Number of Miles Driven: 70

States Driven Through: Ontario 

Hours Driven: ~4 - 4.5 hours (Toronto traffic...ughhh)


Everyone seemed to get a good night sleep – it rained through the night but we all stayed dry in the tent. We had a leisurely morning, and Michael made eggs and bacon for breakfast. Not to jinx anything, but the kids were already more pleasant to be around – not getting upset if someone said the wrong thing, not complaining about getting the last plate of breakfast (and perhaps we were too - ha!).

We hit the road for Toronto by 9:15 and our first stop was Casa Loma – we got there around 10:45 – about a half hour longer than expected – but that seems to be the MO for Toronto no matter the destination. The castle was built in the early 1900s but the owners (Pellatt family) were only able to live there for approximately 10 years before it was taken over by the city due to financial strains. It cost $3.35 million dollars to build and it was designed after European Edwardian castles (if it was Canadian money then it would be cheaper in US dollars – Andrew reminds us of that every time he wants to buy a souvenir – every…time..).

We didn’t have a lot of time before our next scheduled activity, so we went through the tour rather quickly – but it was still interesting to read about its history and see all the ornate rooms. There were secret passageways and tunnels to the Carriage House. We got to go into one of the Towers and look out over Toronto. I think the kids’ favorite part of the house was their “Hollywood” section where they had a red carpet walkway and wax figures of the different actors who have starred in movies that have taken place at the castle – a lot of famous actors in “B” movies (e.g., Chris Evans, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jessica Alba, Samuel Jackson, Mike Myers, Paul Walker, etc). I had never heard of any of the movies.

We thought the best rooms were the conservatory – a glassed-in rotunda with marble planters and floors; the library – floor-to-ceiling mahogany shelves and herringbone-patterned wood floors; and Peacock Alley – the main hallways with arched ceilings.


The Main Staircase

View of Toronto Downtown Skyline from the Tower

Peacock Alley


Main Lobby

All-Marble, 6-headed shower

The Carriage House - Carolyn's Favorite

Conservatory

We had lunch at the castle to save time and then headed to the CN Tower. We originally planned to walk to our Toronto destinations, but it was over 1 mile between them, so we hopped in the car and braved the Toronto traffic. It took us 30 minutes to go one mile – reminders of why we like Raleigh 😊 Fun Fact – Toronto is the most populous city in Canada.

The CN tower is located next to Rogers Centre, so we also got to see the home of the Blue Jays. It looks more like a coliseum than a baseball stadium. There was a home game that night so we saw lots of Blue Jay and San Francisco Giants fans.

We took the 1-minute ride up the elevators – the kids had a good look out the glass windows. They even had glass sections in the floors, and that was a little unsettling to look down the 114 stories of the elevator shaft. The kids were a little more hesitant looking out the floor-to-ceiling glass panels than I expected them to be, and they were basically ready to go back down as soon as we went up. Carolyn and Matthew were most anxious about it, but none of the kids seemed that excited about it. They were more interested in watching themselves in the mirrored ceilings than in looking out at Toronto. In their defense, the overcast day with the smoke and clouds made it difficulty to see much.  We got glimpses of Lake Ontario and the skyline of Toronto, but it wasn’t the best.

Lake Ontario and the Toronto Skyline in the background

Now all we see if fog/smoke (?)


Looking up at the glass ceilings

We made our way back down and went through the gift shop – I’m convinced that’s the kids favorite part of every activity. I got a Toronto magnet, Michael got a mug, and Andrew got a hockey puck. He has decided to collect hockey pucks. Then they found the indoor playground at the CN Tower and wanted to play there. They found computer chess games and immediately hopped on those – they’ll probably say that was the best part of their vacation.

 By now, it was 3:15, and we’ve learned from previous vacations to not squeeze in too many activities, so Michael and I decided we would head back to the campsite and forgo the Royal Ontario Museum. Doing so would give us a jumpstart on traffic and the kids could have a leisurely time at the campsite. Apparently, Andrew was “most excited” about the Royal Ontario Museum so when we proposed our plan, he was not happy. The other kids preferred to go back to the campsite but didn’t seem too bothered by going to the museum, so we decided to drive through the downtown traffic once more (and pay to park once more) so Andrew could go to the museum. We had bought the City Pass, and that was one of the included activities, so we hated for it to go to waste.

The ROM did not disappoint. It had the largest collection of dinosaur fossils (real and replicated) that I’ve seen. There was even a gigantic sloth on display. We saw a section of African art/artifacts as well as Egyptian and Chinese artifacts. Dani and Matthew especially liked the bat cave and polar bear/snake display. There were sets of armor on display and everyone liked those. I really liked the sarcophagi in the Egyptian display.







The museum closed at 5:30 so we hit up the museum on the way out. Luckily everything was super expensive which made it easy to say  no to all the souvenir requests. There was a stuffed triceratops that Dani loved, but it was $40 (Canadian money, though).

We were exhausted and headed back to our campsite. But it took 1 hour to drive 2 miles through downtown Toronto. It took us about 1 hour and 45 minutes to get back to the campsite and we hadn’t had dinner yet, so we quickly heated up some chili. While we were cooking, we sent the kids to the playground to run off some energy. They met kids their age (Olivia was 5 and Connor was 11) and had a blast playing with them. You could hear them from the camp site and they came back clearly excited about their game of tag they called “Men vs. Women.” They came back for a quick bowl of chili and then went back to play on the playground – it was great that it was so close to our campsite. We wrapped up the night with a round of s’mores. Andrew is getting MUCH better at roasting marshmallows.

We called it a night around 10:15 and the kids asked for a “romantic story,” so I told them the story of how Dad and I met. They seemed to be enjoying it – and Michael pitched in a few thoughts (and differing perspectives) here and there. When we got to the engagement part, we said “To be Continued” and of course they grumbled their displeasure with having to wait and turn off the lights.