May 25th, 2025
Gas: In Buffalo – around $3.03 USD a gallon
In Ontario – around $1.22 CDN a litre = $3.39 USD a gallon
As you may or may not be aware, this post is under a new “escape”. We have completed “The Land Down Under” “escape” with the last post being “Hawai’i”. The posts for this “escape” (entitled “Transition from Overlanding”) will not be as frequent. We have NOT stopped traveling but will be staying put in places for longer and for this summer, at least, we are not overlanding but traveling in our car or truck.
Well, it all went a bit TOO smoothly leaving Hawai’i till it didn’t. We landed in San Francisco only to learn upon turning on our phone data, that our connecting flight to DC was canceled due to an “operational” issue. As soon as we disembarked, we hit the United desk at the gate and after everyone was off the plane, the gate agent began to try and re-book us. Two other young men arrived and one of them took over. We had hoped that they would book us on the Delta flight in about an hour but they claimed that they could not access that flight (and couldn’t get our bags transferred over) so after about 20 minutes they had us booked on a flight in the morning, gave us $45 each in food vouchers and a hotel stay at the Comfort Inn Airport North hotel that has a shuttle. They advised our luggage would be on the flight tomorrow unless we wanted to wait up to two hours for it to arrive in baggage claim. As it was already 10pm we opted to go without and crossed our fingers that our luggage would arrive in Buffalo with us.
We had to call the shuttle once we exited the airport and had to wait over a half hour for it but we got to the hotel around 11:40 and went straight to bed even though it only felt like 8:40 pm for us. We had to get up at 5:30 am to catch our next flight so we wanted to get to sleep ASAP. This was actually much better than getting no sleep on a red eye.
We reached out to Josh and Amanda (our car storage person) and advised of our delay. As we will now not land in Buffalo until after 9pm instead of after 9am, so we will get a hotel there so as not to have to drive in the dark and when we’re so tired.
Monday morning we were up and out of the hotel by 5:50, through security (no bags to check) and our flight to Newark left about a half hour late but as per the old airline scheduling trick, we did land more or less on time. We had a 3.5 hour layover here in New Jersey. Since they don’t feed you on domestic flights anymore, we went for some lunch and went to the gate to sit – they have tables and chairs at the gates here with plugs.
Our flight to Buffalo landed safely and our bags were on it. We took the shuttle to our hotel, watched a bit of TV and went to bed. Amanda and her husband, Kevin, picked us up at 9:30 Tuesday morning and we got our car. Kevin maintains it for us and it’s kept in good shape for a 20 year old car. He did an oil change, put new tires and wiper blades on it and replaced brake pads. He advises that it also needs new tie-rods but not urgently, so he’ll do that when we bring it back. We had a few packages and our mail, got all our bags in the trunk, went grocery shopping (cheaper here than in Canada) and got across the border in no time – no line ups at all – not many Canadians are crossing the border in these days of tariff wars.
We made a couple of stops for errands including getting SIM cards and were at Josh’s by mid-afternoon. Gas in Ontario is averaging around $1.22 CDN a litre – about $3.37 USD a gallon.
After emptying the car we made up our bed and got settled in. We had to unpack, go through stuff we’d left behind and tried to sort out what comes with us to Reno and what will stay here. Josh was home from work around 5:30.
Here up in Josh’s house in Tottenham, we are are 46°N and it’s late spring with the longest day of the year coming next month. Right now the sun comes up at 5:35am and sets just after 9pm.
After catching up, we had dinner, watched a bit of TV before Doug and Josh both crashed early. Fran managed to stay up until after ten and was up more or less on time. Doug had trouble staying asleep and slept in late before going for a run.
Fran had made plans with our friend, Christine, to meet up in Peterborough for a couple of days so she hit the road around noon. It’s about half way between Josh’s and her place. Normally we go to see her north of Montreal but as her husband is busy on a project, there wasn’t much point in Doug going so they had a “girl’s weekend” mid week.
Fran arrived in Peterborough before 3 but as Christine was running late due to attending a funeral this morning, she took advantage of the free time and went for a hair cut nearby. After Christine arrived, they went out for dinner at Kelsey’s to begin to catch up.
Thursday morning, they went for a long walk during which it drizzled for about a third of the time, then tried to get Christine some new shoes at the Running Room that she knew were on sale but they didn’t have her size. So they went for coffee instead and then to visit the Canadian Canoe Museum which was just recently moved to a brand new building here in Peterborough last year. It was quite impressive and the Canadian (and worldwide) history of the canoe was most educational.
They enjoyed a nice relaxing soak in the hotel hot tub in the late afternoon and went out for dinner after which they watched Game 5 of the Western Conference NHL playoffs in the hotel room – there’s one Canadian team left – the Edmonton Oilers, just like last year. And, joy of joys, they’ve made it through to the final round which starts on June 4th against the same team as last year, the Florida Panthers. Go Oilers!
