Trip to Thousand Islands

I wanted to go to Thousand Islands for a long, long time. Thinking it back, I think that it was because of the trip back in 1995. That summer, my family moved to Ottawa, Canada. Just before the new semester started, we made a trip to Rochester, NY to visit my Uncle Joe and Aunt Jiabo. There were 2 scenes that I can never forget in the rest of my life.

The first one was the sight of Thousand Islands when we crossed the bridge. I didn't know the name of that bridge. All I remembered was that there were so many islands so close to each other that people need to ride on a boat to go from one to another. At the same time, the islands are so close to each other that people can literally swim to another island if they wanted to. Until this trip to Thousand Islands, I found out that that was International Bridge for people to cross the border between the US and Canada.

Another scene was when we reached the top of a hill and started to go downwards, I saw the sun set on my left hand side and the moon rise on my right hand side. Yeah, it happened at the same time. I still cannot remember where exactly we were. But one day, I believe that I will find it out.

At the beginning of this year, my hubby and I had planned to have a trip to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary. Just about a month before the anniversary, we finally decided to go to Thousand Islands. We checked out some of the traveling books and got some information from friends who had been there before. We knew that we definitely wanted to go to the Boldt Castle, Renaissance Festival and Cape Vincent.

We left early in the morning on Jul 18th (Fri) and arrived just little bit after 2pm. We went straight to the hotel to check in. Then, we found out that the room was not ready. On the way to the hotel, we saw a place called "Get Lost at Mazeland". So, we decided to go there to kill an hour before checking in. We ended up to spend 2 hours there. Thank God these 2 days were hazy, not sunny. Otherwise, we could die of thirst. Just kidding......The weather actually worked out perfect for us. It didn't rain until we were on the way home.

After checking in, my hubby said that we didn't know how long it would take to check out the whole castle. It's better off to take a boat ride to visit the castle first. If we ended up not having enough time, we could plan to go back the next day. Then, we headed over to the dock which was less than 5 minutes of ride from the hotel. The boat ride was about 10 minutes and the boat schedule was very frequent. There is one every 30 minutes.

The Boldt Castle, located in the Heart Island, was the idea of George Boldt. He wanted to build it for his wife, Louise, the love of his life. Before the completion of the construction, Louise passed away in 1904. The workers were commanded to stop all the constructions immediately and never return. In 1977, the Bridge Authority assumed the ownership of the castle and started the restoration. When we were there, we realized that the structure and foundation of all the buildings on the island is very solid. Only the first floor of the main building, which has 5 storeys including the foundation (basement), was completely restored.

Throughout the island, you can see the heart-shaped decoration is everywhere, such as garden, fences, windows, even the shape of the island itself and so forth. While we were walking on the island, I could feel that love and romance from George Boldt for his wife throughout. According to the tour guide in the boat ride that we took the day after, there are about 80 couples every year getting married on this island.

On the same island, there are several buildings as well. Such as the Alster Tower (Play House). What really impressed my hubby when we stepped into this building, there are 2 bowling alleys in the basement. We didn't take any pictures inside because it was not totally restored yet.

Next to this tower, there is the Arch where guests could anchored the larger yachts in deep water.

Here is the Dove-Cote, the first structure on the island. It was topped with a pigeon house where they collected fancy fowl.

Here is the Power House that the Boldts intended to use it to supply the electricity for the whole island.

By the time we got out of the Power House, it was almost 6:30pm when the Yacht House was going to close. That building is located on the opposite island from the castle which was the only place that we didn't visit in the Boldt Castle area.

We took the last boat ride of the day to head back to the mainland.

Time for dinner.

When it comes to dining out, I would say when it comes to eating, my hubby is very picky. I was so worried about that we might end up ordering pizza that night. But he ended up picking up this great restaurant in town.

After visiting the Castle, I felt like we just came back from Europe. And when we stepped into this restaurant, I felt the same way, too. The atmosphere, light fixtures, renovation and even the dishes reminded me a lot of the Renaissance era. The service and food was excellent.

