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News from |
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Michael D. Chason Director of Public Relations ABAC 30, 2802 Moore Hwy |
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For IMMEDIATE Release November 9, 2009
ABAC Goes To
Canada & Niagara Falls
By
Mike Chason
ABAC Director of
Public Relations
TIFTON - From the quaint charm of Quebec City to the
exhilarating rush of standing under Niagara Falls, the September visit by
Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College to New York City and Canada created a
maple syrup bottle full of memories.
My
wife, Kris, and I had the pleasure of traveling with Public Service and
Business Outreach Center Director Diane Kilgore and 33 travelers on the
seven-day journey, which was one of the many trips sponsored by the PSBOC this
year. The trips are open to anyone who loves to travel and experience new
sites and sounds.
Other
trips already planned include Christmas in the Big Apple on Dec. 2-4, and three
2010 trips: Tropical Costa Rica on March 17-25, the California Coast and the
Pacific Northwest on June 29-July 6, and Autumn in New England on Sept. 29-Oct.
9. Sign up today at (229) 391-5070.
Here’s
a day-by-day recap of the latest ABAC adventure.
DAY
1: The ABAC campus was quiet and dark as our sleepy-eyed travelers piled
into the Kelly Tours luxury bus for a 4:30 a.m. departure for the Atlanta
Airport. Our son, David, who is an ABAC graduate and Director of Sales
for the Savannah-based company, greeted us with a big smile and challenged us
to see things we had never seen and meet people we had never met.
The
Atlanta to New York flight arrived in “The Big Apple” before lunch so we had plenty
of time for a day of sightseeing in the most exciting city I have encountered
in all my ABAC travels. The energy on Broadway makes your heart beat
faster with all the gigantic signs, flashing billboards, and skyscrapers
stretching into the stratosphere.
We
took the Staten Island Ferry for a great view of the Statue of Liberty and the
New York skyline. Photo opportunities abound. Kelly Ripa was doing
an interview on 42nd Street as we made our way to our hotel, in the
heart of the theatre district at the corner of 52nd and Broadway.
That
evening we were treated to a delightful evening of theatre at the Lincoln
Center where we witnessed the revival of the classic, “South
Pacific.” The intimate setting allowed us to feel like we
were a part of the beach scene and swaying palms on the set. It was
fantastic!
DAY
2: Back on the bus for an early morning trip to Penn Station which is
connected to Madison Square Garden. Kelly Tours handed out specially made
box lunches in the shadow of the World’s Most Famous Arena. With lunch
bag in hand, we boarded the Adirondack Special Amtrak train for a seven-hour
trip to the Canadian border.
It
was my first Amtrak ride, and it was much smoother than I anticipated.
The seats are comfortable, and the conductors wear the classic black outfits
with the billed caps. One of them even sang out “all abooooaaaarrrrdddd”
for the benefit of my video camera. I love the way they methodically make
their route through the middle of the train and shout out the name of the next stop.
The
Saratoga station had racing stallions on the wall, who looked a lot like the
ABAC mascot. We passed Fort Ticonderoga, home of one of my childhood
heroes, Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys. There were 260 folks on
the train, which included a dining car with drinks and hot sandwiches.
Our
bus was waiting on us at Rouses Point, N.Y., and we saddled up for
Canada. At the Canadian border we were turned away by the first group of
customs officials who sent us to another entrance into the country. To
get to that place, we had to go back into the United States.
For a minute or two, we
were tweeners, stuck between the U.S. and Canada. Anxious moments turned
into much laughter as we finally did enter the Canadian countryside, where we
were immediately beset by all the road signs in French.
The
province of Quebec is a French-speaking area of the country. Sixty-five
per cent of the people speak French by choice, to preserve their
heritage. But they also know English. We rolled into our hotel on the
outskirts of Montreal just in time for a fabulous meal and some well deserved
shut-eye.
DAY
3: A tremendous traffic jam welcomed us to Montreal, where the Olympic
Stadium from 1976 dominates the landscape. The stadium was home to the
Montreal Expos before they moved to Washington D.C.
In
an effort to green up Canada, Montreal has a bicycle system where you can rent
a bike, use it all day for $5 and park it at one of many other racks across the
city. Better use it on this gorgeous fall day because Montreal gets 80
inches of snow in the winter. The government keeps monstrous piles of
salt under black plastic during the warm months. The economic capital of
the Quebec province has a $127 million snow removal budget. The
temperature can dip to 20 below in the winter.
The
St. Lawrence River is one of Canada’s most important natural resources, and
vital to the economy in Montreal. It’s also the route Jacques Cartier
decided was the way to China. It doesn’t go to China but you can get to
Chicago.
The churches are
mostly Catholic. The Six Flags amusement park is open all summer and on
weekends in the fall. Molson is the oldest (since 1786) brewery in Canada
and has now merged with Coors. The maple leaf Canadian flag is
everywhere.
Canadians
and visitors pay a 13 per cent sales tax. Our guide says Canadians are
the most heavily taxed people in North America. Most of our guides spoke
positively on the government-run health care plan. The government also runs the
casinos, the electricity, and the liquor industry. Now there’s a way to
make money! Profit is rumored to be one billion dollars a year.
Our
bus climbs to the top of Mount Royal, the highest spot in the city at 700
feet. We shopped at St. Catharine’s Street, where four different malls
are located underground. The cold is never very far from Canadians’
minds.
Our
guide described Canada as an “empty country,” because it has only 30 million
people. One reason for that is the country needs room for all its maple
trees. The Quebec province produces 75 per cent of the world’s maple
syrup.