Back at Josh’s, Doug did a lot of online stuff and got caught up on things, booked us accommodation for our mini trip to Ottawa next week and spent Thursday evening with Josh watching the same hockey game.
Fran returned to Josh’s by late morning on Friday. The grandkids arrived after Josh got home from work and so began a weekend that they “scheduled”. (If you recall, we have been asked by them not to post pictures on this website any longer – sorry.) We played board games and lots of street hockey, flew the new remote planes we bought them for an early birthday present (that didn’t last long and we are returning them), went to Dairy Queen, played more street hockey, watched Jumanji and played more games and more street hockey. Fran was pretty sore by Sunday night – she’d let Josh play with the taller hockey stick and her back paid the price for that.
Monday morning after they left and Josh left for work, we headed out to Ottawa for some visiting. We took the slow scenic route and arrived at an AirBNB that Doug booked around 3:30. For dinner we went to Fran’s nephew, Alex’s, (and godson) house for dinner with him, his lovely wife, Emily and their two kids, Dallas (4) and Isabella (20 months). The kids were shy at first but by the end of dinner, Dallas had warmed up to us and while playing with him, Isabella came around and was eager to play, be hugged and laugh with us. It was a very nice visit.
Tuesday, Fran was still rather sore – more her back then her knees so she skipped exercise today and Doug went for his run. We spent some time online in the morning and went to meet Fran’s longtime friend, Cathy and her hubbie, Mike for lunch. Cathy and Fran met waaaaaaaay back in kindergarten! Cathy was also part of our wedding party back in 1981 and we’ve stayed in touch over the years. We met them at the Ottawa Hunt & Golf Club where they are members and had a very nice lunch sitting out on the patio catching up on our lives sitting out on the patio. Hard to believe we met SIXTY years ago! We are all grandparents and can all claim that “life is good”.
(During both of the above visits, we were so “in the moment” that we forgot to take photos!)
We got back to our little suite by four and relaxed before taking a drive into downtown Ottawa to stroll around for a bit as it’s been several years since we’ve been there. We got free street parking downtown and wandered over to the Parliament Buildings.
A major restoration project has been underway for over a decade. All the buildings are getting new roof tops and the main building with the Peace Tower was under a fair bit of ongoing construction including an excavation project to create a new underground space to better protect the building from earthquakes and the like.
The West Block has been done and you can see the smoke from the wildfires up north is in the sky here:
and the East Block still has to be done.
When installed in 2015 the roof tiles were the original copper colour but have already turned brown and overtime will turn green – this can take up to thirty years. Many of the buildings’ rock outer walls have been cleaned by lasers too.
From the Government of Canada’s website:
Using a highly focused, powerful light source, stonemasons simply vaporize dirt from the stones. The lasers can clean the stones without touching them. This is far more convenient than the traditional cleaning method, which involved scrubbing with water and chemicals. Traditional methods are still relevant and used in certain areas where it’s difficult to clean with a laser.
We continued walking to view the Rideau Canal, which of course, is not frozen this time of year:
Saw the Chateau Laurier:
checked out the statues around the Senate and the War Memorial:
before heading down Sparks Street (a pedestrian mall) looking for a place for a light dinner but were unsuccessful so we returned to our basement suite and just had our remaining snacks for dinner as we’d had a rather large lunch.
Wednesday, we checked out, and drove south over to the 401 along Lake Ontario to Trenton where our friends, Maria & Bruno now live. Fran used to work with Maria for 7 years back when we moved back to Canada in 1987. Our children were born around the same time and we hung out socially outside of work. We met them at a local pub/grill they like and had a very pleasant catch up session.
We made it back to Josh’s by 4:30 without much traffic problems. The eastern section of the toll 407 is now free and we used that to get north rather than drive through the city of Toronto and its very busy suburbs along the 401. Josh got home shortly after us on his bike, exchanged that for his car and drove north to meet the kids for their weekly Scouts meeting – he is one of the leaders.
Tonight was Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals so we enjoyed our pizza leftover from lunch with beer before watching the game. It was very exciting and after the Oilers first goal at 1:06 minutes they ended up winning the game in OT 31 seconds before that period ended!
Thursday, Fran went into town for pedi as Josh had given her gift certificates for Mother’s Day and she did a bit of shopping. When Josh got home from work we all went to see the new “Mission Impossible” movie which was quite enjoyable if not a bit far fetched at times.
Friday, Doug went into town to have lunch with his friend who was in town for a few days from Vancouver and upon his return we enjoyed another soak in Josh’s inflatable hot tub that he got free and has set up in his back yard.
Josh went straight to Scout Camp after work for the night and the next day. We watched Game 2 of the Stanley Cup finals which the Oilers lost in the second overtime period.
