Doug's World Tour Part 2: Toronto, Canada

From July 14th to 16th, I spent my summer vacation visiting the largest city in Canada. We traveled by train from Windsor, Ont. which was a different experience. It was July and it was hot and humid but sometimes the breezes off Lake Ontario were refreshing. My Mom is a travel agent by trade and she set up the trip through her office, however we paid the cost of the trip minus her commission. It was a package deal and included the train, hotel stay, and two tickets to see "Phantom of the Opera". Toronto is the Broadway of Canada where musicals and plays get their start. It is also the Hollywood of Canada where many films and TV shows are made. We saw that happen while we were there.

On this and the following pages, I put together a travel log of my trip. It is a bit of an experiment for me for a couple of reasons. I got my photos put on a Kodak Picture CD. I processed the pictures using Paint Shop Pro for size and file size. I created these pages with Netscape Composer just to save me time and see how it will turn out. Please give me feedback on how it appeared on your machine. Use this link for feedback. Enjoy -- dlb.

July 14th, 1998 -- We left from my mom's house at 6am for the drive to Windsor to catch the train. It was due to leave at 9:20am. The train station was next to a distillery near the shore of Lake St. Clair. We got there with about 10 minutes to spare. Try driving through Detroit during morning rush hour.

Mom telling me to get in the car or we'll be late

One of the cars of the train at the station in Windsor, Ont.

We picked up our tickets and vouchers from the tour operator at the station and we exchanged some of our greenbacks for Canadian Beavers. The exchange rate at the time was the best in years at about 68 cents Canadian per $1 US.

The train was modern and pretty comfortable. We sat two cars away from the engine. The best thing was the seats were roomy and the leg room was fantastic. Snacks were offered during the three hour trip but we had brought our own. I guess it was the experience with American transportation that made us bring our own. Mom did buy some coffee.

What was extra cool during the trip was a mother and her young daughter in the seats next to ours. They were French Canadians traveling to Montreal to visit Grandma and Grandpa. They both spoke French and English during the trip. They helped me decide that in the future I would love to visit Montreal.

The trip was at times visually interesting and other times all we could see was factory after factory.

Home | Next Page