So, yes. I took another small trip on this, the last full, even extended, weekend of summer. The last weekend of pure freedom for my son before he starts the second grade.
I usually like to do something with him right around this time of year. Niagara Falls is as good a place as any to go, I think. He loves water falls, helicopters, trains, and skyscrapers, the Skylon Tower overlooking Niagara Falls more or less qualifies, and there are plenty of skyscrapers in Toronto, but he especially loves the CN Tower, understandably.
And I love going to Canada. Love the Great Lakes, and Niagara Falls is very near two of them - Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.
He is a bit too young yet to do something more cultural yet. I would love to take him to all sorts of exotic places, to explore the world. But you know he's not ready for that when he still talks only about a few things excessively. Particularly video games and weapons and such. Again, he is still young. And I am hoping - hoping - that this is just a passing phase.
I like to take him on trips just before the summer ends. It is an opportunity for good, quality time together. Also, a break from routine. I have not taken him to some very exotic place, some distant land that offers amazing differences from our own life. At least, not yet.
But we have gone on some trips, and I do try to make sure that he sees a bit more of the world than his everyday experience, as much as is possible. He has been to a good part of Eastern Canada, from Niagara Falls and Toronto, to Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec City. He really loved the water fountains of Quebec.
A few times, we have gone to Washington, DC, where earlier this year, we went to see the cherry blossom festival, although it was a little too early, evidently - it was colder thane expected this spring.
We have gone to Philadelphia and Baltimore together, and parts of New England, as well. He has taken some trips separate from me, for that matter. Specifically, to Texas, and to Seattle, visiting family.
Niagara Falls always seems like a good choice. After all, it is a beautiful natural wonder, straddling the border of two countries. Nearby, the large city of Buffalo, where I got us tickets for a preseason game between the Bills and the Detroit Lions.
Also not far away is Toronto, where we got to enjoy some amazing views of the downtown, and especially of the CN Tower, the Rogers Centre, and Lake Ontario. There was a park across the street from the CN Tower, with a railroad and train theme. There were individual car trains accessible for kids to explore, and my son loved this. He still loves trains, after all. What little boy doesn't?
Even though we did not get to visit Hamilton this time around, I have been impressed with it before. It offers a pleasant enough downtown, and I have always wanted to explore the castle, which sounded so intriguing. Plus, the beautiful Botanical Gardens there, which I have had the privilege of visiting a few years ago, and are definitely worth a visit.
There are other points of interest in the region - on both sides of the border. There are forts, some very interesting islands not too distant, that I have always wanted to visit, but have not as of yet gotten the chance. It is a beautiful region, and I have always been impressed with the Great Lakes in general.
For Toronto, I also took him to a sporting event - a baseball game. The thing is, I am not as familiar with baseball. It is not a sport I follow or have ever managed to get into, but he wanted to go to one. So, I looked months ago to possible options for baseball games combined with other fun things, and decided on this particular trip, where we could get tickets to both a football and baseball game.
Ironically, after all that planning, however, his interests were predictable enough. What did he like best about the trip? Seeing Niagara Falls? Well, he has seen them before. True, he had not seen them at nighttime before, with the lights, and was truly impressed with them. But this is not what he says he enjoyed the most.
Was it the baseball game that he had asked for some time? Nope. The football game? Nah.
No, the highlight of the trip for him was the swimming pool at the hotel we stayed at. I will give him credit, too. We swam on Friday afternoon last, the day that we had a one hour plus drive to Toronto looming. It was a frustrating morning and early afternoon, though, for numerous reasons (that I will not get into here). One of the things was that the swimming pool opened up at noon, and I had (rather foolishly) assumed it would be open earlier. So, we were sitting around the hotel room after breakfast, with me trying to rest up, writing a bit, reading a bit, and kind of hoping to catch a cat nap. At some point, the fatigue from all of the driving the previous day caught up with me, and I needed that nap. He tried waking me up before I went under, but to no avail. He had sat patiently through my nap,
And when I finally did wake up, a good hour and a half or so after, he was skeptical. He asked, in a voice choked with tears that were close by, whether it was too late to go swimming in the pool. I jumped up out of bed, and said yes, let's go.
His face instantly brightened. Suddenly, he showed me his smile, with the fairly big gap between his front teeth, the adult teeth that are still growing in. Now, he was happy.
We swam for a good hour or so. He stayed in the shallow part, mostly, although he did climb the wall, then go around the swimming pool like that, with me nearby in the deeper parts, for both of our assurance. He watched me dive, and himself did the cannonball, and a whole bunch of other weird jumps into the pool. I didn't expect to spend so much time in the pool, and after a while, I got a bit tired of it, and stepped out, reading a book that I had brought with me, relaxing poolside.
Afterwards, we headed for Toronto, to visit the city, and for the baseball game.
One thing that came as a surprise to us both when we first went into the hotel room was that there was a jacuzzi there. I was impressed and excited, but he was thrilled, and could not stop talking about it. I had promised him that later that evening, when we returned from the ballgame, and seen the Niagara Falls lights, we would try out the jacuzzi.
As it turned out, it was broken. I toyed with the idea of buying some kind of a cheap bucket, and just filling it up with hot water, and sitting there for a while. My son likely would have appreciated it, and maybe I might have, too, although that would have been like soaking in an enormous bathtub in our bathing suits. He had really wanted to try it out. Hell, so did I, having never been to a jacuzzi before!
So, we didn't get everything! But we enjoyed a lot. And it's funny, because his fixation on the swimming pool was actually rather predictable. A year or two ago, he went with his mommy to Texas, and absolutely loved the hotel because it had a swimming pool. He urged me to rush on down to Texas (and bring him along) so that we could enjoy the hotel (and obviously, the swimming pool) together.He did not understand that hotels with swimming pools were not specific to Texas.
It also reminded me a bit of my own childhood. Specifically, my grandparents had taken my brother and me to Canada, to Montreal, specifically. They had never been to Canada before, and neither had we. But my brother and I mostly wanted to swim in the pool. We spent so much time there, that we likely ruined the trip for them, and we both kind of still feel a lingering, distant guilt over that. I remember my grandmother saying that we didn't need to go all the way to Canada just to go swimming.
And so, I kind of shake my hand and wonder now. All that planning, trying to make it as good a trip for him as possible. And maybe, it did not require much planning at all. Maybe, what he really wants is swimming pools to enjoy for a few hours. Nor do I blame him, since that was obviously what I enjoyed as a child myself. No surprise there. What kid doesn't love swimming pools, after all?
It should make next year's trip a bit easier to plan, at the very least!
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