To the Great White North we go, this time without the guy on stilts

A street performer very similar to this one
almost cost me my marriage in 1994.

My son Jack and I will be taking a weekend trip to Toronto, a wonderful city that is conveniently situated a mere 4 1/2-hour drive from our home.

I love Toronto, but more generally, I love Canada. This probably has to do as much with my passion for hockey as anything else, but there are many things to embrace about our neighbors to the north.

The first time I traveled to Canada was in 1985, when my dad took me and my friend Mel to Niagara Falls for a few days. There was something exotic about getting into the car and driving to a foreign country.

Because, let's not forget, Canada is its own nation. Many Americans, while acknowledging all that Canada has to offer, see it merely as the 51st U.S. state. This is both insulting to Canadians and ignorant of the fact that they have their own unique culture and worldview.

That should go without saying, but sometimes it feels like it needs to be said.

Over the years I have often returned to Niagara Falls (probably 10 times since that first expedition in '85) to go along with half a dozen trips to Toronto, five visits to Montreal, and one memorable-but-short stay in Ottawa. I've never been to Western Canada, but I hope to get there eventually.

The memorable day in Ottawa occurred in 1994. Elissa was only a few months old at the time, and Terry and I took her with us on a week-long driving vacation with stops in all of the cities named above.

When we got to Ottawa, Terry was feeling a little sick, so she tasked me with finding a drug store and getting some medicine while she stayed in our hotel room with infant Elissa.

Without an Internet to rely on, I asked around for a local drug store and got directions to a place a few blocks over. On my way there, I came across a street performer on stilts. He was very talented, so I stood for a while watching him.

I watched him longer than I realized, because by the time I reached the pharmacy, got Terry's medicine and returned to the hotel, an undeniably lengthy period of time had passed. She was understandably well shy of pleased at how long I had been gone.

For all she knew, I could have been dead.

But no, I was just watching the guy on stilts. Did I mention how good he was?

Anyway, I had just gotten into hockey around the time we visited Ottawa and decided I needed an NHL team of which to be a fan. The Ottawa Senators had come into the league a couple of years before, so I decided they would be my team, no matter how horrible they were at the time.

They have remained my team ever since. I have seen them play in person eight or nine times over the years in a variety of cities, though never in Ottawa itself.

I hope to get back there someday. And this time, if my wife is again sick, you can be sure I'll ignore the guy on stilts and focus on my mission of getting her medicine.

Probably.

I'm trying to remember how we planned vacations in the pre-Internet age

As I mentioned a few days ago, my family and I recently took a fun and relaxing vacation to Bethany Beach, Delaware. I booked our rental house through the VRBO app. We navigated the 9-hour drive using Waze. And of course we looked up information about local attractions online.

At no time during the planning or execution of this vacation did I speak directly with anyone. It was all facilitated by the little electronic miracles known as smartphones.

So now I'm wondering, how did we do all of this before, say, 1996? How did we plan vacations without the Internet? I simply cannot remember.

Here's a good example: At the end of my freshman, sophomore and junior years of college, I took trips to the beautiful city of Montreal. Each time I did this, I brought a friend (Kevin in 1989, Nate in 1990) or family member (nephew Mark in 1991) and we drove the 10+ hours from Wickliffe to Southern Quebec.

As I look back on it, I wonder:

• How did I make hotel reservations? That is, how did I know my hotel options, and where did I find the correct phone numbers to call? I couldn't just Google that information back then.
• How did I purchase (in advance) tickets for the two Montreal Expos baseball games we attended? Did I send them a letter or something? How did I know how much the tickets would be? Where did this information come from?
• How did I know the correct driving route to cover the 560 miles from my house to Downtown Montreal?

I can't remember how most of this was done, but I do know the answer to that last question.

The two options when it came to long drives back then were having a road atlas in the car with you and/or ordering a AAA TripTik. I always had the atlas handy, and at least once I remember getting the TripTik, which was a paper printout of very thorough driving directions provided by the helpful folks at the American Automobile Association.

Many of us back then had the special ability to decipher an absurdly detailed road atlas map while safely driving a car at 60MPH and trying to figure out exactly where we were and where we were going.

But what of the first two points? It's not like they listed Montreal phone numbers in the Cleveland Yellow Pages. How did I figure out who to call and what their numbers were?

I think the two answers were (a) library books, and (b) directory assistance.

Back when libraries mainly loaned out actual books, there was an array of destination-specific travel guides you could borrow when planning a trip. If these guides had been published in the previous 5-10 years, the phone numbers in them were probably going to be accurate. So those certainly helped.

There was also directory assistance. As long as you knew the area code of the place you wanted to go (in this case 514 for Montreal), you could dial <AREA CODE>-555-1212 and ask the nice person on the other end of the line for whatever phone number you needed.

There was a charge for this, of course, but it worked.

So I guess that's how I mapped out these trips to Montreal: Books, long-distance directory assistance, and large bound driving maps?

All I know is we somehow found our way there and back, and those vacations remain some of my most memorable.

But I'll be honest: I would much rather go the smartphone route. Fewer fines for overdue library books and no separate charges for each Google search. Technology has spoiled us far more than we probably realize.

You know who are nice people? Canadians.

In my experience, some stereotypes are truer than others.

Like the idea that men won't ask for directions. I know that's not necessarily true because I always ask for directions. In fact, I may be too quick in asking for directions. Sometimes I should probably just trust myself more, but honestly, I hate being lost, and I have no qualms about telling someone I'm clueless and need their help.

But you know one stereotype that I've found to be spot on? This idea that Canadian people are nice. Oh sure, there are exceptions. Watch any given National Hockey League game and you'll find some mean SOBs from Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia. But by and large, they're good people.

Today is Canada Day, which for the uninitiated (i.e., 95% of Americans) is kind of like our Independence Day. It marks the date in 1867 in which Canada officially became a nation, albeit still part of the British Empire.

And those kooky Canadians still maintain certain ties to the Brits today, like having the Queen on their money and putting wholly unnecessary u's in the middle of words like "colour," "favour" and "honour."

Still, for the most part, Canada has forged its own identify in the world, and I would characterize that identify as "nice." Which I know sounds bland and unexciting, but I don't mean it that way. These are, collectively, good people. You can trust them. They don't trust us, of course, but honestly, I'm not sure I would, either.

I do love Canada, though. Or at least Eastern Canada, which is the only part of the country I've actually visited. I've been to Niagara Falls and Toronto countless times, and have also visited Montreal and Ottawa.

Speaking of Ottawa, here's a true story: In the summer of 1994 when Elissa was just an infant, Terry and I packed her into her little car seat and did a week-long Canadian driving tour. I loved it all, but I really loved Ottawa. It had a nice charm to it, and the Ottawa Senators have been my NHL team of choice ever since.

Anyway, Terry for whatever reason wasn't feeling well when we got to Ottawa, so she asked me to get her some Pepto Bismol. I set off from the hotel in search of a pharmacy, and along the way I came across these really cool street performers. There was a guy on stilts and acrobats and, I don't know, break dancers or something. The point was, they were doing really cool things and I stood there transfixed by them.

I stood there a long time. A really long time. An especially long time if you're someone who is waiting back in the hotel room for your husband to arrive with medicine that will help you feel better.

I don't know how long I was gone, but by the time I got back, Elissa had visibly aged. And Terry was, how shall I say, not pleased with the length of my journey.

She still reminds me of that sometimes. But seriously, those acrobats were so cool!

Yeah, so Canada. Good people. We should all visit. Bring your own Pepto Bismol, though.