Home Sweet Home!

We were up and going by 7:30am with a 7 hour drive ahead of us. I kept arguing with Hillary that technically its only a 6 hour drive because we lose an hour going from Eastern to Central Time. Apparently, that's not how it works - but it sounded good at the time!

We made the trip on only one tank of gas and two stops in Gary, IN and the Belvidere Oasis on I-90.

It feels great to be home! I will post a recap in this blog of some "fun facts" of the trip sometime this upcoming weekend, but right now - sleeping our OWN bed is taking priority.

Pretty much what our day consisted of:

Exciting picture of our car full of luggage, snacks, our cooler, etc.

And finally home!

Next up.... work tomorrow morning!

For Hillary....unpacking.

Coasters & Detroit "Got Rocked" City

While this was going to be the final "fun day" of our trip, we were not about to sleep in. After getting a few hours sleep from the late night in Cleveland, we were up and going by 7:30am to make the drive to Sandusky, OH. No, we weren't going to see Tommy Boy at Callahan Break Pads - we were going to CEDAR POINT. Oh, and by "we" I meant that "I" was going to Cedar Point and Hillary was off to find a beach. Apparently, she doesn't enjoy going 120 miles an hour and dropping from 420 feet in the air.

Hillary's idea of fun:

 

Tim's idea of fun:

 

 

Hillary dropped me off just before they opened at 10am and headed out. I only had 6 hours because we had to take off for the baseball game in Detroit by 4pm. I had anticipated this, planned ahead, and bought this little bracelet.

 

 

While the "fast lane" isn't cheap, it was the best investment I had made on this trip. It saved me hours of standing in line. While most people get a map of the grounds to see where everything is - I used mine for one thing: a roller coaster checklist. Thanks to my Fast Lane, I was able to ride every coaster in the 6 hours I was there. That may not sound impressive, but Cedar Point has 14 solid coasters to enjoy. Not to mention, the park is 363 acres big.

 

I stuffed my valuables in a locker and took off for the coasters. I didn't take any pictures because I didn't feel like coming back to work on Thursday to tell my boss that I dropped my phone going 70 miles an hour into a cork screw trying to get a good picture. So you will have to settle for internet pictures and take my word for it.

 

 

Here are my top 3 coasters at Cedar Point:

 

 

# 3 - The Gatekeeper: Its their newest coaster in 2013. Smooth ride but messes you up with all the twists and turns. Side note: extra cool because I rode next to a guy from Chicago wearing a Blackhawks shirt.

 









 

 

# 2 - Millennium Force: This coaster has been rated the # 1 coaster in the 7 out of the 13 years its been in existence by Amusement Today. It cost $25 million to build at the time and did not disappoint! I can see any people love this coaster. You are held down by a small lap bar and go 93 mph and drop 300 feet.

 

 

And.... #1 is: Top Thrill Dragster!  It was inspired by drag racing and goes 0-120 mph in just a few seconds. It shoots you straight up 420 feet and then drops you back down within 15-20 seconds. You have to keep your whole head and body back to the head rest, otherwise I would imagine you would get a concussion from the force.

 



 

Here's a video of what it does: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbN3NU4hIZg

 

 

Hillary picked me up at 4pm and headed for Detroit. We made it into town around 6pm, parked right next to the stadium (not taking chances in parking garages this time) and walked in.  We had dinner in a sports bar that was built into the stadium called Beer Hall.  The place was packed so we ended up joining a father and son who were sitting at a big table for dinner. It's actually been fun to meet so many people on this trip and to hear their surprise when they ask what we are doing "out here". Apparently, a 2 week road trip across half of the country isn't exactly normal.

 

Of course, as with almost all of our baseball games - it rained. However, the delay was at the beginning of the game. We got started about 45 minutes later than planned, and didn't see rain for the rest of the night. However, we did come prepared this time - again!

 



Yes, Hillary was also bound and determined to catch a foul ball

 

 

Comerica Park is very nice. I would have to compare it to PNC Park in Pittsburgh. The one difference that Pittsburgh has over this park is the surroundings at PNC includes a nice riverfront and pedestrian bridge. Detroit has, well, the GM building and other old buildings. However, the ballpark itself is very cool!

