We had some time before our train left Toronto, so we went out to get breakfast. On the way I spotted this A&W sign. Canada A&W isn't the same as America A&W, and this sandwich isn't available here. Had I known that, I might have stopped in to try a Beyond Meat Burger just for fun.
When I was kid I would always ask my mom if I could take the bags she had filled at the mall out to the car. On the way to the parking lot, I'd swing her car keys around my index finger trying to show the world that I was indeed old enough to drive a car.
Char's version of this display of false maturity is to have milk poured into a coffee cup. She'll sip from the cup and swoon to whoever is within earshot, "Ummm. This is goood coffee!"
It was time to head to the train station. I was struck to see how much it looked like a cathedral. I used to teach the story "By the Waters of Babylon", and its narrator thought that Grand Central Terminal was a place of worship. I get that now.
I'm going to try to not gush, but I discovered that I loved traveling by train. " l'avenir esta bord" translates into "The future is on board." I have to agree. Train travel is definitely in my future.
You must pose by a street sign that features your cat's name.
I'm not sure if Kingston is on many people's radar when visiting Canada, but it should be.
The downtown area is beautiful, and there are blocks and blocks of fun shops to visit.
They had a farmers' market that we had to visit, and the next day this was transformed into a flea market. We didn't have time to visit the flea market, though. So sad. I love flea markets. The uptick is that we didn't have room in our luggage for me to buy much anyway.
The real draw for us to visit Kingston was their prison tour. We all really enjoyed visiting Alcatraz when we were in San Francisco, and this looked like a similar experience.
At Alcatraz you take an audio tour via headphones. The actual tour guides there know all the facts about the prison, but they were too young to have experienced it.
Kingston Penitentiary closed in 2013, and until then it was a working facility. The tour guides worked at the Kingston Pen as guards, and when they talked about Kingston you can sense the pride they have in their facility, and a real a sense of loss that it isn't in operation any more.
These are the housing units that prisoners (with no record of domestic abuse) could rent so their entire family could visit for a weekend. Prisoners could earn up to $6 a day, and their savings would provide the rent and the food for the visit. Unused food items were donated because they couldn't enter the prison facility.
These are the solitary confinement cells. These were used as way to keep a prisoner safely away from the rest of population if they had made a mistake (like welshing on a bet) until the problem could be sorted out. They had been removed before we got there, but each prisoner in solitary confinement was given a TV to watch.
Prisoners were allowed to decorate their cells, too.
The stairs to the school and work area were impressive. If a prisoner hadn't earned a high school diploma, then they had to go to school before they could get a job. The school was an entity on its own. It had a principal, teaching staff, and a government-approved curriculum.
According to one of the tour guides, the city of Kingston would like to tear down the prison to commercially develop its lakefront location. So, I don't know how long these walls will be here.
Kingston is known for its 19th-century buildings. Stunning houses like these were not out of the ordinary.
Kingston is also doing a lot of construction down by the lake.
Random, this looks like Europe, photo.
We have Dollar Tree stores in Des Moines, but every thing costs a buck there. Must be the exchange rate...
Last year when we visited Victoria, Canada, I called it the B and B city. There were bakeries and book stores on every street. That wasn't true for the cities we visited this summer. We found a few book stores in Kingston, though. I took this picture in one of them because I thought my sister-in-law would like it.
Here's the house we stayed in. It was built in the mid 1800's.
Honestly, this was the location that we were most excited about staying in, and it was our least favorite. When we arrived an elderly couple told us that their son and daughter-in-law had just purchased the house, and they were going to covert it back into a single family home. The woman gave me a "you're lucky you even get to stay here" vibe that I didn't appreciate.
The owners sure weren't trying hard. Imagine giving your guests a threadbare beach towel to use in the bathroom. That embarrasses me, and I was the guest.
How many bulbs aren't working? Yes, you're not trying very hard.
The small apartment had a kitchen that looked like it was updated in the 1950's. It reminded me of a our house in Inwood, Iowa. For me, this was the best room in the place.
Montreal was up next, but we had to first stop by this bakery to get breakfast before we left town.
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