Mississauga & Niagara Falls

Argh, I am so behind in my writing!  I've been pretty good about loading my photos to my laptop each night, but really bad about writing anything down.  I thought I'd get better after I got over my writer's block about Des Moines.  Now I think I have to get over my laziness.  :(

I'm writing this on Thursday, July 21, but won't be able to post it until Friday or later.  Which means I'm a week behind!  So, back to last week... After leaving Sault Ste. Marie, I spent the night in Sudbury, Ontario, which looked like a dump, so I left it fast the next day and drove to stay with friends outside of Toronto:  Linda and Jim, and their daughter Mia.  I originally knew Linda and Jim and Dracka and Biffocles in the World of Warcraft.  We met each night while attacking Eastspark, for those of you who know anything about the game, and they were always around to get Omegamoo out of a pickle!

As with other stops along the way where I got to see friends, Mississauga was very fun and relaxing.  And it was extra nice that Linda and Jim, who'd never really met me before -- and even thought I was a guy for the longest time -- invited me to stay at their home and cooked me more than one tasty meal.  Friday and Sunday, just being half days with them, were just spent around the house.  But Saturday we went to Niagara Falls, which I hadn't seen in... oh, I guess about 25 years!

Proof that I'm really there.

Linda and I both love this view, because you get an idea of how much water is pouring over the cliffs.

They are still as impressive as I remembered, maybe moreso.  It was pretty busy that day, so we decided not to make the long waits for the Maid of the Mist or the tunnels, and I was content just to watch the falls from up top.  On the U.S. side, you can get very close to the falls, but you can't see the view so well, so I'm glad we were on the Canadian side.

Mia explains how someday she'll go over the Falls in a barrel.

Next we drove to Niagara-on-the-Lake, a little town maybe 30 minutes from the falls, which is very quaint with cute shops, and is therefore completely overrun by tourists.  But we had a nice lunch, Linda & family found a pretty trinket for their yard, and Mia had the best time of her day playing in this wading pool that attracted all the kids.  Apologies to Linda and Jim for failing to take any photos of that!  I think I was too preoccupied watching the kid with the terrible sunburn, and wondering how badly he'd hurt the next day.

I did remember to take photos of the Niagara-on-the-Lake Cemetary!

Oh and just for lulz:

He just had to stare at it, and the prints engraved themselves.

Sault Ste. Marie

A few days ago I stopped in Sault Ste. Marie.  When I was a little girl, I read a book about a ballet dancer who grew up there, and ever since, I've wanted to go.  Supposedly it has 75,000 residents but it seemed bigger than that.  I liked it, at least the main part of the city.  Driving in from the highway, there was nothing but fast food joints and car dealerships, but the downtown and "suburban" type areas were nice.

My first stop was at the Ermatinger Clergue National Historic Site, which are two homes preserved from the mid-late 1880s.  They were sort of your typical "old stone house", but bigger, and had a lot of information about the history of the area as well as the homes.

The Ermatinger House

The Clergue House.  The owner built the wooden part on top of a building used to store gunpowder.

My next and favorite stop was to see the locks, which is one of the main reasons the city of Sault Ste. Marie grew in the first place.  Sadly, I didn't get to see the locks in action, but they were pretty neat anyway.  I've always like watching heavy industry, and I guess canal locks count.

The bridge to the USA.

That was it for the day; my afternoon was spent driving towards my next main stop.

He's down with OPP

A friendly officer, willing to let me take his photo.

Stands for Ontario Province Police; they patrol the small towns throughout the province.  And speaking of the OPP... I saw a few of their cars at the border crossing south of Thunder Bay.  I was randomly (??) selected there for questioning by the customs or immigration officers, not sure which.

What a waste of time; they must have asked me about 30 questions.  Did they really need to ask me where I went to college?!  No!  But they did answer all of the questions I had for them too, although I'll never know if they told me the truth.  Like they'll never know if I told the truth!  Bwahahaha!   /rubs hands together in perfect mixture of glee and villainy/

Anyway, I met the officer above somewhere along the north coast of Lake Superior, where I stopped to visit the lighthouse in a really small town.  There was very little to see along that drive, which took a couple days, but overall it was a nice drive.  The scenery was nice -- pine trees, mostly, and gentle hills.  And I got the impression that a lot of people visit the area in summer to stay in summer cottages, but there sure wasn't a lot to do.

