It wasn't all bad... 11 new experiences of 2016

2016 was a bit of a rubbish year in lots of ways, but rather than mull over the increasingly terrible collective decisions the world seems to be making, or the long list of famous people who passed away last year, I have decided to focus on the good stuff. And for me there was a lot of good stuff. This post is about all the things I did for the very first time last year. A lot of this happened on our big holiday in pre-Trump North America, so I'm going to start there...

1) Went to Canada
There are loads of things I did for the first time in on our road trip to the USA and Canada, in terms of visiting places I'd not been to before (like Niagara Falls, or the Baseball Hall of Fame), but I'm going to lump all of those things in under this heading.

2) Ate fried pickles
Just one of the new culinary experiences of our road trip. We also ate at a Vegan Diner and on another occasion had poutine. But fried pickles were the new food of the year.

3) Went to a Baseball match on a giveaway night
'Star Wars night' made seeing the Boston Red Sox even more special. We also saw a baseball game in Toronto, with the Rodgers Stadium dome closed - the first time I'd ever seen baseball "indoors".

4) Saw a moose
OK, it was in a zoo, but it counts.

5) Checked into a hotel then checked straight back out again
The lowlight of our road trip was a disastrous hotel booking in Albany, New York. But it was a totally new experience for me.

So, enough about our road trip, here are some other things.

6) Saw Shrewsbury Town finally beat Cardiff City in Cardiff. 
It had been a long time coming, but I was finally present (in one of Cardiff's record lowest crowds at their new stadium) to see Shrewsbury beat them.

7) Got on a plane unaccompanied
I went to a conference in Glasgow and flew there from Bristol. It was the first time I had ever travelled by plane on my own, having always had Cathy, or family, or colleagues with me on previous flights.

8) Saw Celtic play
A childhood ambition ticked off

9) Went to Spain
Again, this was for a work conference. I took plenty of photos of Valencia by night. I loved it.

10) Rode through a bus wash
Seriously, this was one of the best things I did last year.

11) Going to a cartoon festival
I love cartoons and one of our favourite cartoonists was at the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival, we decided we had to go. We met her again a few weeks later, in her studio in Massachusetts.

USA & Canada 2016 - the long trip back to the coast and the last few days

This is my last post in the series detailing our trip to the USA and Canada. It was six weeks ago today that we arrived back in the UK.

As mentioned in the previous post, we crossed over the Rainbow Bridge next to Niagara Falls and started the 300 or so mile trip across New York State.

Before we left Canada we went to a rare Canadian IHOP, where I had the healthy breakfast. It had fruit on it and everything.

(Here's some proof it was Canadian - the Maple Leaf in the O of IHOP)

Our destination was Albany where we were going to stay the night before driving across Massachusetts the following day. Unfortunately the motel we had booked there was not a good place. It was the same chain we had stayed in back in Niagara, but in Albany the building and bedroom was filthy. We checked in and then we did something we had never done before - we checked back out again! There was another hotel across the road, and we got a room there. It wasn't great, but at least we didn't feel like we would wake up murdered.

We got out of Albany pretty quickly the following morning. We had quite a bit of driving to do. Cathy took a lot of photos out of the windows because there was always something to see. Whether that was the expanse of sky over the open country...

...or flame-decals on big red trucks.

We stopped at one of West Massachusetts's biggest tourist attractions: the factory outlet for the Yankee Candle company.

If you like Yankee Candles, then you need to go to Yankee Candle Village. Even if you don't, it's worth a visit. They have a year-round Christmas village full of decorations. O gauge trains run overhead in many of the rooms. They have a great toy shop, which includes this Lego model of  the 'Village'.

Eventually we got back in the car and drove back right through Boston and up towards Marblehead, a little town on the coast. We had much nicer lodgings here, in a B&B.

There isn't much in Marblehead.

But they do have a very nice headland, that is peaceful and scenic.

It has this oddly-constructed lighthouse on it.

There's also a fort and a harbour. There is a lot of history in the place. The first ship commissioned into the new United States navy after the declaration of independence was from Marblehead.

It's also just down the coast from Salem, which is of course famous for one thing - the witch trials. The town now is full of occulty shops selling witchy tat. It also has a statue of America's most loved witch, Samantha from Bewitched.

And it's not all witches. There were a number of churches too.

We had lunch at the sci-fi themed Flying Saucer Pizza Company restaurant. They did vegan pizzas. Their decor was all kinds of ace.

As was their signage.

The following day we headed back to Boston to the airport, stopping on the way on another headland called Nahant, where we got a view across the water of the Boston skyline in the distance.

Soon we were driving back into Boston. On the way to Marblehead we had passed this gloriously named place.

