Weekend in Toronto

This past weekend (CSW mod break) we decided to head up to Toronto for a few days on a family vacation. It was fun-- first time visiting the city for all three of us.

We took a Sat morning flight from Boston to Toronto on a newish airline (at least new to me): "Westjet". Flight went smoothly although it was a prop plane-- they are always a bit noisy. 

Toronto has a nice new train service from the airport to downtown (Union Station), we we went that route, then took a cab from Union Station to our hotel (Grand Hotel, 225 Jarvis). 

Nice weather, cool but not punishingly so. For lunch we walked down to the St Lawrence Market, a big indoor food market. Produce, fruit, meat, cheese, bread, all sorts of things, plus a number of restaurants and places you can get take-out. 

The classic Toronto sandwich is apparently something called a "pea meal bacon sandwich", which looked interesting, but we decided to go for different options instead: I ordered a ridiculously healthy-looking vegan salad, Amy had a nice big egpplant + pepper sandwich (she gave me half of it, and just the half was plenty) and our offspring picked out a crepe of some sort. 

After that we decided we would head up to see the Bata Shoe Museum, so we hopped on the subway and headed up the northern part of the University of Toronto area (Bloor St).  

The museum was smallish but quirky and interesting for the most part -- it was a weird mix of "celebrity" shoes (something worn by Michael Jackson, or something like that) and peculiar shoes from history, mostly the 12th through 19th century. I came away feeling very glad hat I never had to wear 18th century footwear, most of those shoes seemed like torture devices of one sort or another.

Some photos:

What's this? A pair of ruby slippers?

These scary-looking clogs are apparently used in chestnut harvesting? Not quite sure how this works.

Horse-related?

We decided to walk home -- after only a couple of blocks we came upon a big football field where a large mob of ultimate frisbee players were working out, getting ready for a game. Turned out to be the Toronto Rush, a pro team. The younger generation was thrilled and wanted to stay to watch; after a brief period of negotiation, we arranged to let her stay and watch the game while we headed back to the hotel. We were a bit nervous (there were were, leaving our kid alone in a strange city in a foreign country, yeeks) but eventually reason prevailed and we parted company. The walk back to the hotel took a bit longer than we had thought (it was more like 40-45 mins).

Seen on the walk home -- didn't know this outfit was still a thing...

A Monty Python themed British pub no less:

After we had had a chance to relax and have a cup of tea, I texted our daughter to tell say "Leave the game by 5:30 so that you can make it to our dinner reservation on time". This worked for the most part (got lost once on the way back, leading to a lengthy text message exchange to get everyone re-oriented and headed in the correct direction), finally straggling in around 6:10.

We cabbed it over to Momofuku Daisho for dinner-- it was a nice meal. Momofuku turns out to be more of a pod of cluster of related eateries than a single restaurant. There is a noodle bar on the ground floor, then a lounge + "milk bar" on the second floor, and then up on the third floor is the slightly swankier sit down place. The third floor dining area is really a lovely space -- it's a sort of rectangular box that sticks partly our from the buildings, glass walls, tons of light, with superb views up and down University Ave. 

Interesting sculpture outside (Chinese, very contemporary):

We had "crispy chicken" sliders (waitress talked us into it), two salads, a side dish of broccoli, a rice ball dish, and two mains. The salads were probably the most interesting part of the meal: the first one was slices of fresh apple coated with a sort of fine puree of kimchi, then surrounded by dressed arugula, pistachios, and a few thin crispy slices of bacon -- awesome combination of flavors. The second one was quarters of baby romaine with a tart, flavorful dressing of some sort (hint of blue cheese) accompanied by pieces of jalapeno tempura. Yum. The rice ball dish was very hard to describe; it was little chunks/bricks of rice that had been toasted or fried on the outside (so that they were chewy/crunchy) then mixed together with some sort of pepper/tofu sauce, very weird but good. The mains were lettuce wraps -- one grilled chicken and one grilled mackerel, along with sauces and other things to put into the package and wrap up. 

All in all, it was an excellent meal, I would definitely go back for more.

We were a bit tired after that but decided that we still had some energy left, so we walked our way all the way back to the hotel (another half hour). Whew, long day!

It was good to veg in front of the tube/screen for a while in the evening. I found a good soccer game on the tube (Premier League, West Ham vs West Brom) while everyone else figured out something that they wanted to watch as well.