I don't know the full story, but north of Lake Superior, people stack rocks everywhere.  If you know they are there, you'll see them all over the place, like on ridges along the highway.

Things were more interesting near Sault Ste. Marie (pronounced Soo Saint Marie, for those who don't know), but I'll write about that later.  I'm going for a jog while the weather is still cool.

North through Minnesota

After leaving Iowa, I drove north through Minnesota.  It was never my intention to spend a lot of time there, but I did see a couple of things -- or tried to, at any rate.

Heading towards Minneapolis (which has bad traffic, by the way), I stopped in a small town to see the William W. Mayo house, of Mayo Clinic fame.  It's just a little old house, but could have been a nice way to break up the drive.  But it was closed, due to the state government's shutdown.  I read a few days later that Minnesotans were running out of alcohol too; I guess people must buy it from government-own facilities or something.  Hehe.

Closed!

So that was a bust.  I also stopped in Mankato, because a good friend of mine used to live there and practice law.  Now maybe I just drove through the wrong parts of town, because Mankato looked nothing like what I imagined my pal would want to live in.  The first half -- more than half, actually -- was on giant strip mall.  It just went on and on... and I can't imagine my pal liking that at all.  As I was heading out of town, I stopped for a while on this really hippy retail street.  Crystal shops, yoga studios, healthy shake stores, etc.  I liked that street, at least, especially its used book store, but can't imagine my friend there either.  So Mankato was kind of a bust, too, as I just wanted to get out of there.

Ah well, I covered quite a bit of distance in the car that day, despite the stops, and spent a nice night camping south of Duluth.  Not the most interesting of days, I guess, but I knew I'd have days like this when I started on the trip.  And outside of Minneapolis and a little bit Mankato, the roads in Minnesota were a pleasure to drive.  Open and very little traffic.  In fact, there were stretches in southern Minnesota were I could drive for several minutes without seeing another car.  Several minutes doesn't sound like a lot, until you think about the last time you drove anywhere and didn't see another car for 5 minutes.  It just doesn't happen in most places.

Des Moines, Con't

I wanted to get a few more thoughts about Des Moines down before moving on to other shorter (but easier to write about) stops along my trip.

As already noted, Des Moines seemed like it would be a very comfortable place to live.  It's a very manageable size, and easy to get around, and have a number of nice places to live.  It has enough to keep one (well, to keep me) entertained, including art museums and galleries, lots of live music, a theater district that attracts Broadway touring companies, decent places to dine, etc.  I'm not so sure what the local sports scene is like, but other than college football (which I catch on TV) and figure skating (ditto), I don't really care about sports.  I think there's a minor league team in the area and the U of Iowa and Iowa State aren't too far away.  And being Big 10 country, I'd get to see a lot of Big Ten football every fall on TV.

I'm less certain I'd find the group of friends that are like me.  I've made and have friends of all ages and marital/parental status, and I tend to gravitate towards people older than me anyway, but I don't want to feel like a social freak if it turns out I'm the only unmarried 37 year old woman in the whole city.  And let's face it, not every town is like DC in that there are large numbers of unattached, or at least child-free, 30 and 40 somethings.  (That's something I always liked about DC -- lots of people in the same or similar social situation as me.)  Chatting with the locals, I got mixed opinions about how easily I would make friends with similarly-situated young-ish people.  I'm certain Des Moines would be great for a family, but less sure it would be great for a singleton.  This impression is bolstered by how early so many things close.  Des Moines is not one of the those towns that totally closes down at 5pm, but it's not a round-the-clock bustling city, either.  That's sort of OK with me, as many of my hobbies are the solo, stay-at-home kind.

Out on the town with Dan (Linconstyles), flashing our Warcraft gang sign.

I also have slight qualms about being kinda-sorta in the Bible Belt.  Des Moines itself is pretty liberal and progressive, and has enough ethnic diversity that I wouldn't expect too much in the way of bigotry, either racial, religious or sexist.  And I didn't get a single question about where I went to church, or other tips-offs that an atheist like me would be a total outsider.  But I worry about the rest of the state.  Now, Iowa isn't as politically off-putting as some of the states I plan to visit, but I'm wary.  I was heartened when I read the Des Moines Register, and read the feature that listed all of the bills that the state legislature recently passed and, more importantly, failed to pass, because most of the really bad bills failed.  Things like seriously cutting back on education, help to the poor, and reproductive freedoms, etc. for the most part did not pass, although it was a little disheartening reading that some of the bills were even proposed in the first place.