 

 



Detroit played the White Sox that night and while I was expecting a lopsided score that my team would end up on the short side of....the opposite happened. Alex Rios went 6-6 with 2 steals as the Sox pulled out an 11-4 victory against Justin Verlander - no less. This was a great way to cap off the trip!

 

We drove about an hour west of Detroit to a town called Chelsea and crashed for the night.

 

Next up...... Dubuque, IA!!!





Cleveland Rocks!

We enjoyed a rare leisure morning in Erie, PA. We got some laundry done and drove into town to find some breakfast. Overall, finding local restaurants hasn't been to hard, except when we are trying to get on the road fast and the hotel doesn't offer much of a continental breakfast. For our next trip, we may change that rule to allow us to grab McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts and get going. 

We decided that squeezing in Canton and Cleveland might be a stretch and have learned that Hall of Fames are cool, but much cooler when you are in your 50's or 60's and have lived trough most of the history that a Hall of Fame showcases. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was no exception.

Beautiful building that's right on the lake and next to downtown. We spent about 3 hours there and have to say, they do a great job of taking you through the history. If you are a fan if '50's or '60's rock and roll, this place is a MUST. They do have their share of '80's and '90's stuff that we enjoy, but it wasn't as abundant. A couple highlights:

METALLICA! guitars of James Hetfield and Robert Trujallo.

RUN DMC... They were famous for this look!

And of course my little obsession of Les Paul's work and his iconic guitars!

Hillary's highlight was getting to see Michael Jackson's glove!

After the Hall of Fame we made the walked toward the stadium and found their "restaurant row" which is located on 4th street only a few blocks from Progressive Field. One type of food we hadn't enjoyed yet was Mexican Food. So we opted for some!

After Mexican food, we still had a few hours before the game and has walked past a place called "The Cholcolate Bar". Obviously a good place for desert. We were stuffed from dinner but didn't care since we were on vacation and who was I to deprive Hillary of cholcolate. I got a massive hot fudge sundae and Hillary had a cholcolate and strawberry crepe.

 

As we were enjoying dessert, it started pouring rain outside. We must be getting lazidasical because we hadn't checked the weather and didn't bring our rain gear that we had used earlier in the trip. Luckily the rain cleared as we got ready to go and hoped the rain wouldn't return.

Progressive Field is pretty nice but on the level of the new stadiums or anything iconic. Still beats Rogers Centre! 

The game was close and the rain decided to return. We ran up the stairs of the upper deck to get under the canopy. Luckily we only had a 30 minute delay. It did start to rain again in the 7th and continued through the 10th inning. We've enjoyed a simple equation in the baseball games that we've gone to:  rain delay equals extra innings as well. 

After the game, we jogged the mile to our car I avoid another downpour. Upon getting to our parking garage, we saw our entrance was locked up and shut down. My heart fell into my stomach thinking we parked in a garage that was now closed and we couldn't get out until morning. Luckily, we wee wrong and found they only had the main entrance open till midnight and it was 11:45 when we got to our car. CLOSE CALL!

Me made the 25 minute drive to western Cleveland and crashed for the night.

Next up.... Cedar Point and Detroit!! 

Toronto...EH!

We crossed the boarder at Niagara Falls and made the 90 minute drive up the coast of Lake Ontario. Upon crossing the boarder, Hillary and I both got text message from Verizon welcoming us to Canada and reminding us that we are now roaming and calls would be 89 cents a minute, texts would be about a dollar a piece for received and sent messages and data was crazy expensive. Needless to say, we put our phones in "airplane mode" for the 24 hours that we would be in Canada. I don't think you realize how much you use your phone everyday until you sped a day without the use of one. We couldn't check the score of the Wimboldon Final (surprisingly Hillary was more upset by that than I was), no texts to anyone. Just email over the hotel wifi, and I can remember the last time I made a phone call from the actual hotel phone.

Many people think Toronto is an extension of the US, and in some ways it is with all the franchises that are around. We stayed in a Holiday Inn with a Perkins attached to it. But realized that ESPN was nowhere to be found on the channel lineup. 

A few things we learned was the price of things in Canada compared to the US. Of course everything is in metric measurements. When you see gas prices that look like this:

You get excited and think, "Wow, we have to fill up here!" Only to realize that it's based on the liter and gas is actually $5.04 a gallon after doing the conversion.

