Toronto, Ontario

Leaving the natural beauty of the Thousand Islands trail behind, it was time to deal with city life again as we hit Toronto at the far west of Lake Ontario.

Toronto is a huge city, Canada's largest, and one of many diverse neighbourhoods and appearances; it's been represented in movies as New York, Chicago, Washington DC and even Moscow.

Our half-day excursion centred around the downtown area.  First stop the CN Tower, Toronto's looming and not-particularly-attractive-up-close tourist trap.

By "trap", I mean that once you get inside, you discover that it costs $32 (plus tax) get to the lowest possible viewpoint.  The homeless people sitting by the front entrance should have been a dead giveaway really; I suspect they recently paid for dinner for two at the restaurant at the top of the tower and then realised they couldn't keep up with their mortgage repayments.

In fairness, the view of the city is outstanding:

They also have those floor standing binoculars that you sometimes see at the seaside:

They will cost you another $2 to use though so apparently once you're in, any additional viewing pleasure is charged by the mile.

We joined a large group of tourists admiring the tower's famous glass floor.  24 square metres of solid glass, 1,122 ft above ground level, the glass can allegedly support the weight of 14 hippos...

...Hands up if you thought a fat joke was coming then.  Too easy.  Anyway, I find it curious that they don't provide any details of how the glass floor is joined to the rest of the concrete flooring.  I'm no engineer but I would think, if anything, that would be the weak point.

Unfortunately, just as I was about to test my theory by walking on the glass, I remembered something critically important that needed doing over the other side of the room (look, I may be tall but that doesn't mean I have to like heights!).  Sharon managed to take a photo looking down through the floor of doom though:

Other attractions in the tower include a fairly outdated "4D" simulator ride where you ride on a log through the Amazon rainforest (I don't know what the connection is either), and the chance to see your lunch again by doing the EdgeWalk, a hands-free, outdoor stroll around the circumference of the roof, supported by a short rope (like what Karl Pilkington was challenged to do at the Macau Tower in An Idiot Abroad 3).

Now for this week's caption competition:

After the tower, we were drawn to the nearby Steam Whistle Brewery, which was pumping out "Avicii - Levels" on their outdoor terrace.  The party was a private function, but it turns out they offer tours of the brewery with a couple of free beers thrown in.

The premise of education provided the perfect cover for a bit of afternoon drinking and to be fair, the tour was very interesting and the beer very delicious.  They only use water, barley, hops and yeast in the making of their ale, as opposed to the hundreds of chemicals used by many other brewers, and they use a lot of European brewing techniques, so the taste was a bit closer to home.

I liked it enough to grab a couple of 6-packs on the way out.  Look how content I am, I'm a man of simple pleasures really:

With a few ales inside us and feeling slightly like a typical "Brit abroad" with 12 cans under my arm, we headed back to the subway and left Toronto to enjoy its evening.

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The Great Lakes / Thousand Islands Trail, Ontario

The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes spanning the north-eastern portion of the US / Canadian border.  Separately, the lakes are Ontario, Erie, Michigan, Huron and Superior.  Containing a fifth of the Earth's fresh water and with a total surface area of around 94,000 square miles, the word "lake" seems like a rare understatement in North American terms.  It's no wonder some people refer to the Lakes area as the "North Coast".   For all intents and purposes, watching the waters disappear over the horizon with the other side of the basin nowhere to be seen, you may as well be gazing out into the ocean.

You could easily spend a month touring the Lakes, time we unfortunately didn't have, but here's a rundown of the locations that took our interest as we snaked our way back towards the border and worried about how we would smuggle our various restricted foodstuffs and year's supply of alcohol back into the US.

Thousand Islands

The Thousand Islands region is an archipelago of nearly two thousand islands in the Saint Lawrence river, emerging from the north-eastern corner of Lake Ontario.  It's a popular sailing and fishing location, evident from the number of marinas that line the 50 mile long shores of the region.

It's also host to some great views and scenery that can be enjoyed without getting your feet wet, fortunate really given our decision to buy a bus instead of a boat.

We stayed the night for free in a viewpoint by the side of the road, choosing not to pay the extortionate campsite fees nearby.  Notice my amazing effort to be inconspicuous by parking under some trees (in my 10m coach with drum n bass blaring and enough antennae sticking out to be able to invite beings from a neighbouring galaxy round for dinner).

Kingston

The next day we followed the Thousand Islands trail to the end of the line at Kingston.  Kingston is an old town, known as the Limestone City because of its architecture.