Sunday:

This morning Amy got up around 6:45 to hit the gym; the rest of us lolled in bed until 7 (bliss) and then went to sample the hotel breakfast. I worked out the gym after that, and we eventually got organized and headed off to the other side of town for our walking tour, which was in one of the city's Chinatown areas, also the neighborhood called "Kensington". 

Weather was... in a word... crummy. Misting rain, cold, not really much to like, but we had our rain jackets and we soldiered on. We met up with our group at the Art Gallery of Toronto, a huge building with an immense glass + steel facade (apparently designed by Frank Gehry). We had a smallish group (12 people), one from Dubai, two from Toronto, four from Australia, two from San Francisco, and then our family. Our tour guide was a young man, a cheerful and fairly entertaining guy (lots of slightly sarcastic jokes). 

We walked west from the museum, then northwest into Kensington, while listening to various stories about the city with a big focus on immigration-- people coming from all over (China, eastern Europe, Italy, Portugal, you name it). Our guide did a nice job pointing out interesting murals, street art, and bits of graffiti (the latter seems very high-quality here in Toronto). Kensington has a very hippy/artsy feel to it; we stopped in at a number of small shops + cafes along the way. 

Lots of cool murals in Chinatown:

Houses in Kensington:

On one street we walked by a series of marijuana "dispensaries" with pseudo-official looking signage. It turns out that marijuana is in fact still quite illegal, but the government has basically decided not to prosecute anyone at the moment, since people are anticipating that the law will be changed to make it legal before long. Hmm.

Grafiti in Kensington neighborhood:

On sale at Jimmy's Coffee Shop:

More cool murals:

This guy on the left (the lovesick robot) apparently makes appearances on a number of walls around town:

We were pretty cold and tired by the time the tour finished up (it was more than two hours), but we did get a recommendation for a good Chinese restaurant from or guide, so we opted to eat at Rol San on Spandina. Good choice, nearly everything was excellent. We had two plates of sautéed pea sprouts with garlic (a family favorite), some pan fried dumplings, a couple of packets of sticky rice, and a scallion pancake.   I also could not resist stopping to get a grilled pork banh mi from one of the local vietnamese places, so we definitely had a sizable lunch.

From there we walked (yet again) south to King Street to visit the MEC (camping/outdoor cooperative place, the Canadian equivalent of REI). The younger generation shopped (successfully) for hiking boots, and the older generation shopped (unsuccessfully) for shorts and hiking shirts. 

Police guy on a bike-- that was interesting to see:

After that we were really exhausted; Amy said she didn't want to walk another step, so we took the drastic step of ordering an Uber ride back to the hotel. In a somewhat ironic turn, the Uber ride for three was actually a bit cheaper than paying for the subway, even with the surge pricing extras due to the rain and the weekend. Who knew.

After relaxing for a bit at the hotel, we got ourselves organized and headed out to take the tram + subway off to the CN tower, where we had made dinner reservations at the "360" restaurant (a revolving deal that sits partway up the tower). We got most of the way there and then finally got cold feet when the guy at the entrance down below told us that there was "zero visibility" up top -- we called to cancel and then headed back north into the city to find place to eat. We settled on a sort of weird upstairs/downstairs place called "It's Not Fred / The Red Tomato", which was comfy and had decent food. 

Somewhere up there is a revolving restaurant:

At 7ish we headed over to the Second City theater on Mercer and then took in the comedy show there after that. It was really good -- best comedy I had seen in a long time. It was short sketches, but rehearsed (not improv), with a teeny bit is singing thrown in. They did a very funny Justin Trudeau sketch (featuring a tall actor wearing a sort of mop of hair and dancing seductively while the press & pols swooned), a very funny scene in which two female film directors are pitching their ideas to Hollywood producers, even a short sketch featuring a mock Syrian refugee (very funny in spite of the nature of the material).  We definitely enjoyed it, I think I would try to go back the next time I am in Toronto.

Second City theater:

Before the show:

Monday:

Overcast this morning but not raining-- after a 7:30 breakfast Amy and I headed to the gym to work out for a bit, then we spent time trying to get our day organized. We didn't plan a lot of activities ahead of time, since we weren't sure what the weather would be like or whether we'd be carrying our luggage. After a fair amount of googling we decided that we'd try to visit the Textile Museum in the morning, then have lunch at a cafe in the Gardiner Museum called "A La Carte". This left us with a fair amount of time to relax at the hotel, but we couldn't find too much else to do given the weather.

