Sometimes, you just gotta get away from it all, see something new, and do something else. Thus, it is time to recount the recent travels of me, my wife, and our daughter, after 3 weeks spent in New England and Canada. Be it by car, ship, or plane, we traveled to new places, saw new things, and had new experiences. Buckle up: here is the account of said adventure.

Pre-Preamble

Three weeks is a long period of time. At least in the year 2025, it also means one probably took a lot of photos and videos with their mobile phone. And I did. Besides the words below, I also sifted through said photos and videos AND created a whole vacation video AND its soundtrack.

You can watch the video above, and then read the words. You could also just listen to the soundtrack, “Just the Halifax, Ma’am”, in the background while you read the words. OR you could just read the words and throw shade on my creative efforts. Very choices, many option, wow!

Preamble: Fly: New York City, New York

In order to vacation in New England, first you must get there, and I’m usually in Southern California, so that’s…a distance. Thankfully, commercial air travel is a thing (with a little more turbulence than I liked). Podcasts in the ear (I went through a lot of the Eggplant Show’s Year of UFO 50) for hours of entertainment and New York City as a terminus did just fine.

June 3-6: Drive: Edison, New Jersey

Our plan was to have a bit of a family mini-vacation before joining up with more family for sight-seeing in the Big Apple, so we commandeered a rental vehicle and drove from JFK to New Jersey. Despite being born on the East Coast (and lived there for many years as a kid), I’d never driven there before, and I was quickly confused and nearly swallowed up whole by the highway system. Also, TOLLS. So many tolls. So many unnecessary tolls (due to confusion). It does not make me want to go back and drive there again any time soon.

After such heinous vehicular mayhem, we met the first of two new IRL friends in Edison. She welcomed us in the parking lot with a big hug and it set the tone nicely. Three cats, countless tortillas, and many yummy carnitas later, we were nice and chill in her place. It was like hanging out with a friend we had already known for a while. Besides the homecooked meal, we also had a delightful Italian dinner excursion and an Original Pancake House visit, so vittles were plentiful and delicious. We even watched Mexican cooking YouTube while we were there! Note: the hotel we stayed in was the roomiest of any during the whole vacation, as it had a separate bedroom, which is always nice.

June 7-8: Drive: Toronto, Ontario

After our visit in New Jersey had come to an end, we loaded up the rental car and drove through upstate New York, heading towards Toronto (with more tolls en route). The scenery was green and beautiful, obviously fed by the kind of moderate to heavy rain we had to drive through.

Before arriving at our destination, we stopped in at the YouTube-famous Hercules Candies to grab some sweets and talk to one of the co-owners(!) about their history. After fawning over our collective fortune at this opportunity outside the building, we reconvened in our rented ride and made our way across the international border into Ontario. The downtown hotel we stayed in was fancy pants (19th floor!), but had to pay for parking (boo!), but it was valeted (meh), but it also had nice free breakfast (yay!).

We were to meet another new friend, but first we did some exploring of the surrounding area by visiting Centre Island. After a short ferry across part of Lake Ontario, we set foot on one of a series of islands that were really quite lovely. It felt like being in Balboa Park, and the streets were bustling with people. Yummy lunch included a Steam Whistle ale.

I did some swinging with my daughter near a beach while my wife came up with a brilliant idea: quadricycles! Yes, a four-person bike with a roof (the whole thing was the size of a golf cart) is called a quadricycle and we got to move at less-than-breakneck speeds, passing around the main movement duties. It was a lot of work, a lot more than my solo bike adventures, but it was so cool to speed up together and pass other quads, laughing the whole way. We were pooped after less than an hour, though, and decided we needed food and water, so called it a day and walked back to our hotel.

Later in our Toronto tour, we met up with more friends who took us out to dumpling dinner, invited us to their house to play with their kitties, and watched Let’s Game It Out and car crash YouTube. They also took us out to a delightful Korean BBQ (so many dishes). Finally, they inspired a new name for a specific chat platform (What’s a PP?).

Our final trip in Toronto led us up the CN Tower, a large building in the downtown area. After a very speedy elevator ride up, we stepped out and had a grand view of the city, including a floor window so you could step “over” everything, hundreds of feet in the air. Scary, but cool.

We capped our visit off with a live viewing of the Tony Awards, replete with a 10 year-anniversary medley from the original Hamilton cast!

June 9-10: Drive: Niagara Falls, Ontario

After our bustling modern city experience in Toronto, moving location to Niagara Falls was a bit less hectic. The hotel we stayed in seemed old, had really short ceilings, and gave off an “old casino hotel in Vegas” vibe. Not my favorite place to stay, but it was fine for our purposes.