It's full of stunning 18th and 19th century buildings, including not one but two correctional facilities, where the most heinous of Canada's crimes are punished (which, knowing the friendliness of Canadians, probably consists of not apologising when cutting someone off on the highway and the occasional scuffle at a hockey game).

We took to the town's waterfront trail, enjoyed more coastal vistas and complained more that we should have bought a boat.

We stopped and enjoyed a few beers at a friendly bar with a strange taste in artwork:

I feel like whoever painted this reached a critical point in the creative process where they could either add one more gondola to the picture, or a chubby guy riding a dolphin which happens to be getting stabbed by the spire of some inexplicably submerged church.  The dolphin thing would have been my choice too.

Kingston is also home to the Royal Military College of Canada and Fort Henry.  We stopped short of these locations without knowing they were there, but apparently at Fort Henry the guard staff conduct military demonstrations for the public, which presumably gives soldiers something to do while their country is busy never having any beef with any other countries!

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Ottawa, Ontario

Ottawa was our second stopover in Canada and another one I (vaguely) remember from my DJing days.  I remembered it being much less French than Montreal, which suited me as I was getting nowhere fast trying to get hold of a pay-as-you-go SIM card when we were in Montreal.  My French is decent enough but Quebec French is very different:  different accent, different slang, words have different meanings.  For all I know, I'd just spent a week loudly telling the locals that "the cat is in the swimming pool".

Our research told us that the Robert Guertin Arena was an RV-friendly place to stay for a few days in Ottawa.  Little did we know until we got there that it was located in the middle of Gatineau, Ottawa's Québécoise neighbour just across the river.  Still, it was a great base so we just had to practice our French for a few more days.

I got my first opportunity when I had to break up a fight between two homeless people shortly after arriving.  I enjoyed Bumfights as much as anyone, but it's a bit different when it's happening on your own doorstep.  Besides, one of them was covered in blood and the last time I cleaned the RV it took me an entire day, so I was keen to diffuse the situation before any bodily fluids started being thrown around.  Anyway, it's interesting to note that some of the harshest swear words seem to be pretty universal; I definitely made out a few C-bombs being dropped as one of the protagonists slurred obscenities at me like some French version of Ozzy Osborne.  Welcome to Ottawa!

Crazies aside, we loved our time in Ottawa.  The city and surrounding areas are riddled with cycle-paths, giving us plenty of opportunity to explore on our own terms.

Ottawa is Canada's capital city, chosen by Queen Victoria for its location right on the border between the East and West Canadian colonies, as well as its defensible position surrounded (at the time) by dense forest, while allowing easy transportation via the Ottawa River and Rideau Canal.

No surprise then that Parliament Hill with its impressive architecture is a focal point of the city.

Our cycle trails guided us along the river, providing some amazing views of the city:

Several statues watch over the river, like Samuel De Champlain here, founder of New France and Quebec City in 1608.

Our route led us into nearby Parc De La Gatineau, and a gruelling uphill cross-country slog to Pink Lake.

There's nothing pink about the hue of the water, so I can only assume the name refers to the colour of my vision by the time we finished the blood-vessel rupturing 4 hour trek to the viewpoint.

We had planned to walk around the lake once we got there, but shortly after this photo was taken, I decided that collapsing in a heap and waiting for my limbs to work again would be more productive.

Fortunately the return journey was a lot easier, downhill all the way.  As a mountain biker, you'd struggle to find such a perfect mix of scenery, taxing uphill work and exhilarating downhills so I'd recommend these trails to anyone interested in biking.

After all that work, our evening was a fairly short one, featuring several well-deserved beers and some delicious but over-priced local tapas.

We very nearly skipped Ottawa and if you look at Trip Advisor and similar websites, you could be forgiven for thinking that there isn't much there to draw the casual tourist.  We found plenty to keep us amused for a few days though, in fact in many ways it was our favourite of the 3 major Canadian cities we visited (the other two being Montreal and Toronto).  It's also very clean and, despite our eventful welcome to the city, seems noticeably short on run down areas and crime.

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Going Dark

So we've had virtually no access to the Internet in the last couple of weeks.  Don't worry, I'm fine, no obvious psychological damage so far, it was touch and go there for a while but I pulled through.

When we left Boston and Cape Cod, we travelled north to Adirondack Park in upstate New York.  With over 2000 miles of hiking and bike trails and 3000 lakes spread across 2.3 million (!) acres of mountains and forest, it seemed like the perfect place to put our newly bought bikes through their paces.

