Toronto Tontos

Our first vacation of the summer is winding down, as we just returned from five days in Toronto (I had planned to file a couple of dispatches from there, but it just never worked out. I was either too tired after a long day of activities, or the Internet at my uncle's house was out.). We headed up last Friday night to Syracuse, which is a little more than halfway through the 10+ hour drive. Smooth sailing until just past Albany, when a torrential thunderstorm just dropped on us like a giant anvil. We hit the road around 8:30 the next morning and ran into some more rain intermittently until we got to the border crossing in Buffalo, where we sat for an hour. Still, we got to my uncle's house in Mississauga in the early afternoon and hung out there with my cousins. We met my cousin Dev's almost 2-year-old son (his wife's expecting a second child in the fall) and got to see his wife Rani and sister Anita; always great to see those guys. We were last up there in 2009 and stayed at the same place.


This time around, we decided to do some touristy stuff with the kids: We hit the CN Tower and the Jays-Rays game on Sunday, the Ontario Science Centre on Monday. We were going to go to Casa Loma and the Royal Ontario Museum on Tuesday, but we decided to take it easy and just stay local in Mississauga; we took the kids to a place called the Playdium that had mini golf and stuff like that. Then I went in to the Jays-Dodgers game that night with Dev and my uncle Partha, where we met some buddies of Dev's. It was a great game, as the Jays took an 8-3 lead, but they blew it and lost 10-9. We ended up going out after the game and didn't get home until 1:30. Needless to say, we were a little fuzzy the next day (especially Dev). On Wednesday, we drove out to the Toronto Zoo, which Deb and I had gone to 11 years ago with Hannah when she was a baby. We went with my aunt Bharathi and met Anita, Rani and little Raj there; we did a ton of walking but had a great day. And just like that, the trip was over.

We made good time yesterday until we got to the Mass Pike around rush hour. It started pouring and we sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic for a long goddamn time. But we finally made it home okay. I was hoping to hit a few record stores up there, but it wasn't to be. There just wasn't any time. But we all had a blast and that's all that matters. And in a few weeks, we're off to Hilton Head for vacation #2.