We drove up north up past Wasaga Beach on Lake Huron on Saturday morning to spend that day at Scout Camp at the grand-kid’s suggestion. It’s about a 1.5 hour drive. They are Scouts and they along with one other Scout, planned the weekend camp for their Beaver Colony. Upon arriving Doug set off on his long run first completing a half marathon to his delight and we spent the day observing Arya and Cyrus being in charge, having lunch with them and the two of us got to join just the Scouts at an Archery Range that another troop had set up (Beavers are too young for this activity). That was fun and the weather was good albeit a bit smoky due to the wild fires out west and up north. Again, sorry no pics of them but here’s some of us:
We returned to Josh’s that evening after stopping for groceries and Josh with the kids, showed up around 9pm after feeding the Beavers dinner and doing clean up with them.
Sunday was our last day with the grandkids and we spent it by going to the Barrie Air Show. We thought it started at 10 but it was actually not until 1 so first we went bowling for an hour, ran an errand and got lunch before returning at the correct time. We got to see parachutists, some WWII planes, some helicopter maneuvers and a self built plane doing loop-de-loops and other tricks. We left when the jets came out as they fly too high! It was hard enough getting video of the small planes that fly lower down.
The show was held over Lake Simcoe:
Here are a few bad videos/pics of our day at the show. Fran only had her phone, not her camera.
This was by no means a “world class” air show with the Snowbirds or the Blue Angels but what we saw was enjoyable enough.
We were home by about 3:30 and played some games, more street hockey and watched “Hotel Transylvania” over dinner with the kids before more card games and bedtime.
We have noticed that due to the tariff war and the anti US sentiment in Canada, we are seeing a lot more signs saying “proudly Canadian”; even at McDonald’s!
Since selling Matilda in Australia, we’ve been patiently waiting for a refund of the third party insurance/registration fees on her. It was valid to early December and we’d heard nothing yet. Well it turns out you actually have to apply for this refund and Fran managed to call Adelaide on Monday night which was Tuesday morning there and the kind lady who answered the phone emailed her to the form to fill in and send back.
Monday morning Doug went for his run and got back before the kids were picked up by their mom. We’re not sure when we’ll be back; probably Christmas for sure but who knows as our fall plans are up in the air.
Today, Doug tacked on a long walk onto his 4 mile morning run to meet Josh at the movies this afternoon as part of his early Father’s Day gift. They went to see the new John Wick movie. Fran hung around home, did some errands and chilled.
That night was Game 3 of the playoffs and it was quite a loss at 6-1 with way too much fighting and game misconduct penalties. Let’s hope that they got that out of their system.
Tuesday and Wednesday were quiet days with no hockey or outings. We did hear back from the South Australia Service Centre only to be told they could not process our refund request without the actual vehicle plates or a “Surrender of Number Plate Receipt”. No mention of that was made in the phone call Fran had a couple of days ago. Fran reached out to the buyer on WhatsApp and he was still up and managed to send her a copy of that document via that app which she then forwarded to Adelaide with the refund request form once again. Fingers crossed! We purposely left our Oz bank account open for this exact reason as we knew they only give refunds by cheque not back to credit cards. So the cheque should be mailed to our “address” in Australia which is Pam & John’s place, and they will very kindly deposit same for us. Then we can electronically send ourselves the money and close that account.
Thursday was our last day at Josh’s so we spent the day chillin’ and doing some packing and that night we took him out to dinner at Timo, a great Italian place nearby that we seem go to every time we are in town.
After a very nice dinner (that place has never disappointed us), we returned to the house and watched Game 4 of the playoffs – which started out badly; first period 3-0 for the Panthers; second period 3-3; third period 4-4 and the Oilers won in overtime – phew! The series is tied 2-2. Next game: Saturday.
Last week Doug had, at three different times, purchased scratch tickets for Fran. The first two were duds but the third one, she won $21. This afternoon he’d purchased another and she won $45!
We said our goodbyes to Josh that night as we will be leaving while he’s at work tomorrow. Fran did catch him just before he left on Friday though and gave him more hugs. We left his place around 10:30, had no issues crossing the border into New York State, ran a couple of errands, checked into an airport hotel and Fran returned the car to Amanda’s around 4. (We are staying at a hotel tonight because our flight tomorrow is at 10:30 which means get to the airport by 8:30 – if we drove from Josh’s we’d have had to be really, really early to drive here and if we hit bad traffic or such, we may not have had time to drop off the car and get to the airport on time.) We tried to stay up later than usual because tomorrow we’ll be in the Pacific time zone which is 3 hours earlier and we only made it to 10:40.
Today we heard from South Australia that our request for a refund has been processed and a cheque would be mailed within 21 days.
We were up just after 7 on Saturday, had a not so great brekkie at the hotel and caught the shuttle to the Buffalo airport. Our Southwest flight left on time and off we were to visit Serena and Kurt.
In Ontario we drove 2,298 km / 1428 mi. There is a new noise at the back end of the Honda which we asked Kevin to also look at and we do so appreciate all he and Amanda do for us.