We
took a side trip to a “sugar shack,” deep in the heart of the maple
woods. Giant bottles of the syrup stood proudly on the wooden tables as
we proceeded to drown our sausage, bread, and terrific little pancakes with the
sweet nectar.
It
takes 40 gallons of maple water from the trees to make one gallon of
syrup. The syrup season runs for four weeks from March until April.
This particular maker picks up 2,000 buckets of maple water daily during the
season. The trees must be 40 years old before they tap in the maple water
plugs. It’s not unusual for the trees to live to be 200 years old.
I was raised on cane
syrup and never developed a taste for maple. But this maple syrup tasted
better than any I can ever remember. The only disappointment…all the
trees were still green, not the golds, browns, and reds that we expected.
DAY
4: Quebec City just became one of my favorite all time places. It’s
the oldest city in North America, and the only walled city north of Mexico.
Nestled along the St. Lawrence River, the 500,000 residents haven’t been hit by
the recession. Unemployment is only 4.4 per cent, and there was not a
single murder there in 2007.
The
shops lined up along the cobblestone streets remind me of an earlier ABAC trip
to Edinburgh, Scotland. It snows in Quebec City December to
April. Winter arrives in September and hangs around until June.
Government subsidized day care is only $7 per child per day.
There are lots of
little Tim Horton restaurants everywhere. Both the French and the British
were defeated here when they maintained possession of the city. The
reason: they left the friendly confines of the walls to fight face to
face in the open. How very gentlemanly and ridiculous.
We
visit the Sainte-Anne-De-Beaupre cathedral which is stunning inside and
out. A wedding is actually going on in the mammoth cathedral while we’re
gawking and snapping photos. The bride doesn’t seem to mind because her
wedding party is dwarfed by the cavernous interior of the building.
Crutches
line two columns where believers were healed and left their crutches as a way
of sayings to the Heavenly Father above. The first church was on the site
in 1658, and the existing Basilica was built in 1923 when fire destroyed the previous
one.
Flowers dominate the
landscape, and we eat a hearty lunch at Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac, “the
world’s most photographed hotel,” on the banks of the St. Lawrence and adjacent
to a town square where musicians perform.
DAY
5: Rain clouds cover the sky but our fortune prevails, and it rains
not at all during the day on the entire trip. We’re off to the
English-speaking province of Ontario, passing by Toronto’s CN Tower, the
tallest free-standing structure in the world.
We board a boat at Gananoque
for a one-hour tour of the 1,000 islands area of the St. Lawrence River.
An island is defined as a piece of land that has at least two trees and stays
above water 365 days a year.
The
houses are incredible as they take up every inch of the tiny little spits of
land. Many have Adirondack chairs looking out over the water. Loons
are everywhere, and the Canadians have named their one-dollar coins, Looneys,
because they have the loon on it. Two-dollar coins are called Tooneys.
The
neon lights of Niagara Falls welcome us on a warm Sunday night.
Restaurants, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, Guinness Book of Records, wax museums,
Hard Rock Café and the monstrous Sky Wheel make it feel like Gatlinburg or the
South Georgia Legion Fair.
And within sight of the
hotel, Niagara Falls. There are actually three falls, the American Falls,
the Bridal Veil Falls, and the Canadian Falls, called the
Horseshoe. It’s an amazing site, even at night when colored lights
accent the rushing water.
DAY
6: Until 9 a.m., only 25 per cent of the water off the Niagara River goes over
the falls. The rest is harnessed for electricity. For the tourists, about
50 per cent of the water is released for the remainder of the day.
The
falls are 177 feet high and feed from four of the Great Lakes. America
sits just across the Niagara River. The falls stopped cascading only once
in 1848 when ice stopped up the river above the falls for 30 hours.
Sixty-three-year-old
former schoolteacher Annie Taylor was the first person to go over the falls in
a barrel on Oct. 24, 1901. She survived and wanted to make a fortune
telling her story. She died a pauper at the age of 83. Someone even
stole her original barrel.
At least 14 others
dared to challenge the falls by 2003. Five people died but two, Dave
Munday and Steven Trotter, went over twice and lived to tell their
stories. We saw the IMAX movie on “Legends and Daredevils,” which
has played every day since 1984, and visited the Daredevils museum.
Niagara
Falls attracted 12 to 15 million visitors a year prior to 9/11 but now is down
to about eight million a year. The town of 82,000 people bills
itself as the “Honeymoon Capital of the World.”
The
most thrilling part of the day was riding on the “Maid of the Mist,” a boat which
takes you up the river past the American and Bridal Veil falls and then lingers
in the mist just out of reach of certain death at the Horseshoe. Everyone
wears a thin blue poncho that leaves you absolutely soaked. But
it’s worth it. You haven’t lived until you ride the “Maid of the Mist” at
Niagara. What a rush! We even took a tour under the Horseshoe to feel the
power of the water up close and personal. Naturally, we got soaked
again. The exhilaration factor was off the charts.
A
wonderful walkway looking over the river into the falls gives you plenty of
Kodak moments. I’ll be honest. You don’t get tired of looking at
the falls. There’s just something about seeing that avalanche of water
crashing on those rocks that’s absolutely mesmerizing.
We spent our last night
on the trip at a revolving restaurant on the Skylon Tower, 520 feet into the
Niagara night with the falls down below. The food was fantastic, and the
view was even better.
DAY
7: We cross the border early with no problems. We’re back in the
USA and off to Buffalo, N.Y., for a short wait for our return flight to
Atlanta. Compared to Atlanta, the Buffalo airport is downright calm and
soothing.
Our Kelly Tours bus
driver has driven our bus overland to meet us in ATL, and we cruise down I-75
back to the campus, another ABAC adventure in the books. The specifics of
the journey will fade, but the memories will last forever.
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