Oh Canada! Part Dieux

One of my favorite stops in Canada was at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police training center and museum on the way to Montreal.  I met some new RCMP recruits that were out practicing for the Musical Ride, a yearly demonstration on horseback.  They train twice a day for about three hours!      

The city of Montreal is in the province of Quebec.  It rained most of the time I was here, but I was still able to visit some of the really beautiful old buildings, including the Notre Dame Basilica.  The pipe organ has 7,000 pipes!  

No visit to the province of Quebec would be complete without stopping into a Cabane a Sucre, or Sugar Shack, to see how they make maple syrup.  They used to drill holes in the maple trees and attach a bucket to catch the sap, but today they use a system of plastic tubes to collect it.  Then the sap has to be boiled down to concentrate the sugar into syrup.  I was lucky enough to sample maple taffy, made by pouring hot syrup over shaved ice, YUM!

The final stop of my trip was to Quebec City, founded in the year 1608 by French Explorer Samuel de Champlain.  The oldest parts of this city are still paved with cobblestones and surrounded by a wall!  You won’t have any trouble finding things to do here, either.  Acrobats and musicians perform in the streets and city parks to entertain tourists and locals alike.  There are tiny shops with goods made by local artisans, and many unique restaurants.  If you ever find yourself venturing north to Canada, be sure to stay a while in Quebec City!       

Oh Canada! Part 1

Summer vacation is all about new adventures and living in the moment.  This summer I decided to grab my passport and take my very first international trip!  After two short flights I was ready to meet some of our neighbors to the north.  Canada is divided into ten provinces, much like our states here in the USA, and three large territories.  My first stop was Toronto, in the eastern province of Ontario.  There is so much to see!  About 5 ½ million people live in the city and surrounding area.  People from all over the world have moved to Toronto, so you will hear more than 200 languages spoken in addition to the official languages of English and French.    

Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada is located in Toronto, right next door to the CN Tower.  In the Dangerous Lagoon, you walk through a tunnel with sharks and rays swimming right overhead!

A short drive south of Toronto is one of North America’s most famous landmarks – Niagara Falls!  I had just enough time to take a few pictures from above before boarding the “Hornblower” cruise on the Niagara River.  Our boat sailed right up to American Falls on the U.S. side, and the larger Horseshoe Falls (with a 176 foot drop) on the Canada side.  The waves and mist made getting a good picture tricky, but I think the water spots are rather pretty.

Canada’s capital city is Ottawa, also in the province of Ontario.  You can take a guided tour of Parliament, where Canada’s new laws are made.  My favorite part of the tour was the Library of Parliament, completed in 1876.  Can you imagine doing homework there?  If you’re on Parliament Hill at just the right time you can even watch the changing of the guard.       

Sightseeing works up quite an appetite, so you should make reservations for Afternoon Tea.  The scones and mini sandwiches were delicious!  

Stay tuned for more about my amazing trip to Canada...

Big Water

To celebrate the Summer Solstice, the first official day of summer and longest day of the year, I  followed a winding highway into the Sierra Nevada mountains.  Towering pine trees surrounded the Jeep as we drove.  Finally, there it was to our left- Lake Tahoe!  There are boulders the size of cars stacked along the shore.  Deep navy blue water blends into bright turquoise shallows, stretching for miles in every direction.      

  

If you have never visited this amazing place, you are missing out.  Lake Tahoe is about 22 miles long and 12 miles wide.  The water averages 1,000 feet deep, but in Crystal Bay the depth is a whopping 1,645 feet!  That means the Empire State Building (including the antenna) would completely disappear below the surface with almost 200 feet of water to spare.  It’s no wonder some people believe that Lake Tahoe is home to a legendary monster named “Tessie,” much like the famous Loch Ness monster in Scotland.  We only spotted humans paddling brightly colored kayaks on this visit, but I’ll be sure to keep my eyes open next time just in case.  

Who Is Franklin?

Hello there!  I'm a neuron, a type of cell that sends messages in your brain and to other parts of your body.  Whenever you think about or observe something, I'm there passing the information along to my neuron friends.  So you could say that my job is helping you make connections and learn all about the world around you.

A few years ago some second grade students in rural Idaho helped choose my name in honor of the great American scientist, Benjamin Franklin.  That Franklin loved to travel and made some amazing discoveries, which he wrote about so he could share them with others.  This blog page will be my way of following in his footsteps...although I don't actually have feet.  (You get the idea!)

So are you ready for some adventure with a traveling brain cell?  Then let's go!