When you go to Niagara Falls, you look at water running down the side of a cliff. You can’t get that close to it, but you can take a boat tour which gets you pretty close, so we did. Once you’re next to the falls there’s so much water spray that the provided ponchos make sense. The child seemed to really enjoy the rain-like climate, as she squealed with delight. A+++, would boat again.

Besides seeing falling water, there’s no much else to do in town. It all has a kind of mini-Vegas vibe, but without the Vegas. We took a nighttime ride around the city in hopes of seeing a light show (didn’t see anything), I took a morning walk to Starbucks (Maple mini pancakes!), and we ate at the hotel’s restaurant (Chocolate Cake shooter!), but that’s about it.

June 10-11: Drive: Albany, New York

We’re in the home stretch of our mini-vacation, but still had some time to kill before meeting more family in NYC, so we took a detour to New York’s capital, Albany. If you’re a Hamilton fan, you might know that the famous Schuyler Mansion lives here, so we had to visit. Not in a great part of town, but still interesting. Not as big or as lavish as I would imagine a “mansion” to be (and I’ve seen Versailles), but apparently the Schuyler’s real place is north a bit in Saratoga. Our hotel was nice, but small. Never made it to the actual capital, despite hearing about something called the Million Dollar Staircase, but there’s always next time.

Before heading to bed to wake up in the morning for our departure to NYC, we made an exploratory mission to find Stewart’s ice cream, a popular dessert served at a chain of gas stations. Our first choice didn’t actually serve any ice cream, so we drove a couple miles away to a legit one, got crazy amazing ice cream for cheap ($3/big scoop), and were satisfied.

June 11-13: Drive: (Back to) New York City, New York

The long car ride through New York was now done. We were back in The City. All 8 million people crammed into a small space. The rideshare driver handled getting us to our hotel on 47th street, and I am forever in his debt for it. TRAFFIC BE CRAZY.

The mood of everything really changes when you leave Upstate New York (i.e. North Pennsylvania) and dive into Manhattan, especially around Times Square. Everything feels more overwhelming and rushed and tense. That being said, once we got to the 27th floor of our hotel (the bathroom mirror had a clock! the drapes were automatic!), being above it all helps. Grabbed cubano sandwiches from some place called Havana Central for dinner and then spent the rest of our first night chilling.

We spent two days in NYC proper, doing the sightseeing thing. I had been before many, many years ago, and did a similar thing. This time, we all went to Lady Liberty herself, and climbed up her insides. The route you climb up to get to the crown is a warm, claustrophobic, spiral path, and I don’t feel the need to ever do it again. It’s not even that great a view from up top. From there we jetted off to Ellis Island, but I wasn’t too excited to look around, and after lunch at their diner there seemed to be less interest in continuing being touristy so we returned to the hotel. Later that day we visited the Empire State Building, had to deal with some ticket purchase miscommunication (they were for the day bought, not the day visited, oops), elevated up to the 102nd floor, and got a new stuffy named Emma Pire who looks like…well, you can probably guess.

Day 2 of 2 in the Big Apple was spent once again using the subway (mainly the R; you can enter and exit from the same turnstile what) and being a tourist. Breakfast was from some place called Toasties(!) and it was fast, cheap, and good. We all spent the morning in Lower Manhattan, starting from Battery Park, and a local named Jonathan (who reminded me of a way more chill Gianmarco Soresi) showed us around, pointing out historical stuff. We lunched at Fraunces Tavern, an 18th century historic place where Washington gave his farewell address, among other colonial happenstances. Our afternoon activity was originally planned to be the 9/11 memorial, but our party of three was pretty exhausted from vacationing and decided to chill at the hotel instead. We did later step out to visit Nintendo of New York and the American Girl doll store, where my daughter got her own semi-look-alike. We finished the evening at a noisy Italian spot whose name escapes me.

June 14: Embark Cruise

Enough vacation for ya yet? No? Then let’s take a cruise!

Before making our way to Brooklyn’s port to embark via another slow rideshare (gotta love traffic), I grabbed Pret a Manger for the fam (Toasties closed on weekend boo). We said goodbye to my wife’s brother and his family as they were only there for the NYC, and remarked on the price of avocado toast in the hotel’s restaurant ($22!).

From turf to surf: we walked up the gangway to our home for the next 10 days, the Island Princess (yes, like from The Love Boat, which we watched many episodes of during (and still after!) the cruise). When you first get on a cruise, you don’t necessarily have a cabin ready, and you definitely don’t have your bags yet, so we found a place to eat lunch first. Soon after, though, we had a cabin ready, and our bags soon followed. Compared to our hotels thus far, the cabin was pretty nicely-sized, with a big bed for the adults, and a pullout couch for the younger one. It even had TWO televisions, and ONE remote that somehow controlled BOTH of them. We also had an outside balcony with chairs to sit on, which helps one feel less trapped inside the specific slice of the gigantic floating hotel you’re assigned.

