Seasoned Travelers.

Alex and I decided to get out of town today, destination Canada.  Although the plan was to go around 11am, we didn't get out of town till around 2pm (booster seat issues).  One tension bridge and a smooth customs experience and we found ourselves cruising down the Canadian highway.  Kingston, Ontario was the plan.

I love Canada for dumb reasons.  A few being:

• When an ambulance has its lights and sirens on, everyone takes pulling over very seriously, no one seemed to capitalize on the fact that the person in front of them was slow reacting and used that to gain a few car lengths by speeding around them before they decided to resume their journey (which drives me crazy).
• McDonald's happy meals have really cute little tiny yogurts in them.  We discovered this when Alex dipped his hand into his happy meal box and came up with a spoon, to which he proclaimed "uh oh, I think I got the wrong order".
• Can we say no litter?
• In Kingston there are more sailboats in the water than there are cars on the road.  On a beautiful day like today, it is a super duper sight!
• Wolfe Island (which is rather close) has a gazillion windmills, no one seemed to mind what they look like, and there was not one sign that demonized harnessing the wind. (I, personally, love the look of windmills)
• The parking meters didn't seize up when I put American change in them, even better they registered as money and gave us time on the meter.
• Guess what?  My awesome sauce little prius has a button that you can push that changes the speedometer to kph in mere seconds :)

Alex and I had five possible places in mind that we could visit depending on how interesting they looked.  The most interesting (surprisingly to me) was the Canadian Penitentiary Museum.  I could see how this would appeal to Alex.  He loves Army things, guns, bad guys, good guys...the whole idea of being a policeman.  So, after lunch we head to the Canadian Penitentiary Museum.  This place is huge and on the water, there are look out towers at every corner, barbed wired fencing, and free parking (wooot!).  Alex and I are getting excited about how much there could possibly be to explore (I am thinking about all the steps I am going to fit in on my fitbit, he is probably fantasizing about locking his mom in a cell).  We pull in the parking lot and it strikes me how they are going all out to make this look real.  There is a sign that says they can search your car at any given moment...and a sign that says 'authorized personnel only'.  The only thing I cannot find is the freakin' entrance.  Alex and I are walking around the structure looking for an in.  We start trying handles and knockin' on doors, pretty much nothing.  I am kind of getting irritated at the lack of guidance (clearly poor customer service here).  We have one more door to knock on when I nab a grandpa looking passerby to ask for his assistance finding the entrance.  He just looks at me and starts laughing.  He says "Lady...this is a maximum security prison.  The museum is across the street.".  ooooops.

We high tail it back to our vehicle (parked in the prison parking lot), drive across the street to the REAL museum only to find that it closed 45 minutes before.  At this point I say to Alex, "honey, maybe we should head home and come back next week....", his reply was "ooooh mom, I'm not ready to go back to America.".  We drive around a bit more and then head to Gananoque.  In Gananoque, we buy Chinese food and books, by this time Alex was ready to go back to his home land.  We are trying for the Penitentiary Museum next week :)  wish us luck.