Parc National d'Oka, Quebec

After leaving Toronto, we ventured into Quebec. BL gave me a crash course in French. "Je voudrais une crepe."

To our surprise, the campsite we booked in Oka required a ferry ride. The site itself was much more densely wooded than the last place we camped, but equally nice. We walked down to the beach, where we met some rascally foxes. But, sadly, no bears.

Toronto, Part Deux

Well, another tough game. The Rays almost became the victims of another no-no. Evan Longoria broke up the no-hitter in the top of the ninth, but the Rays still lost 1-0. What a heartbreaker.

After the game, we walked around the Distillery District. It had some cool galleries and was a great place to relax.

Rays at Blue Jays, Rogers Centre

What a tough day to be a Rays fan.

First, we got stuck in about an hour of traffic trying to make our way into Toronto. We listened to the first two innings of the game in the car, anxious to be rooting for the Rays in the Rogers Centre.



Then, things got worse. "Big Game James" Shields was having a really off day. He gave up six homers in the first four innings. Thayer gave up hits. Qualls gave up hits. The Jays scored in every inning. We left mid-8th; the score was 17 to 7 in favor of the Blue Jays.

It made us feel better to know later that the Rays bounced back with some runs in the ninth to make it 17 to 11. But the damage had been done. The Rays have now lost four in a row.

So, we consoled ourselves with a really amazing dinner at Susur Lee's restaurant. Then a nice long walk down Queen Street.

And we decided to try to go to the game again today. We are Rays fans.

Bronte Creek Provincial Park, Ontario

If the rest of the camping on our trip is as easy as this park was, we'll be in great shape. We even saw peacocks!

White Sox at Tigers, Comerica Park

We said goodbye to Ann Arbor and got back on to I-94 for the 45 minute drive to Detroit (pronounced dEE-troit). We were advised to avoid cheap parking and park close to the stadium if we want to have a car after the game. So we parked next to the stadium and wandered around downtown and eventually made our way to the infamous GM complex. We didn't realize you can go in the building and up to the top floor for an observation deck, so we got on to Detroit's public train, "The People Mover," and rode that back towards the stadium.

The stadium, Comerica Park, was a pretty interesting stadium. The stadium is surrounded by giant tiger statues and the lights give the stadium an industrial feeling. Our seats were very close to the left field foul pole.


We got to see a good game again. Just like at Wrigley, the game went into extra innings but the visiting team prevailed in the 11th inning. Ryan Rayburn hit a bottom-of-the-ninth-with-two-outs three run homer to tie it up. We have yet to see a home team win a game (which is good thing when seeing the Rays on the road).

After the game we decided to head for Canada. We were also advised to stay out of Detroit after dark, so we spent the night in the Canadian town of Windsor, right across the Detroit River.


Windsor was a nice town with a huge Caesar's casino. We walked through the casino but it was too overwhelming to hang out in. So we looked up a place to eat and found a delicious Lebanese restaurant called Mazaar.

Tomorrow we head to Burlington, ON where we will camp for a night and then to Toronto for our final Rays game of the trip.

Ann Arbor, MI

What to do in Ann Arbor? The Big House was closed for renovations, so unfortunately, we could only see it from the outside. We did, however, get to frolic in the famous “Wave Field” outdoor sculpture.

Chicago, Part Deux

The farm was relaxing, but it was time to get back to the city. We got to Chicago and were given a choice of several street festivals happening that evening. We chose to stick with the closest one to Ben’s neighborhood, in Southport.

At the festival, we learned that BL can throw a baseball 64 MPH; AJ can throw 32 MPH. We watched some live music from Too White Crew, a cover band for 90s rap and R&B. We also surfed a monster wave.

Afterwards, we wandered a little more and ended up at Sluggers, where we hit around in the batting cages. If it weren’t for the nets all around, some of those balls would have been juiced.

Sunday was a lazy day of riding a Wendella Boat down the Chicago River. We learned a lot about architecture and the city: the lighthouse on Lake Michigan is automated now because a previous lighthouse keeper hosted too many nude parties there.