Here is a shot of the Toronto subway on the inside. It's a lovely subway, nice and new. The cars are all connected together, so if you stand in the middle you can look all the way down to the end. Made me want to grab a skateboard and zoom my way down to the end...

Funny sign seen on the walk to the museum:

Lunch at the Gardiner was good -- very civilized, tasty food, and a nice quiet space in which to have a conversation.

After that we headed back to the hotel, got packed up, and spend the rest of the day contending with cabs, trains, planes, and cars to make our way home. Our flight was a bit delayed, but we did eventually make it.

A fun trip!

CSW Ultimate match

Photos from a recent CSW Ultimate Frisbee match. The team is called the "Fighting Uruk Hai" (named after the bloodthirsty monsters in the Lord of the Rings); they have cool t-shirts and extremely long and baggy shorts.

Difficult to get playing time being a freshman on a popular varsity team, but there were a few good moments for us to photograph. Pix:

Ultimate frisbee games are first to 15 points; the CSW team won 15-10, woot!

I think they were a bit more athletic than the other gang, probably better defenders as well.

Cross-Country Skiing in Maine

This past week Rustin, Ethan and I took a trip up to Maine for cross-country skiing at a collection of AMC huts near Greenville; I thought I would write a blog post about it, since it was a lot of fun.

Thursday, Jan 21:

Up at 6:15 to finish getting packed and organized. Rustin rolled in around 7:15; together we ganged up on pestering Ethan (who was still eating his cereal at that point I think) and got our various bags consolidated and transferred to my car.

The traffic gods smiled on us; we had no noticeable slowdowns for the whole drive, in spite of venturing onto Route 95/128 smack in the middle of rush hour (kind of amazing). The drive to Greenville takes you up 95/295 until Newport, then up a series of smaller roads (route 7, route 23, etc). We rolled in right around noon and had lunch at a local pizza place. 

At around 1pm we headed over to "North Woods Outfitters", a large outdoor gear store in the center of town. They have an arrangement where you park you car at the AMC winter parking lot (about 10-12 miles east of Greenville), then they shuttle you and your gear back around up to the north and dump you at the northernmost hut (West Branch Pond Camp); this was the option we selected.  Although the huts are not that far away from each other on the map, the transfer takes quite a while (almost an hour), since you have to make a big loop around.

Most of the roads we took were not that interesting, but we did get one good overlook view of Moosehead Lake, plus a very brief glimpse of Mt Katahdin (looking very steep and snow-covered) up to the north, from one of the high points.

We were greeted right when we arrived by Eric, part of the family that runs the camp (very nice fellow). He helped us with our bags and got us settled into our cabin: three beds and a small living area with comfy chairs and a nice wood stove (plus hot water for tea and cocoa, etc). Nice bathrooms, too -- heated (shocking!) with real plumbing, lights, showers, and the whole nine yards (the bathrooms were off in a separate outbuilding not far from the cabins).

Eric told us that we were the first group of the season to be doing the whole north-to-south hut tour, so that was interesting. Another family was also scheduled to arrive, but not until later.  The three of us were itching to get some exercise after being cooped up in the car all day, so we got our gear on as quickly as we could and headed out for a short ski before losing the light.

Ethan outside our cabin:

View to the east:

Getting ready to head out for our first ski:

We did about a 3.5 mile loop that runs around the main lake bordering the camp; it was a good way to blow off steam.  Cold (15-17 Fahrenheit or so) and windy, but we were exercising, so it didn't matter much.  Nice dry, crunchy snow... not too much of it, but enough that there weren't real bare patches to contend with.

Back by around 5:10 or so, then we sat around the stove, read, and munched on snacks until 6:30. Dinner was ribs, beans, mashed potatoes, salad, and chocolate bread pudding for dessert -- quite tasty (very New England).

We heard a little from Eric and others about the history of the place, and how it's evolved over time. Turns out that there used to be a railroad running up to Greenville; there was a big hotel, and it was a pretty significant vacation destination; all of that went by the wayside once the automotive era arrived. We talked a bit about canoeing in the area, as well. It turns out that you can actually canoe all the way from Greenville to the Allagash river up north -- there are two portages, one about a mile and then another that is 3.5 miles, but the rest of the time you're on rivers and lakes.

Our trusty stove inside the cabin (a Jotul, one of the nicer models). In fact this cabin was the comfiest one one the trip.