We visited the library for some jigsaw puzzling, signed up our daughter for the Kid Zone, and then all met in the main dining room for dinner. Our daughter left early to actually go to the Kid Zone, and then as we were returning to our cabin after eating we ran into her and some new kid! She had made a friend, much to our surprise, and they would end up spending nearly the whole rest of the time on the cruise together. For our more introverted kid, this was a wonderful turn of events, both for her and for us. We were so shell-shocked we had to regroup in my wife’s parents’ cabin to discuss it!

June 15: Cruise: Sea Day

Since our first day after leaving the port in Brooklyn was a sea day (takes a bit to get to Canada), we explored the ship and its features. Our daughter went back to the Kid Zone all on her own and we were stunned. We started using a pen and paper note system so everyone knew where we were headed. We all had these medallions attached to our watches that could be looked up, but the note-leaving had a nice old-school charm to it.

There are a lot of things you could do on a cruise besides eat or drink or lounge or a combination of the above, but after taking a few cruises I’m less excited about any one particular activity. Trivia is still fun, though, so we hit up one of those. We watched people play cornhole in the main atrium. We did laundry. We ate at the Salty Dog for lunch while our daughter ate in the main dining room with her newfound friend. The night was finished off with dinner in the main dining room and a musical bingo game in one of the lounges. Besides that, it was basically bedtime, which meant Love Boat and then podcasts with which to fall asleep.

June 16: Cruise: Halifax, Nova Scotia

Our first port, and our first time in Nova Scotia! Halifax is the second largest (or busiest?) port in North America (or the world?). We met our tour guide, Gary, and hopped in his tour van. Some highlights of our trek: the star-shaped unused fort called the Citadel (autonomous lawn mowers with names, like Prince Edweed!), Shaw’s Landing for lunch where they were oddly out of multiple things, a live lobster demo (various lobsters, sized from 1 to 10 lbs, including a 50+ year-old one), Peggys Cove with a lighthouse, cool rocks to scamper on with multiple musicians playing, and a grave site with tombs for Titanic victims. All in all, Halifax is a cool place, and our tour guide was very knowledgeable (if too verbose). The city would be worth coming back to some other time. I even saw a Fallout license plate!

The rest of the day was spent chilling. Decided on doing the busy buffet for dinner, and then enjoying a Bee’s Knees cocktail while listening to two violinists cover the Bee Gees. We moved to the library at some point to do puzzles but lost interest after hearing some bad work news -_-

June 17: Cruise: Sydney, Nova Scotia

The next day took us a little further northeast in Nova Scotia to the port town of Sydney. If I remember anything from this place it will be the ENORMOUS FIDDLE at the dock. I will also remember the amazeballs lunch we had at The Lebanese Flower. We were initially greeted by a small child sitting on the front counter, which was unexpected. She ended up being the daughter of the head waiter/restaurant owner, and even brought us menus and was generally cute while sitting or playing on a nearby chair while we ate. Also, the French Fry Wars of 2025 continued apace, as my daughter continued to order them, and we all continued to steal them. To walk off our meal, we visited an old-timey house-turned-musem called Jost House and were given some background information about who lived there over the past 100 years or so.

Back on the ship, we did the usual dinner, and then a gameshow and trivia for post-meal entertainment. We were also alerted about our delayed departure due to high winds. Would we miss our next port, Prince Edward Island, due to mother nature? Well, if you look at the next header, you know the answer.

June 18: Cruise: Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island

Thankfully, the winds in Sydney eventually died down enough for our vessel to leave port and we got into Charlottetown, PEI. Disembarked the ship, met up with another tour guide (this time Sonia), and were whisked away in a northwesterly direction toward the home of one Lucy Maud Montgomery, better known as the author of Anne of Green Gables.

Prince Edward Island, much like Halifax and Sydney in Nova Scotia, is pretty and green and coastal. It is also an island, and it’s where L. M. Montgomery grew up and was inspired by when she wrote her famous novel. Her house and the grounds around it are now behind a paywall, better known as a Visitor Center, so we begrudgingly paid to get access. My wife has been a lifelong fan, and so coming here was a dream come true. We saw the house, obviously, but also the Haunted Forest, and Lover’s Lane. We got the hat with built-in braids. We event went to L. M. Montgomery Park, which has a bronze statue of her. To cool down from the intensity of all this excitement, we took a detour for ice cream. I aim to remember Cricker’s Creamery in North Rustico forever, because they had a life-changing chocolate-tipped vanilla cone that my wife really enjoyed.

