After a quick drive through Pittsburgh and a quick breakfast at my favorite diner there, we hit the road for home. As is the case on most days like this, the excitement was largely gone and was replaced by the drudgery of driving. To make things more fun, it was pouring down rain all the way from Pittsburgh to Winston-Salem. We had dinner at a diner and Beckley, and we went home.

Drama aside, it was a great trip.

 

We took the long way out of Toronto before eventually getting on the QEW somewhere in the vicinity of Mississauga. It was the start of a very long drive that took us through Niagara Falls, across the border into Buffalo, and down to Pittsburgh, where we spent the night.

Along the way, Mark was impressed by how simple the border crossing was. I got to visit my first Wegman’s. We both got to see Buffalo and decided that it was worthy of a later visit.

This being the fifth anniversary of the night we met, we also had our obligatory dinner at Denny’s. This year is was at the location on the New York State Thruway service plaza just south of Buffalo. And if that doesn’t sound romantic to you, then you don’t know us very well.

  

Things were better today. We’d originally planned more of a pedestrian day, but we were both a little iffy about that now, so we did another long drive instead, around the periphery of the city and then back down the west side and along the lakeshore, having lunch at a Subway because we both needed a piss and it was handy.

  

Eventually, we made our way downtown to the CN Tower.

  

After descending from the 147th story (or “storey” as the Canadians type), we went back to the room before having one more nighttime drive followed by pizza from Pizza Pizza, because we couldn’t get 967-1111 out of our heads after seeing it painted on every surface, building, and bench in town.

 

We both rather liked Toronto, especially knowing we were on sacred ground where Jane Jacobs had recently trod (trodden?).