Gorp!

For some reason Ethan looks like a manifesto-throwing revolutionary in this photo -- who knows what sort of scheme he is cooking up.

Yours truly:

Small hockey rink shoveled out on the pond next to the cabin--  we had no skates, however, so we couldn't do much with it. Lights out at 9pm (and by that I mean the electricity got turned off!), so we went to bed fairly early. We did get to listen to the other family arrive-- unlike us, they did actually bring skates, so there was a spirited moonlight hockey game out on the pond for almost an hour.

Rustin got up periodically to stoke the wood stove, so the cabin was quite warm overnight, in spite of the very cold temps.

Friday Jan 22:

A few photos of the camp:

Our cabin again:

Up at 7 for coffee, then breakfast at 7:30.  Really good food-- Eric had made fresh cranberry muffins that were some of the best I've had in a long time, as well as pancakes, oatmeal, bacon, and orange slices. We applied ourselves vigorously.

We talked a bit with the folks from the other family (Mom and dad and two teenage girls, all from Brunswick). They were also on their way to the next hut to the south (Little Lyford), although their plan was to spend the night there and then head back north.

Got packed up and hit the trail around 8:30 or so.  Good and cold, probably around 4 or 5 degrees when we got started.

Trail was in good condition, nice and speedy. The route to the south took us a bit to the east, then south for a few miles hugging the base of the mountain, then climbed up for a bit to a plateau, then finally finished up with a big downhill. Rustin and Ethan zoomed ahead for the most part while I brought up the rear. Nice clear weather. We had the trail pretty much to ourselves-- the only person we saw was Chuck, a guy from the previous hut, who was running our bags up to the next hut on his snow mobile. The final section of the trail doubled back towards the north; it was a bit more technical (bumpy/twisty). We got to the next hut, Little Lyford, around noon, and sat for a bit to eat lunch and chat with some of the crew. Total distance for the morning jaunt was about 10 miles.

On the trail:

View to the north, including a peek at Mt Katahdin (probably about 50-60 miles away I think?):

Obligatory selfie:

Outside our cabin at Lyford:

The main lodge at Lyford:

The dinner bell:

At around 1 we decided to go out for another dose, so we suited up and headed out on the "Indian Mountain Circuit" trail. Fairly steep (by cross-country standards) climb up into the hills, with lots of turns and tricky sections. It was nice to be a bit higher up than the other trails in the region.  At one point I looked over at the side of the trail and saw a spot where a hawk or some other bird of prey had killed another bird -- almost nothing left except a few drops of blood and some feathers (must have been pretty hungry). Eventually we made it around the shoulder of Indian Mountain and picked up another ungroomed trail to Horseshoe Pond -- that was some of the nicest skiing of the trip, actually. Lovely minimal trail over soft powdery snow; looked like maybe only 2 or 3 other people had been there. We eventually circled back to the hut -- we decided to bypass the Indian Mountain Circuit on the way back, opting for a trail with somewhat more gradual descents. Total additional mileage around 7, so covered a lot of ground.

At 4pm we hit the sauna (having signed up previously at lunch). It was bit underpowered, so we had to pack the stove with wood and wait for it to come back up to temperature, but after a half hour or so it was going nicely. Terrific to have things like saunas and hot showers after the end of a long day of skiing. After that we relaxed in the hut. The main building has a "library" on the second floor with couches and chairs where you can relax and read -- very nice.

Dinner at the hut was tomato soup, baked salmon, fresh bread, broiled asparagus, and a wild rice pilaf, with strawberry shortcake for dessert (yum), probably the best meal of the trip. Lots more people than the last hut -- dining hall was pretty full, looked like around 25-30 people. We had fun talking with a nice younger couple from Portsmouth who had a lot of interesting camping stories, plus an older retired couple who had been skiing before at the Gaspe' Peninsula in Canada (even more remote and cold than Maine).

Sat Jan 23:

Later breakfast this morning (8am), giving me more time to drink my coffee, read, and write in my journal. Slept a little better last night (decided to use the earplugs). The cabin was a bit noisy with the older generation McIntosh men snoring, people getting up to feed the stove, etc.  I thought that Ethan would be in a good position to be a judge in the snoring contest -- decide once and for all whose late night honking is louder, mine or my brothers. Fortunately for Ethan he is a very sound sleeper, however, and seems to be able to sleep through most of anything, so he wasn't much good at judging the competition. At one point the ladder going up to the top bunk got jostled and fell down with a big crash-- Rustin and I woke up, but Ethan slept through it.

