Usalola’s Weblog

Oak street beach - love those palmtrees!

I’m a city girl.     Let me say that right out. I was born near a big city(Chicago) and have lived in only big cities (Los Angeles, San Diego). But there was something about all the small towns that we drove through and took a walk around in  that pulled me in. Maybe it was the pace of everything – seeing people take time to sit and chat or kids just riding their bikes freely that made me think that a bit smaller town is the way to go.

Or maybe I’ve seen so many small towns that I’m really just aching for a CITY – a place that is big, with bright lights and noise, great restaurants and too-cool people. Yeah, that’s it- I need a my city-fix . So off we went to Chicago and family catch-up. We spent an afternoon at the lakefront with my sister and her husband riding our bikes along the shore (well, we spent the morning in traffic getting there, 1 hour riding our bikes and the rest of the afternoon fighting traffic back to the ‘burbs!). Oh well, the weather was great and it was quite the scene at Oak Street beach.  After a good home-cooked meal from Mom (thanks, Mom!) and enough city-stress, we made our way up to Toronto.

Chicago Lakeshore

 Now Toronto’s a big city too – 2.6 million last count, and there’s lots to see. We were given some tips on areas (thanks, Jana!) and found ourselves in the Distillery district. As it was a Monday, alot of the galleries were closed, but there were some cool little shops open and we HAD to stop into the chocolate store for a spicy hot chocolate. As it is a true working artists community, they tend to open their shops when they feel like it. Neat vibe.

Distillery area

We spent the next day walking what seemed like the entire city – chinatown,little Italy…and we found some great shops on Queen street west of bathhurst. We had lunch at Sassafrass – a very chic place where all the stars hangout during the Toronto film festival, and the food was great. We later had dinner at a real gem – Starfish, near the Lawrence st. market. They had oysters from all over – east coast, west coast, new zealand, but the real treat was the black cod – melt in your mouth delicious. We almost ordered another for dessert! It’s a small place and it gets busy early (even on a Tuesday) so make a reservation. So, my city girl happy, we made our way to Niagra falls.  They have quite a wine region in Ontario, and we stopped by a couple of wineries: Thirty Bench is great fun. Beautiful setting and all estate small-lot wines. For 10$ they give you a private tasting of four wines( but ask for Janice – she’s a kick, and we ended up tasting about 10 wines). The aromatic white wines are beautiful, they still have a ways to go with the reds.

Niagra falls

Niagra-on-the-Lake is another wine region nearby, and we rode our bikes through the super quaint town and on the Niagra Waterfront trail – we did about 20 miles of what we were told is a 90 mile ride that you can take up past the falls. On our way to the falls we stopped at Stratus winery – super modern and state of the art. All of the wines are beautiful. We bought a bottle of the Stratus Red – a blend of 7 grapes including Gamay and Syrah. We were happy we finally found a good red in the area.

Stratus winery

Now it’s back to the states – the Finger lakes wine region of NY is first, and then lazily making our way towards Maine by the time the leaves change color…. fall is on the way.

A parting summer shot.

Summer Sunflowers in South Dakota