600 Miles to Toronto
A Road Trip Narrative
I wake the next day to the sounds of city traffic. The light streams in the room through a small crack in the
blinds. I jump out of bed and right into the shower to begin my first day in Canada. Robert follows right after
me. While he is taking his shower there is a knock at our door. A member of the hotel staff explains that there
is a leak in the room beneath us and asks if there is anything leaking in our room. I say, �No, I don�t think so�.
He tells me to turn on the water in the bathtub and let it run for a few minutes. I do as he says and we hear
nothing more from him. This trip is beginning to wear on me already.
We head out to The Hockey Hall of Fame,
our destination for the day. The place is rather interesting. We spend
many hours looking at the Wayne Gretzky display; it takes up practically the entire museum. After a few hours we
head back to the hotel for some food, I think yesterday is catching up to me. I am so tired. As soon as we get
back I lie down in bed and fall asleep. I wake the next morning. Our destination for the day is to be the
Royal
Ontario Museum, the ROM. We decide to be risk takers and hop on the metro train. The transit system in Toronto
is much better than ours in D.C. They have several main trains that follow paths to the most important parts of
the city. Each train covers a certain district so that the entire downtown Toronto area has metro service. The
D.C. metro always confuses me, but I hopped right on in Toronto and figured out where we were going immediately,
no changing trains, and no swapping stations. We spend several hours looking at the displays in the museum; it
proves to be very educational. We head back to the hotel and prepare for dinner at Medieval Times. Medieval Times
is a restaurant that everybody must attend once. I say attend because while you are eating your medieval style
dinner you watch brave knights battle for something or other, maybe a princess, maybe the King. They joust, they
swordfight, they die, the most perfect place to take your children. After almost four hours at dinner we are both
full and tired, we head back to the hotel and pass out.
The next day, Saturday at this point, we are headed to Niagara Falls with some guys Robert knows. We drive back
towards the border; the trip takes about an hour. Niagara Falls proves to be an amazing spectacle. The falls are
so large they mist up and spray the entire area surrounding them with water. The surging power of the green-blue
water makes me gawk. The water hits the base of the falls with bone crushing force. It seems to be flowing at
speeds excessing 100 miles per hour. To put it another way, I have never seen water flow that fast, as if it were
in a hurry to get down to the rocks below. As if it is in a hurry to become part of the incredible force that
causes the area around the falls to be misty and wet. We all joke about the people who have gone over them in
barrels. I come to read later that people have in fact done so, and have lived to tell about it. We stay at
Niagara all day, taking full advantage of the restaurants and other attractions. We head back and the guys we
just met offer to take us out to a movie. Red Dragon is the pick for the day. I have to say it is one of the
best movies I have seen, although very morbid. Robert and I head back to the hotel and crash for the night.
Website created by: Robert Parkhurst and Jennifer Pumphrey