Temp this morning around zero. Pretty stiff from the skiing the day before -- extra stretching needed. Breakfast was eggs + bacon, oatmeal, yum. I talked a bit with the family that we'd met up at West Branch -- they were planning on skiing out to the west to try to locate the wreckage of a B-52 bomber that crashed in the area in 1963 (apparently not too far from where we had been skiing the previous day, maybe a mile or two farther west).

We took a look at the map and decided that we would bypass the first mile or two of the camp-to-camp trail on our way down to the next hut (Gorman), since we'd had already covered it the previous day, so we set out on a neighboring trail.  We made zoomed along and made very good time, although we missed the cutoff that we'd planned on taking (wasn't signed very well) and wound up taking a detour on one of the many snowmobile trails in the area instead. When we did finally connect up with the hut-to-hut trail, it was terrific -- lots of nice curves and up and down sections (mainly down), a lot of fun to ski.  We arrived at Gorman a little early, around 11:10, so we did a short side trip up to the north ("Henderson Brook Trail") to explore the area before lunch. This took us past one of the main snowmobile trails ("Katahdin Iron Works") and along into the woods until the trail became too steep to follow.

Gorman is very nice -- pretty clear that the main lodge been recently renovated/rebuilt. All of the furniture and fittings are very new-looking, although the cabins themselves were a good deal more rustic. We had lunch after our second outing and sacked out for a bit. Ethan decided to stay in the hut and read, while Rustin and I went out for a third tour. I headed back to the west to do a loop north of the lake that included the Long Pond Trail, while Rustin went back north again and found the place where the path hitches up with the Appalachian trail (which runs through the area).  The Long Pond Trail was lovely although somewhat bleak and lonely... once again, we both had another long ski without coming across another soul (this is a good thing, though -- skiing alone in the solitude is unique and wonderful experience). Got back, fed the stove in the cabin, and then hiked back up to the hut for a nice hot shower (very cushy, hard to believe I was in an AMC hut).

Waxing up:

This shot taken on the Katahdin Iron Works trail, one of the big thoroughfares of snowmobilers. A bit bleak.

Interior of Gorman lodge:

Ethan reading:

Gorman again:

Unlike the AMC huts in the White Mountains, this one turned out to serve wine and beer, so I was able to sit and have a micro-brew while reading and writing in my journal. Very civilized (still can't quite get used to the idea); more like a European hut than the ones in NH.

The one casualty of the day appears to have been my camera -- after taking a photo earlier in the afternoon, it seems to have decided that it will no longer boot up properly, ouch. I think I may need to finally replace it.

The hut was pretty full for the evening meal -- there was a big group (a dozen or so) of people with a couple of AMC guides as chaperones who were there, along with the couple from Portsmouth, or group, and a few other assorted hangers-on.

Dinner was turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, and gravy.

After dinner there was a slide presentation by one of the AMC guides who was with the big group, talking about the AMC's "Maine Initiative", e.g. the efforts on the part of the AMC to extend their huts + operations in general into Maine. It was pretty interesting material. I hadn't realized what a big move into Maine the AMC has made -- they've purchased some seventy thousand acres, and they've picked up a whole collection of new huts. Doing this required raising almost fifty million dollars, which is a pretty big deal.

Sunday Jan 24:

Temps around zero in the morning; we got packed up and went in to have breakfast, another excellent meal: cheese grits, sausage, eggs, and scones (yum).

For the ski out to the winter parking lot we decided to take the trail to the south of Long Pond, which was nice. We made very good time in spite of the cold and the slight uphill, so we finished up at the winter parking lot around 11:30 or so (at that point it was up to around 20 degrees, so we were all pretty sweaty). I think it was a bit less than 9 miles on the way out.

The drive home was fairly uneventful -- we ate our packed sandwiches on the road (no need to stop). At around 3 we picked up the Patriots/Broncos game, which was exciting but a bit depressing (not the happiest of games for a car full of Pats fans, oh well). Made it back home by around 4:30, which wasn't too bad.

All in all, it was a terrific trip... fantastic skiing conditions, nice huts with the proper amenities and very good food -- huzzah. Next time hopefully I will be able to convince Amy and Oscar to come along as well.