After we spent some time in Anneland, our tour guide drove us around some more, stopping at some cool garden with weird wood furniture, and then some sand dunes at a beach! Returning back to the ship, we actually had to wait in line for a while, and we weren’t sure we were going to make it back on as it was slated to leave in the early afternoon. In the end, we were worried for no reason: high winds kept us from leaving at our scheduled time, and we ended up staying in PEI all night and not leaving until the morning. This meant that we skipped our Saint John, New Brunswick stop, and instead continued on past it, back to the US.

June 19, 20: Cruise: Sea Days

The next two days were spent slowly cruising through the Atlantic Ocean, so there was not much to report on. However, each day included meals in the main dining room, doing puzzles in the library, and walking on the promenade deck.

My wife and I brought Uno: No Mercy to a card/game session once, and we ended up playing with some random people which was really fun! They introduced us to SkyJo, a card game that was suspiciously like Play Nine: The Card Game of Golf, but was really fun to play with a huge group.

This was also a time during our cruise that we started to check back in a little with work, mainly due to some “Bite teltening” going on. Worrying about my job while slowly boating through the ocean was a weird disconnect.

We also got a special chance to do something called Chef’s Table, which meant we got a tour of the dining room galley, and sat at a special table with some other cruisers, and eat a bunch of random food. I was initially hesitant, but it ended up being really fun, and the conversation was good.

June 21: Cruise: Portland, ME

Highlights of Maine included: immigration, Tony Tromboney, Love Song trivia in the lounge, and meeting some good friends who have a summer home in Portland AND a friend from San Diego who happened to be visiting! Truly unexpected, but we were able to have lunch together and catch up a little.

June 22: Cruise: Boston, MA

Our final stop on the cruise was Boston, Masschusetts. The warm, humid weather continued as we got off the ship and made our way to our tour guide. He was a local named Neil, and had the appropriate accent. We started our excursion in the North End, which was a downtown-y area full of cash-only, open-at-odd-times businesses, apparently due to the influx of Italians at some point. Fronts for organized crime? You be the judge.

We spent the next good chunk of time going past Bunker Hill (i.e. actually Breed’s Hill), many churches, a graveyard that wasn’t a graveyard, Paul Revere Square (unduly honoring a man whose story is more of a myth), and a stop at Warren Tavern for lunch. I saw a woman playing some Ben Franklin spinning instrument, a large Paul Revere statue, and a lady near a fountain who temporarily put on a tortilla/cookie costume, walked a bit, and then took it off(?!?!?).

Post-lunch travels included driving past Boston Commons, the place where the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops perform, Berklee College of Music, Fenway Park, and a trip through Cambridge where MIT, Boston University, and Harvard are all located. I was surprised to learn that the latter wasn’t some huge distinct building atop a hillside out in a green plain, as I imagined it. After all that deep Boston lore whizzing past us, our tour guide dropped us back at the dock and we were done with Boston…for now (I’d like to come back).

June 23: Cruise: Sea Day

Once we were finally done with ports and tours and stuff, my mind could truly settle back on Real Life, where California, and work, and unhumid air lived. As a parting thought towards cruises, in general, though: bring stuff to use and/or leave on the cruise next time. Things to donate would be puzzles, plastic ducks, pencils (with erasers!).

June 24: Disembark Cruise, Fly Home

We made it: the end of vacation. Got off the ship back in Brooklyn and was accosted by Uber drivers to get us to JFK. Normally, I wouldn’t interact with that kind of communication, but we just grabbed the first person who offered and he got us to JFK in the usual NY traffic, and I am again heavily indebted. The cost of that ride was preposterous, money-wise, but worth it in the end to not have to deal with the transport ourselves.

JFK presented the final obstacle of our trip: the 30+ minute wait in a line that switched back and forth in a separate room before even getting to the people who check your ID. My wife got flagged for a forgotten 200ml maple syrup bottle in her bag, so even though she and our daughter went through the Pre-Check line they still only barely beat me through the regular line.

We all boarded our flight, took to the sky, and several hours later we touched down in San Diego. We were home. Besides seeing some suitcases in the baggage claim area that were styled with Van Gogh’s Starry Night, my main memory is stepping out into the open DRY air and breathing it in. It felt good.

There was some actual traffic getting home, despite it being the middle of the day, but nothing could keep my happiness at bay once we got out of the rideshare and saw our house.

FOR THE ROAD

Twas a truly wonderful vacation. We all got to see so many new places, and have new experiences, and I think three weeks, while long, went by at a good pace. The combined drive through NY to Canada and back had a unique flavor, while NYC itself had one of its own, and the cruise was different yet still. After all the gallivanting and living out of hotels and a suitcase, I’m really enjoying just hanging at home for a while, but also thinking about our next adventure, too.

Until next time!