The whole park is basically a mobile black spot though and no amount of technology was going to help.  This wouldn't have been a problem, as we planned to get out into the great outdoors anyway, except that it decided to rain solidly, and heavily, for about 3 days straight.  We only found out about the Adirondacks recently and weren't expecting to have to be armed with wet/cold weather gear just yet anyway, so we were fairly unprepared for the apparent monsoon and freezing temperatures we found up there.  As a result we stayed holed up in the RV the majority of the time and really didn't get to see the best of this stunning area.

I guess you can't complain too much when your back garden looks like this in the morning:

It would have been nice to see more of the park than the 50 square feet we happened to land on though.  As the rain turned to snow, we both evidently had simultaneous visions of sliding back down the mountain in a 30ft bobsled, so we packed up quicker than ever before and got the hell out of there, enjoying the view of the Hudson river racing towards New York City on the way back down.

The Adirondacks are about as far north as you can get in New York before crossing the border into Canada, so we thought we may as well carry on northward and visit Montreal.

As we descended the mountains, we drove through the worst storm I've seen in a long while.  Imagine trying to drive a massive billboard through hurricane-speed crosswinds and you'll get the idea.  I assured myself that the weather would improve once we reached the lower land of Montreal, but unfortunately it carried on lashing it down for a good few days.

Crossing the border gave me some brief respite from trying to keep the RV on the road and was quite an interesting experience.  As we approached the barriers, the list of restricted items read like an inventory of the inside of our motorhome, including enough alcohol to keep George Best and Lindsay Lohan busy for about a week (what a party that would be), so I got ready to put on the blagging performance of my life as I handed our passports over.

We struck up a conversation with the border guard and I think he ended up being distracted by trying to conceal how utterly mental he thought we were for attempting this trip.  So we got through with minimal incriminating questions asked.  Bienvenue au Canada!

We were in Montreal at least a day before it stopped raining long enough for us to venture outside.  Still no Internet access; I had planned to do some research before we entered Canada and get us on a cheap mobile data plan but obviously couldn't do that up in the mountains.

When it finally stopped raining, we jumped on the subway and headed for the city centre.  When we got out, the sky was clear and sunny and the temperature had increased about 10 degrees, leading me to wonder just how long we'd been down there.

I've been to Montreal once before but I was there to DJ, so it was an entirely different kind of trip and my memory of it is slightly fuzzy!  So it was good to get the chance to visit again.  We only really scratched the surface this time as well though, missing landmarks like the Olympic Stadium.  The old town is very picturesque, if a little pretentious and we were already getting an impression of how ridiculously expensive Canada is compared to the USA.

We hung out with the locals for a while but conversation wasn't their strong point:

We soon got on the road again and made our way towards Ottawa, where I am currently typing this in 40 degree heat using the free wifi they kindly provide in the city.

And I think my eyebrows are sunburnt.  All in all a strange week!

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Boston, Massachusetts

By the time we reached Boston, I think the multitude of cities we had visited were all blurring together in our brains.  We were looking forward to getting out in the sticks and winding down for a while, but we weren't sorry that we made one of our last east coast stopovers here while we had the chance.

Many people recommend doing the "Freedom Trail" as a tourist in Boston.  It's a 2.5 mile brick-lined route that takes you around all the notable historical sites.  A great idea but sounded a bit too much like school for our tastes, so we did our usual thing of wandering around and discovering the city for ourselves, pub by pub.

Boston is another old city by American standards, but one that's kept youthful by its student population; there are numerous colleges in the area and Harvard University is in nearby Cambridge.  So there are plenty of decent bars around catering for all different demographics - we ate and sampled even more ale at a German bar I think.

Sharon's feet were apparently "about to drop off" due to all the walking we were doing, but as we turned the corner and found the shopping district, the prospect of spending some money once again proved to be a more potent painkiller than a double dose of morphine.  Plenty to keep the average shopaholic amused for days here, including a building featuring over 150 jewellers under one roof.  Guys, the address is 333 Washington Street.  Write it down and prepare a suitable diversion if you ever go to Boston with your other halves.  It's too late for me but maybe you can save yourselves!

We emerged from the Jewellery Exchange some time the following week I think, after an extraction effort by me that made the Chilean miners' rescue look like child's play.  Once our eyes had adjusted to daylight again, we headed to Boston Common and the Public Gardens to check out the scenery.

Boston Common is a fairly large expanse of park land in the centre of the city, featuring a couple of small man-made lakes.  Nothing particularly eye-catching to be honest, but a decent place to escape the hustle and bustle for a while.

Just across the road from the Common stands the much more impressive Public Gardens, complete with everything you'd expect, from statues and water features to a wide array of plant and floral life.

