See additional writeup of this day by Grant and Helen in red below
With excess cupcakes in hand from last nights Birthday Party (haven't written that blog yet), we met up with Western NY Morgan Club members Desi and her husband John again in Watkins Glen at our hotel. They volunteered to take those around the Old Watkins Glen Race Course who hadn't been able to do the drive yesterday.
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| Good Morning Watkins Glen |
Although we had been left behind and therefore gotten lost when we did the course last evening, we felt we should forge on this morning in order to arrive in Kingston in time for the evenings dinner cruise.
Four couples had originally planned on a long route through Niagara Falls, but when it came down to actually doing it, only Gail and John did the route, and that was primarily to meet family.
There were two basic routes for today- the fast route and the scenic route, the fast route being the freeway and the scenic driving one near Lake Ontario. The scenic route was chosen by us, and Stan and Jen went along with us. If time ran out, we could abort the scenic route and head for the freeway.
Heading up the west side of Lake Geneva, we stopped for breakfast at the Water Street Cafe in the town of Geneva. Bart and Marj beat us there, so we joined in their table for a filling breakfast.
We then continued north almost to the shores of Lake Ontario, then Easterly on our way to cross the border into Canada.
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| Healthy Blueberry Pancakes |
As we had a large breakfast rather late, lunch consisted of ice cream in Sacket's Harbor.
We had been warned that it could take up to 4 hours to cross the border, but I accessed a web site (www.cbsa.gc.ca) that tells you the waiting times at the border, so we could plan our Kingston arrival time. At our proposed crossing time, the site indicated it was a 20 minute wait, and it was just a bit more than that. We were surprised however that the only crossing was the US immigration, and did not appear to be Canadian.
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| Brige Over the border |
The arrival in Kingston was confusing
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| Waiting to determine "the plan" at the Hotel. |
The evening was a pre-booked Beatles Tribute Band Dinner Cruise in the St. Lawrence River around Thousand Islands. Most of the group attended and we had a wonderful time as the photos will show. To say the least, we did take over the boat, and I think some people were envious watching us have a great time and "bond".
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| Our Dinner Cruise ship |
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| Thierry getting down |
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| Didier |
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| Fiona and Tony Dancing |
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| Nigel and Janet Dancing |
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| Jen |
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| Martine |
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| Simon and Michael Starting the Dancing |
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| Everyone Dancing to the Beatles |
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| Thierry and Brigitte Dancing |
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| Michael enjoying the wine |
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| Tony |
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| Bruce and Lesley |
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| Next table |
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| The Group |
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| Our table |
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| Raymond |
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| Grant |
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| From our Room |
"Today we
were leaving the US for two weeks in Canada and there was much discussion at
the briefing about the scenic versus the direct route and speculation about the
length of the wait at the Canadian border.
We opted for the direct route after yesterday’s failure to find the
‘Falling Water’ house, having talked about visiting it for years. Instead, exhausted from trading insults about
the other’s lack of navigational skills and having added around 100 miles to
the day’s itinerary, we found ourselves in some place called Altooma, about
three hours’ drive from Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic house!
We stopped
for coffee and breakfast for some, in Geneva.
A few of us had eaten breakfast at the hotel, at roughly the equivalent
cost each of the national debt of a small African country… but at least it was
convenient! Geneva feels a prosperous
place with lots of impressive looking houses and boutique shops. We saw a young Amish woman pulling a
primitive home-made farm trailer with three small children in tow, a reminder
that in the good old US of A, with a few obvious exceptions, there is room for
everyone!
Note to
Self: We must find a pharmacy.
It was an
easy drive through to the border on the I 90 though it was very hot, so it was
a relief to find that the wait was no more than twenty minutes. Incidentally, when did a ‘rest area’ become a
‘text stop’? Social media, it seems, has
created a whole new vocabulary!
We had
lunch in Gananaque with fellow travellers Bruce and Lesley, Tony and Raymond
and Simon and Jenny, so were a strong NZ contingent gathered in a hostelry
called ‘The Socialist Pig’. I was
furiously scribbling notes, as this day was ours to write up and Lesley was very
hungry and worried that I might expose her poor table manners in her haste to
attack an enormous plate of food!
At last,
with great relief, we found a pharmacy!
It was a
rush to get to Kingston in time to check into our hotel and scrub up for the
Beatles’ Tribute Concert and Cruise at 6.30pm.
Not often, but every now and then, you experience a cameo moment quite
unexpectedly, one which leaves a smile imprinted on your memory for a long
time, perhaps forever. This was such an
evening!
Simon was
soon shaking his tail feather and Michael had us all up and dancing in the
aisles, especially when the band kicked in with the old rocking standards we
all grew up with. But the man of the
moment was Thierry, whose slick, sexy dance moves wowed us all.
I was
sitting next to Thierry at the dinner.
At the end of the evening, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘The
MOA people, they are the best’. And he
was right. It was a blast!"
