Canada and the US 2015 – some (of many) tops

On vacation or not, we’ve got the habit of discussing our day during dinner in naming the top and the flop of the day. I think, as a family, we are fond of lists and to go on with this tradition, I will assemble the tops and flops of our Canada-USA Roadtrip, cause everything has two sides! Starting with the tops – and with number 5 my husband had his debut, welcome!! <3

1. We’ve spent the almost very last day of our trip at the Adirondack Wild Center and we’ve had a blast! ALL of us! The Adirondack Wild Center is a museum, a trail, a high-line walk kinda thingy with awesome views and all dedicated to the nature found in the Adirondacks. The museum is the most interactive place I have ever seen; the kids (and us!) could explore everything, from touching glaciers and bird sculls, smelling a Skunk (less nice though) or feeling the different kind of moss under their feet. Some installation made it even possible to be just a beak away from feeding little birds.

2. . Some events crossed our plans when arriving in Niagara, so we had to change plans and could visit the falls only on the morning before leaving the city. BEST decision ever! I just recently heard again that people were disappointed by the Disneyland-alike atmosphere around the falls and the amount of visitors swarming the area. At 8:30am there is as good as no one. Only few people walked down with us from the visitors center to the boat landing, no queues and no waiting time and a unique view on the falls. It was beautiful.

3. When being in Auburn/NY we’ve got the tip from a friendly local to visit the Great Gully, a waterfall, reachable by feet. We’ve been there in August and there was few enough water to hike through the river bed but enough to get rewarded with a little waterfall and it’s pool. It was nothing unbelievable spectacular but we had a great time; the hike was suitable for our kids, 3 and 7 at the time and even though it was raining, we did not regret that we resisted the temptation to just go back to the car. It was great fun and a big adventure for the kids.

4. Toronto. This is more on a personal note but I love this city and even more when I saw how much my kids enjoyed it there. They have been very excited to be in such a big city after we’ve seen only nature for around 10 days and it was impressive how long they managed to walk, basically an entire day. Our little one only once took a little nap on his dads arms but that’s about it. We did the typical City Tour on a red Double Decker bus and a boat trip and spent the rest of our time just roaming around.  We’ve stayed in the Comfort Hotel Downtown and it was a nice Hotel with a very good breakfast, nice staff, a good location and really not too expensive.

Toronto seen from Toronto Islands

5. Huberdeau. This is more in a personal note (my personal note, the other guys’s personal note). This first house was next to a lake and the weather was good, which is already great. However, what I actually enjoyed the most was the time we spent inside, in this very simple house (except for the caribou antlers). We took the time to play games (Risk with simplified version for the win), to watch books, especially one about the most beautiful places in the world and even to dance! If I want to be exhaustive, I need to add what we did right outside the place, in a fire pit: we grilled some marshmallows and that was de-li-cious!