point from the parking lot, so the kids were already starting to get tired by the time we got to the lion enclosure. Each other time I’ve visited the zoo, the lions were simply lying majectically in the sun with imperious and inscrutable expressions. Yesterday, though, we must have wandered by just behind the zoo keepers, because the lion and lioness were both munching happily on the bloody remains of something meaty.

Lion eating

Once he had finished his lunch, the lion got up and wandered over to the lioness and tried to get her attention, but she was still eating. He stretched and did that kneading-with-his-paws things that cats do — so cute! — and then wandered away again. Then suddenly there was this sound… I looked all around at first, thinking there was some sort of speaker that was amplifying the noise, but there wasn’t. It was the most intense, low-pitched rumbling noise and it actually took me a minute to realize it was the lion. He wasn’t exactly roaring, just kind of grumbling, but holy crap! If that was him mumbling to himself, I can only image how terrifying an actual angry roar must sound. Aha, I thought to myself, so that’s why he’s the king of the jungle! It was truly the experience of a lifetime, just to feel that rumbling roar deep in my own chest — well worth the $70 admission price to the zoo!

Obviously looking for mischief, he wandered back over to the lioness and they tussled for a bit, making me wonder if what we’d heard wasn’t some sort of rutting call. And then they stretched back out on the grass and went back to looking imperial and inscrutable.

Lion and lioness

As if that weren’t enough to make the trip memorable, we wandered over to the polar bear enclosure just in time to see one polar bear push another one right into the pond. And right behind them, the wolves took to a mid-day howl… the sound set the hair at the back of my neck on end.

It was well past the boys’ bed times by the time we finally rolled into Ottawa last night, but it was such a memorable trip to the zoo that I think we all agreed it was well worth it. Not to mention the fact that Tristan now has some excellent first-hand knowledge of lions for his science project, and I got a whole bunch of photo fodder!

Zoo mosaic

(As always, you can see the full set on Flickr.)

Ottawa’s Hidden Treasures: Crysler Beach

Looking for a perfect “stay-cation” adventure near Ottawa? How about a miniature train ride and a day on the water at Crysler Beach? It’s a lovely hour’s drive through the charming small towns along highway 31 to the St Lawrence Seaway — totally worth the drive on a sunny summer day that also happens to be your birthday, especially if your in-town beach plans were marred by a colossal sewage dump a couple of miles downstream from your favourite (Britannia) beach.

We visit Upper Canada Village almost every year, and we’ve taken a spin on the miniature train almost every time… but we’ve never gotten off the train at the far terminus of Crysler Beach before. After hearing it recommended a couple of times, we decided to try it out with my brother’s visiting family and my mom last Saturday.

We got a slow start to the day, so it was nearly lunch time when we arrived at Upper Canada Village. We stopped for our favourite lunch of Village-made fresh bread and cheese, and a few other goodies from the snack bar, and enjoyed them on the patio.

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You don’t have to pay the admission to Upper Canada Village to enjoy the snack bar and gift shop, nor to ride the train. There is a small fee for the train ride, though — I think it’s $5 for adults and $3 for kids over four or something to that effect. The train runs every half hour, and you can get off at the Crysler Beach station or stay on for the full loop.

train at the station

The train ride to Crysler Beach is a lovely little 15 minute jaunt, complete with a ride under a covered bridge and a run alongside the St Lawrence River. The point you can see is the breakwater just on the edge of the beach.

St Lawrence Seaway

The beach itself is quite a bit larger than I was expecting. It has covered changerooms and washrooms on site, and apparently there’s a play structure, too, but we didn’t make it that far. I’d’ve liked it a lot better if there were a lot less goose poop and a few less rocks — there’s about two feet at the very edge of the surf that are painful to walk on, and then the bottom gets sandy again.

Tristan and Simon

Of course, sometimes rocks are not a bad thing. Lucas’s new word for the day, in fact, was an enthusiastic “RRRROX!”

fingers in the surf

It’s a good beach for little kids, because while the slope is a little steeper than the gentle grade at Britannia, it’s still fine for kids who are steady on their feet. My not-quite-three year old niece had a blast! And even on a calm day, there’s just enough surf to be fun to play in.

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Of course, you don’t need to get wet to enjoy the beach…

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Tristan

Once you’ve had your fill of sun and surf (and stones), just wander back to the train station and catch the next loop back to Upper Canada Village.