It's all immaculately kept and a nice place to stop for a snack, which very nearly got snatched right out of my hands by a cheeky squirrel, who literally scaled my left leg like some kind of denim tree trunk and tried to steal my bag of Doritos.  These animals need to learn that Adam doesn't share food!

Delinquent wildlife aside, I like it when cities make the effort to break up the sky scrapers and construction a bit and give people somewhere like this to relax away from the noise and artificial light of the city.  I always liked Central Park in New York for the same reason; there's just something cool about standing the middle of a little untouchable oasis of greenery in the middle of a big metropolis, feeling like you have as much space as you need but with the action of the city not too far away.

Boston's harbourside is scenically a great place to visit at night, adorned with boats and waterfront pubs, restaurants, etc.

We saw no evidence whatsoever of the recent bombings, apart from several people walking around with the slogan "Boston Strong" on their shirts, and numerous posters and stickers around town bearing the same slogan.  The speed at which they repaired the bomb damage, as well as the general upbeat vibe of the city's population seem to prove the slogan right.  Good job Boston!

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Lockdown!

No, the FBI haven't finally caught up with me.  This is a post about Eastern State Penitentiary, which we got the chance to check out while we were in the Philadelphia area.  ESP was the first penitentiary and was once the most famous and expensive prison in the world, housing some of the most notorious inmates like Al Capone and the bank robber Willie Sutton.

A huge, Gothic, fortress-like structure, it imposed on the landscape on the outskirts of Philadelphia like an intimidating reminder to the citizens below of what would happen to them if they veered from the straight and narrow.

I checked the map and decided that it would be OK to drive there as it's located out of town and apparently has a large visitor car park nearby.

Except that Philadelphia has obviously grown since the construction of the building in 1829 and has simply expanded around it, so it's no longer out of town. With a couple of wrong turns thrown in to the bargain, our route to the penitentiary ended up looking like this:

So we ended up getting pretty intimate with the city centre without even leaving the RV.  When things like this happen, you reassure yourself that if trucks can get there to make deliveries, you should be able to as well.  And then you meet one of those trucks coming the other way down a narrow street and immediately spot the catch with that line of reasoning.

When  we eventually got there we were pleased to find that the car park indeed had plenty of spaces to accommodate us.  Not so pleasing was the fact that the entrance was too narrow to let us reach those spaces.  We ended up driving all the way out again and getting public transport back in.  Fun!

It was worth all the effort though to get the chance to walk around this intriguing place.  ESP revolutionised the prison system; every inmate was held in solitary confinement and that isolation was supposed to encourage them to reflect on their crimes in the hope that they would feel "penitence" for what they had done.

Technologically it was way ahead of its time, featuring central heating, running water and flush toilets.  These were things that even the president didn't have in the White House at that time, just to put it into perspective.

Its "hub-and-spoke" layout maximised separation of prisoners and economised on space.

It also enabled efficient control and observation of inmates, thanks to angled mirrors placed in the hub section which allowed individual guards to patrol several corridors at once.

It's fascinating walking down the eerie "spokes" and staring into the cells:

Don't drop the soap!

Its medical facilities were also some of the most advanced in the world, with inmates from other prisons often transferred in for complicated procedures.

That's me not visiting the dentist for another 10 years then!

Al Capone did a stretch here in relative comfort following his first appearance in front of a judge in 1929.  The reconstruction of his cell shows the extra comforts that his celebrity at the time afforded him:

A dramatic escape plot unfolded in 1945, when a group of inmates including Willie Sutton dug 15ft down and 97ft out from one of their cells to freedom, using tools made by the main instigator, Clarence Klinedinst.  The pictures show the entrance to the tunnel in Clarence's cell:

And the line they took to the outside wall:

Most of the escapees were re-captured within a day.  The final one, James Grace, turned up a week later asking to be let back in.  His reason?  He was hungry!

The solitary confinement system eventually collapsed due to overcrowding and opposition from its critics, who claimed that the isolation was too barbaric.  The facility was eventually closed in 1971.

The audio tour you can take while you're there (narrated by Steve Buschemi no less) features commentary by several of the inmates, some of whom were transferred out when it closed and are still incarcerated elsewhere today.

Once we'd made our own escape from the prison gates, we headed straight for a restaurant down the road called the Firehouse, where I had one of the best burgers I've ever had in my life (and trust me, that's a pretty big sampling pool!).  Shame it wasn't around in James Grace's day, he would have lasted longer than a week in the outside world.

Suitably stuffed, we made our way back to our own brand of solitary confinement for the night, the RV!

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