We Went to Canada! Pt. 1: Lessons Learned
That’s right, our family took a road trip to our friendly neighbor to the north! This post has been a long time coming. After our trip at the end of May, we went straight into summer chaos. But I’ve been thinking about our trip since we left, and I want to share some things I learned, plus places we visited and would—or would not—visit again.
A couple times growing up, my parents took us up through Detroit (where we visited the Henry Ford museum), then over to Toronto (to check out the renowned Chinatown), and then to Niagara Falls. My husband had never been to Canada or Niagara Falls, and I wanted to create new memories in those places with him and our kids. But I’ve also always wanted to visit Montreal, which is just five hours further east.
We realized it was our first longish-er trip spent just the four of us, and our first international trip just us. Every trip we’ve ever taken ever that is more than two or three nights has had a friend or extended-family component! While the people in our lives are incredibly important to us, it was also important for us to spend quality time together as a nuclear family.
In the past, we’ve taken a trip to Europe with three generations of my husband’s family to visit where his lineage originated. We took a side trip with his sister and her partner to Barcelona then, too. We’ve driven across country to see her when she lived in North Carolina. We’ve flown to California to spent time with friends. We took a double-family trip to Maine with friends. Last year we went to Atlanta, Georgia to see my aunt and cousins, though we did add on a couple nights in Savannah just us. We usually try to do that, but for the most part anywhere we’ve ever traveled has been with others.
So at the end of last year, we planned a late spring, week-long, multi-leg trek to Canada to coincide with Memorial Day and to maximize my husband’s PTO. When I checked the school calendar, the year was set to end the Friday before the holiday. That is, unless we had any “snow” days—days here in the Midwest that are used to cancel school due to weather.
That turned out to be wishful thinking! By January, we had already lost three days due to heavy snow, dangerous freezing temps, and an ice storm. I justified it by saying, “It’s no big deal; nothing happens the last few days of school.” How wrong I was!
LESSON #1: SCHOOL’S OUT FOR SUMMER—BUT NOT YET
The kids HATED that we pulled them out of school, can you believe it? “Those are the fun days!” they whined. “That’s when we watch movies, play games, sign yearbooks!”
My guilt ratcheted up as the year came to its premature conclusion. Would my youngest miss field day? A last minute field trip? The school block party? Thankfully, she got to participate in those, but no thanks to the school board, major changes happened with her school boundaries and she will be attending a new school next year with only half of the friends she’s come to know from Kindergarten through second grade, so she missed those final days with them.
Our eldest daughter missed yearbook signing and a special outdoor party her competitive choir had with snacks and games to celebrate their achievements. And—again no thanks to the school board (maybe I will write about THAT someday)—that choir won’t be able to compete in as many events because of the way the school times were changed.
When I was young and we’d take a trip to Thailand, my parents would pull us out of school an extra week or two to have a lengthier stay, but obviously that is so different from the end of the year. I won’t be making that mistake again, especially since the kids are getting older and school attendance/grades/friends become more and more important to them.
LESSON #2—WE’LL CROSS THAT BORDER WHEN WE COME TO IT
I’m a planner. I love planning trips! I’ve got the next trip started before we leave for the first one. So I thought I checked all the boxes. I read that while the kids didn’t need a passport to enter Canada from the U.S. (just a birth certificate works when traveling with a parent who carries proper ID), you can politely ask the border guard to stamp them, so I renewed the kids’ passports with plenty of time to spare. And indeed, we were able to get our passports stamped!
I mapped out the time it would take to travel, allowing what I thought was plenty of additional time. But since we left on the Saturday morning before Memorial Day, we weren’t the only ones headed to the Canadian province of Ontario from the state of Michigan. It took hours of sitting in traffic to finally cross the border! We could see the maple leaf flag in the distance, but it felt like forever before we made it through the Port Huron station.
As soon as we did, Bryan Adams came on the radio! From there on out, it was all-Canadian pop all the way. Hello, Barenaked Ladies and Nickelback! Goodbye, free-for-all firearms and American partisan politics! A humongous weight was lifted for one glorious week, with the added perk (?) of feeling like we were back in the early 2000’s, music-wise.
On the way back, we zipped through customs into the U.S. through Alexandria Bay, New York early in the morning. The guard said he didn’t have a stamp. (Does that mean we’re still technically in Canada? I am in my mind!)
LESSON #3—NO RESERVATIONS (Yes, this is a nod to our dearly departed hero, Anthony Bourdain.)
This directly relates to the last lesson. I swear, I try to balance the scheduled and unscheduled aspects of our trip. I’m cool, I’m flexible! But honestly, for the most part, when I don’t make an itinerary and vow to go with the flow, we end up lost for where to eat, how to manage our time, and leave with a sense that we missed a lot. (Which is what happened on our final leg in Montreal—take me back!) Ask Rick Steves—a general plan usually makes for smoother travel.
Because of the delay at the border, we ended up late to check in to our Airbnb. I frantically called the Michelin-recommended restaurant which requires a credit card reservation to beg them to push back our time. They graciously agreed, and then we literally ran through the foreign streets of Toronto, arriving sweaty and disoriented. We were seated in the packed restaurant all huffing and puffing, and it took some time before we settled down.
From now on, I’ll save us the trouble and make the reservation for the nice place any night besides the first!
(My shirt says,
“Enjoy the journey”)
FINAL THOUGHTS
There are other lessons that we learned along the way on this trip, such as earbuds are a fantastic thing for your kids to have on a long car ride!
Also if you are on a longer, multi-destination journey, you’ll be pretty burnt out by the last place, so maybe go there first if it’s important to you. We learned this on our honeymoon in Italy (strolling around aimlessly and exhausted in Venice) and again this time with the kids in Montreal. (“Mom, I can’t walk anymore!”)
Also, regularly check your glove compartment for dead mice if you don’t want to have a heart attack in the middle of nowhere, Canada.
Yup. You read that right.
Next up on the blog: Toronto. Where we ate, what we visited, and what we’ll never do again!
What travel lessons have you learned? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!