Crysler beach station

A game of tag with Granny helps to pass the time while you wait for the train…

catch me

here comes the train

And if you happen to have a few extra minutes before you hop in the car for the hour-long drive back to Ottawa, Lucas has an excellent suggestion for the perfect end to your adventure, at the Upper Canada Village store:

great idea

Next time we go, I’d love to do an overnight camping trip at the St Lawrence Park (they have sites with both pre-pitched tents and little cabins, from what I understand) and make our way over to see the dinosaurs at Prehistoric World!

(As always, there are even more pictures on Flickr…)

Five things about Great Wolf Lodge

When planning our family vacation this year, it was Great Wolf Lodge that pulled us to Niagara Falls and not the other way around. I’d been hearing rave reviews about GWL from other families for a while, and though I thought it was rather overpriced, when my sister-in-law said she could share her teacher’s discount, it seemed more reasonable. Lucky for us, about a month after we made our reservation I stumbled onto a special offer for 50% off July prices, so we ended up paying about $180 a night — a little steep for your ‘average’ hotel accommodation, but entirely affordable when you factor in the cost of five unlimited-use passes to the best water park we’ve ever visited. (And I do love me a good water park!)

In the end, I have to say that the good points outweighed the bad points, but there were a few things that keep me from raving with satisfaction (is that an oxymoron?) about our experience. Here are five things about Great Wolf Lodge:

1. There is a wide variety of fun water-based activities for just about any age group. There were tiny slides for the littlest ones (Lucas was just an inch or two too short to try them, but my 2 year old niece had a blast) and more than one pool that started out at zero depth with a comfortable grade — perfect for toddlers. There were bigger slides that were perfect for adventurous five- and seven-year-olds (even Simon, who doesn’t like slides at the park, loved these!) and some really big slides that were fun for grown-ups or grown-ups and kids to ride together.

Fountain fun at Great Wolf Lodge

2. They have an excellent wristband security system. Although I was mildly irritated by the constant presence of the wrist band, it more than made up for the irritation with sheer convenience. Not only does the wrist band allow you access to the water park, but it acts as a room key so you just wave your wristband in front of the door lock to let yourself in. Loved it! Also, the wristbands activated the lockers provided in the water park, which I wish I’d known the first and second day we were there — I’d have more in-park pictures if I’d known I could leave my camera somewhere safe and dry! When I asked if I had to put and keep one on Lucas, the desk staff said yes, but that on a daily basis they used the system to reunite separated kids and parents. It was great not to have to worry about room keys, and the kids loved the novelty and independence of being able to unlock the doors themselves.

3. Everything is oriented to kids. In our case, this is a good thing – others might not agree! You can’t get a less-expensive room if you aren’t planning on using the water slides, for example, so Granny and Papa Lou decided not to come with us this year. But they do offer fun things like crafts and stories for the kids, and even the food on site is heavily geared to kiddie tastes. There’s even a kiddie spa on site, but my boys weren’t particularly interested in getting a mani or a pedi.

4. The place is extremely clean and the staff are super-friendly. Maybe even a little too friendly! The constant refrain of “Have a Great Wolf Day!” wears a little thin by the end of the first day. But I have to say, I was impressed when I called down to the desk to ask about on-site first aid. Lucas had seen a life-sized Bob the Builder (literally Lucas-sized) in the gaming arcade and made a beeline for it, not seeing the sharp edge of the air hockey table between him and Bob, and ended up with a nasty bump and cut just milimeters from his eye. I didn’t even see the cut until we were on our way back up to the room, but it was still bleeding almost a half an hour later, so the desk clerk sent up a couple of the lifeguards with first-aid training to take a look at him. He was fine, but I had to laugh when one of the (barely) 20-something girls suggested I hold some ice on his eye for 15 minutes after he fell asleep when he wouldn’t sit still long enough for me to keep an ice pack on him while he was awake.

Great Wolf Lodge

5. This is really the only negative thing I have to say about Great Wolf Lodge, but considering the price, a few more inclusions and amenities would be nice. It was the nickel-and-diming for the extras that most irritated me. For example, the website says “There’s a bunk bed and TV, so they can “rough it” with movies and Nintendo,” but the you had to pay $8 an hour to play the Nintendo. Not that we needed the video games, but I did feel that it was false advertising to insinuate on their website that it was included when there was an extra charge. There was mini-golf on site, but that was an extra fee as well — it would have been $18 just for Tristan, Simon and I to play… about double what we usually pay. And when I asked at the desk on check-in if there was anything special I could do for our ten-year wedding anniversary, the clerk suggested I buy a cake at the bakery down stairs. Not exactly what I’d had in mind. (Heck, even a free round of mini-golf would have been nice!)