With parking in Toronto being so expensive, we opted for public transportation and took a bus to the subway downtown for the game. 

The Blue Jays play in the Rogers Centre (formally named Sky Dome) which was opened in 1989 and was the first stadium to feature a retractable roof and built-in hotel. The stadium was one of the last round "multi-purpose" stadiums to be built. While I'm sure it was state-of-the-art at the time, the building is starting to show its age and is well over due for a major renovation. 

As you can see in the picture below, the dome was closed for the day with a threat of rain.

Also note the stadium used two yellow painted nets as foul poles. My guess is to keep the obstructed views to a minimum.

After the game, we decided to see if we could have dinner at the 360 Restaurant located at the top of the CN tower. It was a last minute decision and learned quickly that you need to have reservations well in advance. We weren't too depressed as Canada charges an arm and a leg at restaurants. What would be a $35-$40 tab at TGI Fridays is a $75 dollar tab in Canada. Eating dinner back in the US sounded pretty good if it wasn't going to be an experience in Canada.

We took the subway and bus back to our hotel and got ready for the drive back to the US. We still had $8 left in Canadian money and didn't feel like getting ripped off at an exchange booth on the way back to convert it back to American money. So we did the next "smartest" thing and bought $8 worth of gas. Again, we learned at the equivalent of $5 a gallon, the needle hardly moved on $8 of gas in Canada.

Had to share this picture, note how the license plate is mounted:

As we approached the boarder, we noticed that two of the three entrances in the US were backed up 1-2 hours due to heavy truck traffic. Luckly for us, the Niagara Falls bridge that we crossed, doesn't allow commercial trucks and were able to get across quickly. 

Once back in the US, I immediately turned my phone back on to check the Wimboldon score. It was exciting to hear that Andy Murray won and, again, surprised that Hillary was more excited than I was. This is coming from the same person that once said a tennis match is equally exciting as watching paint dry.

We decided to have dinner in Buffalo, NY which is about halfway to Erie, PA (our stop for the night. We found a local BBQ restaurant called Fat Bob's Smokehouse. 

We are outside on the patio and enjoyed a great meal.

We made our way to Erie PA around 11:30pm and crashed for the night.

Next up... Cleveland!

A picture tells a thousand words....

We made the 2.5 hour drive from Syracuse into Niagara Falls in the morning so we could enjoy the afternoon at Niagara Falls before driving to Toronto for the night. Apparently, we weren't the only ones who had this idea. The Falls were PACKED! It took about 30 minutes to just get parked form entering the park. I didn't realize how big of a deal Niagara Falls were as well over half of the visitors were from various countries around the world and we overheard several different languages being spoken.  Each attraction had between an hour to 2.5 hour wait. We got to enjoy lots of "free time" waiting in lines.

Enjoy the pictures!

We bought the Discovery Pass that allows us admission to all of the attractions that Niagara Falls had to offer. We did Maid of the Mist, Cave of the Winds, and the Niagara Falls documentary movie.

 

Who's excited for our 3rd trolley ride of the trip!?

 

This is the bridge that links the USA to Canada. We took this bridge as we left the US.

 

At the bottom of the river and looking up to the observation deck.

 

The American Falls from Maid of the Mist.

 

Another shot of the American Falls.

 

Yes, we were actually on the boat!

 

Coming up to the Canadian Horseshoe falls.

 

About as close as we wanted to shoot without getting the camera wet.

 

Observation deck of the American falls as we return on Maid of the Mist boat.

 

Pictures from that observation deck.

 

Doing everything I can not to take a "nice" picture.

 

 

The river has a ton of rapids before and after the falls!

 

Next up was Cave of the Winds. This is an attraction that allows us to get within 10 feet of the American Falls. What's better? They made us wear these highly fashionable sandals. Hillary will be wearing these on the river all summer long.

 

Pictures from the Cave of the Winds decks.

 

By the way, we were told the decks have to be torn down and reconstructed each season as during each spring, ice will come down the falls and destroy the decks anyway.

 

Views from the overhead deck of the American Falls.

 

We had originally planned to go over to the Canadian side of the falls but felt we got a pretty up close and personal look at Horseshoe Falls on the boat tour. Plus we were anxious to get across the border and crash for the night.

 

Next up.... Toronto, EH!