Pre-College Trip with Tika

When the girls were very young I promised to take them on a trip before they went off to college - not just any trip but a Dad and Daughter trip that they wanted to do.

Well originally Tika wanted to do Europe - but after Icelandic volcanic eruptions it was the US West Coast - but after the Stanley Cup finals it was an East Coast Hockey Trip so we planned out a multi-city trip. We started in Montreal for a day and night where we found a great vegan restaurant called Bonny's and did some touring around Old Montreal and of course visited Bell Canada Centre home of the Canadiens. After Montreal we headed to Ottawa and spent three days staying with Malcolm and Lynne. We visited Scotiabank Place, home of the Senators, and spent Friday night at the Blues Festival listening to Great Big Sea. On Saturday a day in the market was finished off with a great dinner at Malcolm's with some of the people he works with - it was a great long and late night.

It was tough to do but Sunday AM we left to drive to Toronto to visit the Hockey Hall of Fame. Tika was more than excited. I think she took a picture of every exhibit. It would hard to say the favourite though as the player exhibits were fantastic but seeing the original cup with Ottawa written all over it - the golden puck from Vancouver and the Rotunda where they have the current cup and all the other big trophies for the NHL. After visiting the Hall of Fame we walked over to Air Canada Centre the home of the Maple Leafs. We then headed to Niagara where we were to spend one night. We got to see the falls at night - VERY cool - as well as seeing the fireworks show (turns out it is every Sunday). Tika also decided to get something she always wanted - lets see if you can figure it out from the pictures.

Yes she got her tattoo done. We stumbled upon Carey Hart's shop in Niagara and Tika had just finished a sketch of what she was thinking ..... so we decided it was a great time to do it. She has some taking care of it to do but it looks really good.

After getting her tattoo done we headed to Buffalo to see HSBC arena, home of the Sabres. Tika picked up a Ryan Miller shirt and she added a puck to my NHL puck collection. The area around teh arena was very cool with benches with hockey scenes as part of them.

We were trying to decide what to do for lunch when we thought - where in Buffalo - I should have wings. A quick check of Google Map showed that we were a few blocks from Anchor Bar - Home of the Original Buffalo Wing. So we headed up there so I could have wings. The bad news is I now will not be able to eat them anywhere else as there is no way that they compare to those from Anchor.

We have been having lots of fun - laughing and talking - and we hope the fun continues at Cedar Point tomorrow where we plan to Rollercoaster as much as we possibly can in a 12 hour period.

We plan to have lots of fun over our last two days on the road ... and we will post lots more pictures on teh Picasa site once we get back.

.... cu