My recommendations to improve Great Wolf Lodge? Some nice terry bathrobes in the rooms would be a lovely touch. The cabin theme with the bunks is great for the kids, but other than that the rooms are pretty stark of comforts for the grown-ups. And, a courtesy phone in the water-park area would be much appreciated so one doesn’t have to truck three dripping kids across the lobby to find one. (It would have been easier to simply walk everyone back up to the room!)

In the end, we enjoyed our stay enough that I imagine we’ll be coming back for a return visit, and I’d recommend it to anyone with a high tolerance for noise and chaos. Luckily, with three boys I’m pretty much immune to both by now.

Five things I learned in Niagara Falls

We’re freshly back from three days in Niagara Falls. It was a terrific trip for many reasons, including spending time with our extended family and excellent behaviour on the part of all five kids in attendance. Here, in no particular order, are five things I learned in Niagara Falls. (The “five things” bit is a new idea I had. I think it’s a neat new theme with a lot of potential!)

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1. My boys are excellent travelers! Tristan and Simon have long since proved their roadworthiness, but even Lucas – who fusses on the drive to the grocery store – was an angel in the car. On the way home, we drove straight through from Niagara Falls to Ottawa with only one stop (in Belleville, where we stretched and dined at the Quinte Mall.)

161:365 Road Trip!


3. Don’t let the weather forecast get you down. They were calling for grey skies and rain (and egads, even snow!) in the week leading up to our trip, but the weather was damn near perfect. Cloudy with plenty of sunny breaks, mild enough for shorts but cool enough for walking. It was perfect weather for gazing at the Falls!

162:365 At Niagara Falls

(Or, perfect weather for gazing at each other!)

"Hey Dad, I can't see a thing!"

This is just a gratuitous shot of the Falls because I like it so much!

Niagara Falls


3. You can take 600 pictures of your boys and still not manage to get them to smile nicely once. Sigh.

More Niagara Falls
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Simon rocks out

4. The time for the “Thou Shall Not Leave My Line Of Sight” lecture is *before* you arrive at the crazy indoor waterpark, not after. Within the first half hour we arrived, I’d had to scoop up Lucas and run into the deep part of the wave pool to rescue a floundering Simon (the lifeguards hadn’t even noticed him, even though he was crying and flailing) and spend more than half an hour climbing up and down stairs searching the water park for Tristan and Simon, who’d wandered off behind their uncle. The place is so noisy that I’d spot them but couldn’t make them hear me hollering (despite my shrillest voice, which is pretty damn shrill) and they’d’ve moved on by the time I made my way down to where they were.

(This is not an image of my kids drowning or disobeying me, but one of the few times I brought my camera into the water park at Great Wolf Lodge.)

(Edited to add: Found this picture on my back-up memory card, and thought it was cute enough to share! It’s the still photo companion to the video above!)

Fountain fun at Great Wolf Lodge

5. A ride on the Maid of the Mist is an excellent way to spend Canada Day! (I was determined to bring my Nikon with me, but was deeply worried about water damage. In the end, I cut a hole in one corner of a large ziploc freezer bag and trimmed it to the exact size of my lens, then taped the edges to my polarizing filter. Ghetto solution, but it worked!!)

This is the Maid of the Mist from above, approaching the Horseshoe Falls:

Horseshoe Falls at Niagara

And this is the view of the American Falls from the Maid of the Mist:

American Falls

My favourite Canada Day shot:

163:365 Happy Canada Day!

(There may or may not be another post about our trip in the near future. I’m struggling with the “and then we did this, and then we did that” travelogue narrative — it seems a little like torturing you with the verbal equivalent of vacation slides! But if you like the pictures, there’s more on Flickr!)

Niagara Falls recommendations?

So in the past few years, we’ve ventured to Quebec City, Bar Harbor, Smuggler’s Notch, and Lake Placid on our summer vacations. This year, we wanted something within easy driving range, and in Canada because none of us have our passports. I’d heard a lot of good things about Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls. They have indoor and outdoor water slides, water parks for big and little kids, and fun rooms kitted out like cabins. When I mentioned it to my brother and his wife, they were foolishly enthusiastic about joining us. Five kids between one and seven — should be a blast!

We got a great discount for Great Wolf Lodge when we booked back in March. I don’t know if it’s still available, but when we booked we got 50% off any July reservation with coupon code “Tradition.” So the water parks should take up a good portion of our time — we’re only staying two nights — but we’re also planning to visit Marineland and of course, the Falls themselves.