While I'm thinking about it... it seems more and more that so-called "conservatives" are doing their damnedest to cut back on education at all levels of government.  When did ignorance become a conservative cause?  :(

Now back to Iowa...  When thinking about Des Moines, I have to take care to think only of Des Moines.  I've realized over the past few days that I really liked the surrounding areas, from Dan's farm a few hours away, to the tiny town of Adel 30 miles to the west.  I like that the city and suburbs of Des Moines so quickly end and immediately become farm land, with occasional sporadic small towns sprinkled around the state.  But other than occasional weekend ventures out into the country, my life in Des Moines would probably be limited to the city itself, so I'll have to take pains not to confuse my fondness for the countryside and its small towns with fondness for Des Moines.  Having said that, I was favorably impressed with Des Moines and I suspect I would be content or happy there.  I do not feel as if I must live in Des Moines, but I'll certainly keep it in mind when thinking about my future.

Outside the Des Moines art museum.

Coming soon:  What I've done since I left Des Moines!  Teaser:  Niagara Falls!

Des Moines in Review

Well, this post is a few several days late.  I'm now in Sudbury, Ontario, having driven north from Iowa through Minnesota and into Canada, then east towards Toronto.  Yes, it's the long way, but I wanted to see the north shore of Lake Superior

I've wanted to get my thoughts about Des Moines down for several days now, but I've felt unable to write.  Part of why I've dawdled is that I'm not sure how to write this up.  I looked around Des Moines with an eye towards the things I would do frequently if I lived there, and explored different neighborhoods, spending more time in places I would probably want to live.  So a lot of my time there was spent driving around, checking things out, strolling, and visiting ordinary places like the library, grocery stores, some restaurants, shops, etc.  I did do a couple of non-standard things (which I'll write about later) but much of the time in Des Moines was pretty ordinary, as I intended.

So now I'm forcing myself to write something down, and it feels like the first time I wrote a blog post.  It wasn't great, but I had to start somewhere.  So this might be a rambling narrative of my time in Des Moines, and in the end, will be an incomplete assessment of how much I liked it.  Because here I'll focus on what I learned while in Des Moines, as opposed to the sort of thing one can learn on the internet.

In short, I liked Des Moines.  It was very ... comfortable.  Yes, that's the word.  It wasn't very exciting, but there's certainly enough going on that it's not dull, either.  I flipped through some local newspapers, and there was always something to do, especially live music shows.  I went to one, and was happy with the quality and content (a blues band, doing a mix of covers and original stuff).

I was mildly surprised by the crowd that went to the show.  It was 99% white and I was probably the third youngest person there (seriously) but this wasn't representative of Des Moines's population overall, which was more diverse than I'd expected.  I'm not sure why this show only attracted a certain crowd but anyway...

There are several different neighborhoods, especially when you include the suburbs.  Some of course are those new giant homes, where everything is the same color and none of the trees are higher than 15 feet tall.  But the closer in suburbs and most homes in Des Moines itself are much nicer.  There's a "bad" part of town, but it's more like the poor part of town, where things look shabby and houses are small.  But it's doesn't look or feel dangerous.

When you cross The Thinker with that rabbit from Donnie Darko.

There's also a decent amount of downtown living, which I would look into if I moved to Des Moines.  Different options are scattered around the downtown area.  One option is the gay part of town (which, like Dupont Circle, is not exclusively gay), complete with good restaurants, fun shops, and a great tea house.  It also contains a large asian grocery store, which offers all sorts of foods I like to eat and a lot of weird stuff too.  The regular grocery stores in Des Moines are pretty robust, although I may not be able to get sushi at them (there are some sushi restaurants in town, though).

Getting around town was a breeze.  I didn't sample the public transportation, which consists only of busses and a few free circulators.  But Des Moines is so easy to drive in and park in, that unless I'm too poor to actually afford a car, having to drive won't be the hassle it is in places like DC.  In the middle of the day (and night, while everyone is out being social), parking is plentiful and easy to find.  And where it's not free, it is cheap -- like 45 cents/hour for on-street parking.

Doh!  Time to check out of my motel.  I'll post this much and write more later.  Now that I've gotten started I feel a little better about writing.  Plus, I need to write about the past few days driving around Lake Superior.

Des Moines Cuisine

I think this menu from High Life speaks for itself, but feel free to suggest captions for the photo.