On the way back we saw this confusing signage that I'm sure had a deeper meaning.

We were leaving Wonderland and coming home. It had been an epic 17 days and it was all over far too soon.

USA & Canada 2016 - Niagara Falls

I wasn't sure about Niagara Falls. But as we were kind of near, it felt silly not to go and see them. I didn't really know what to expect - would it be the slight underwhelming of the Grand Canyon? Or the unexpected brilliance of Monument Valley?

We stopped on our way out of Toronto at a mall which had a Pickle Barrel restaurant. I had pancakes. They were easily the best pancakes I had all trip. I will do another blog post about pancakes one day. I just wanted to mention them.

We arrived in Niagara Falls (the Canadian side), dropped our car at the motel and wandered down to the main bit of the town. Our first stop was the Skylon Tower.

It's very reasonable and from the top you get great views. (Probably helped by it being a lovely sunny day.)

The 'American Falls' are off to the left.

The Horseshoe Falls, which are the 'Canadian Falls' are off to the right.

You get to see how far in the boats go.

The boat ride was part of the plan. We bought the double-ticket for a daytime cruise and nighttime cruise with fireworks.

We began at this important stop.

Where we got our fetching 'one-size-fits-none' poncho.

You can upgrade to more substantial ponchos for a fee. Maybe we should have because as soon as you get out on the boat and into the spray the poncho inflates and the water flies up the sleeves.

The water-level view is great.

But close to the falls you can't see anything for the mist and spray. It's beyond noisy as well.

Back off the boat we took a walk up Clifton Hill, which is tacky beyond all reason, with souvenir shops, lazer tag, haunted houses (plural!), and other wet weather 'attractions'.

Up Clifton Hill is the Sky Wheel, right next to the rather ace looking Dinosaur Adventure Golf.

The views of the falls from the Sky Wheel are OK. But not as good as the views of the dinosaur golf.

Or the tacky bits of Clifton Hill.

The Canadians have the American tendency of building casinos next to big tourist attractions. One of the biggest casino hotels also had a Hershey's Chocolate Store. We posed for a selfie with one of their mascots.

Before heading back to walk along the promenade, looking at the falls.

You can get very close to the edge. Watching the water go over is hypnotic.

The spray coming off the falls means that near the edge it is permanently 'raining'.

Which means if the sunlight is at the right angle you can see a rainbow in the spray - a spraybow.

Here is a video of a complete spraybow. (It's 30 seconds long)



You can eat right at the edge of the falls in a fully spray-proof restaurant.

As dusk descends they turn on powerful searchlights to illuminate the falls.

And soon it was time for us to poncho up and head back out on the boat. We didn't go as far into the falls at night, and then stayed stationary mid-stream as fireworks popped brightly above us. It was one of those magical moments.

So what was the verdict? Niagara Falls was well worth doing, I think we did most of the best bits. There is a place where you can go down behind some of the falls and there are a few things on the American side. But considering we got there about noon, I don't feel we missed much by only having an afternoon and evening there.

We got to see the falls again the next day, as we crossed over the Rainbow Bridge to the US Customs point, re-entering America at the start of a mammoth two day, 450 mile drive across New York and Massachusetts. This was the final leg of our amazing trip and I'll blog about it next.

USA & Canada 2016 - Toronto Zoo

We took a whole day to visit the Toronto Zoo, mainly because this offered us the best chance to see some genuine Canadian/American animals without going out looking for them. And as one of the animals we wanted to see was a grizzly bear, this was probably the safest way too.

Because grizzly bears are massive.

We started our visit with a ride on the zoo train that took us to the Canadian zone.

We arrived at the grizzly enclosure in time for feeding. The food was fruit and vegetables lobbed over the wall. Some went in the pool, so the bears went in the pool to get it.

Make no mistake, they look cute, but these animals could rip you limb from limb and not really exert themselves doing it.

Near to the grizzlies were the moose. They were rather diffident and were happy to lie down some distance away from the nosey visitors. But seeing a real live moose meant Cathy ticked something off her lifetime goals list.

We then walked past the wolves...

To get to the polar bear feeding time.

Again, there were on a more veggie-based diet than I expected.

But a few fish were chucked in and you could watch them dive for them.

And even get to high five the bears through the glass if you were quick.

The last bears on our trip were non-native to Canada.

Although, two would now qualify for Canadian passports.

The cubs in questions were snoozing photogenically.

While mommy panda (pictured above) munched through a load of bamboo. Her technique was to cover herself in bamboo and eat her way out.

I filmed her eating. This lasts one minute.



Meanwhile daddy panda was outside, snoozing in the sun.

And that was (just some of) our day at Toronto Zoo.