It’s been 20+ years since I’ve been to Niagara Falls, and I really don’t remember much about it. I’d like to really do the tourist thing and try the Maid of the Mist tour, but I’m not sure how that is for kids. Note to self: bring sandwich baggies to protect camera!

Any recommendations for things to do with young kids in Niagara Falls? Thoughts on tackling Marineland with a toddler? Restaurant recommendations also welcome!

(And no, I promise, I did not book this year’s vacation based on potential photo opportunities. Well, okay, maybe just a little bit…)

Imagine if the trip to Lake Placid had been this, well, placid

Suckers for punishment that we are, we decided on one last road trip this summer. We loaded the boys into the van and drove across the province, through the unbelievably picturesque Algonquin Park, to see the boys paternal grandparents, Mimi and Pipi.

If nothing else, the trip completely restored my confidence in our ability to enjoy a road trip. That, and the boys had the chance to drive Pipi’s boat, go fishing, and feed the chipmunks that Mimi and Pipi have tamed with a steady stream of peanuts.

These are a few of my favourite moments:

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The full set of photos is here. (And, if you’re wondering, the answer is yes, I have spent the entire summer with Lucas in one hand and my Nikon in the other!)

Lake Placid vacation part five: afterwords

A couple of you have commented on the fact that we were brave to take a vacation like this with the kids, and looking back I see I’ve painted a rather revisionist rosy shade on our vacation. We did have a great time, but I have to be honest — this was a terribly stressful trip.

We just never got our equilibrium back after the trip down, I think. I was snappish with my family, which I hate, and I was hard on the kids. I was tired because Lucas is going through a phase where he wakes up looking for his soother about six times a night and tense because I knew I not behaving well and couldn’t quite control it. Lucas has started solids but is just a little bit too small and slumpy to be able to sit in those restaurant high chairs, so mealtimes were extra stressful. I think he was suffering from a combination of my stress and the stomach virus the rest of the family (save me) went through on the trip, because he cried a lot. One of the big boys was whiny with stomach cramps and the other forgot to pack his listening ears for the trip, and I was short-tempered with both of them. That, and the infernal rain… What fun!

So it was a good trip, and in a way I’m glad I can paint these pictures in the blog so it looks more like I wanted it to turn out. But I’ve never ended a vacation with such a strong, visceral desire for a “do-over”; on the drive home, I wanted to do nothing more than go back to the hotel and have another four days so I could take another shot at it. It wasn’t Lake Placid that was disappointing, it was me, and I wanted a second chance. The feeling kept on for days, that odd desire to turn back time and have another go at it.

If I could do it all over again, I would. I’d just relax a little bit more. I’d admit, though, I’m glad that we’ll never again be vacationing with three under seven, one of whom is not yet six months old. It can only get easier from here, right?

Lake Placid vacation part four: Home by way of the North Pole

Last year when we were planning our trip to Bar Harbor, we toyed with places to visit on the way there. Knowing we’d cut across the top of New York State, some of the suggestions we got included the Ausable Chasm or the Lake Champlain Ferry (which we took). Both Marla and Nancy suggested — no, raved about — Santa’s Workshop in North Pole, New York. Nancy and Marla both – could there be a higher endorsement? And they were so very, very right.

Who knew? There really is a North Pole, New York. See?

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It’s the perfect park for the under-10 set. There’s a bouncy house and a train, there are shows and a Santa Parade. They have rides that are just right for little travelers:

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(That’s my niece and nephew in the first bobsled, and my boys in the second bobsled.)

But I have to say, we had the most fun with Santa’s reindeer. You know I have a thing about reindeer names, right? Well, we were all tickled to see that the Santa’s Workshop people got it right.

Donder!

Not content to simply admire the bridle on the wall like I did, Papa Lou got into the act. Erm, into the bridle, actually.

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And here’s another one of my brother bonding with Donder himself.

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*shrugs* It’s a family thing.

But even for people not named after one of Santa’s reindeer, this park is worth the stop. I’m sure the clear blue skies — no, really! — helped to bias me in it’s favour, but it was simply delightful. And there was practically nobody else there; a couple of times, the boys just walked up and got on the rides without having to wait. (Empty as it was, though, we actually ran into friends of ours also down from Ottawa in the park. What are the odds?!?)

So if you ever find yourself in the neighbourhood of Lake Placid, looking to entertain the wee ones, I can’t say enough nice things about Santa’s Workshop. It made the drive home a perfectly lovely counterpoint to the hellish drive down!

(If you liked them, you can see the full set of my Lake Placid photos on Flickr.)