It first came a loaf of homemade French bread with big bowl of whipped butter. Each entree comes with a soup or salad. The clam chowder had a lot of big chunks of fresh and perfectly cooked clams. The salad had a very good amount of dressing. (You know sometimes when you order a salad from a restaurant, it doesn't have enough dressing.)

I ordered the Cajun Mixed Trio which combined a sirloin steak with shrimps and scallops in a spicy garlic sauce. My hubby ordered the Alaskan King Crab Legs (split). My entree was wonderful. And when my hubby let me to try the crab, I was wowed by the freshness of it. Although the dinner was a bit expensive, the service and food definitely worthed every penny. And later, we somehow got paid by someone else later. (Will tell you why later :-))

There were many other dishes sounded so delicious on the menu that I wrote it down on my diary. Here are a couple of them:

- Macadamia Crusted Chicken (Chicken Breast Dipped in Honey Topped with Macadamia Nuts Sauteed & served with a Mango Chutney)

- Garlice Chicken & Shrimps (Scampi style served over angel hair pasta)

- Stoli Shrimp (Shrimp sauteed and served with our vodka tomato cream sauce over penne)

-Baked Brie and Topped with Rapsberry Sauce

I am sure that I will somehow figure out how to make them. So, stay tuned for the recipes.

It was after 9pm when we left the restaurant. And every store and restaurant were ready to close. Yeah, can you believe it? Every place closed before 10pm including the convenient stores. So, we went back to the hotel to plan for the next day trip.

That night, we found out that a lot of places that we planned to visit before the trip are so far away from Alexandria Bay, where we stayed. It ranges from 30 miles to over an hour of drive. So, we eliminated a lot of them from our list.

Jul 19 was our day of anniversary. My hubby said that he really wanted to take a boat ride, called the Millionaire Row. At first, I was not sure what it was about. So, I just went along with his idea. Then, we found out that it was an one-hour boat ride and cruise by all the houses owned by the rich people. It was very interesting.

The tour guide was great and knowledgeable. Although I can't remember every house, we did pass by one owned by the Kelloggs (the corn flake company). Some of them really impressed me.

George Boldt built this little house for his mother-in-law next to the Heart Island.

See the flags on the bridge. We briefly crossed the Canadian border. This bridge is right at the border. So, the owner put a Canadian flag on the left side and the US flag on the right where they belong.

This is the Thousand Islands library.

Most islands have the cable electricity supply. The cables are under water. To hire the crew, it is $125/hour and the cable itself is $25/foot. After that, the owner pays the bills just like anybody does. This island is the only island has the cable TV.

This island most probably is the one that I can never forget. It is on sale and the price was just reduced to $1.2 million. It is a lot of money. But it is really a steal. I mentioned it to my hubby after the ride if we could set our goal for buying this island. He said, "Yeah, if my dad or Johnny wants to go fishing, I can just ask them, 'Why don't you just come over to the house?' Then, we can fish right there." To me, I remembered the tour guide mentioned about the seaway is 29ft the deepest (He also answered my question. When I first had the boat ride, I asked my hubby if any cruise can sail in the seaway, just like in the Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong. He thought that it is not deep enough to handle that size of ships.) In the fall, the boat needs to stop in the middle of the seaway to let the deers to swim across. Since I heard that I really want to look at that scene. We had achieved a lot of goals since we got married. I believe if we decide to go for this one, I am sure that we will make it happen somehow.

It was the perfect timing when we got off the boat because we saw that long lines of people and crowds at the dock. Before we headed back home, we stopped at the Aqua Zoo and a museum which is close during the weekend that we knew it when we arrived.

Then, we stopped at the Turning Stone. Both my hubby and I are not gambler. This is the 2nd time for us to be in the casino within 6 years. And it happened to be the same one. My first time here was when I first moved to the States that my uncle brought me here to check it out. The first time my hubby here was about a few years ago when there was a statewide meeting of his company that he worked for.

It took us quite a while to find the slot machines that we liked. The best of all was that it took us less than 10 minutes to win $100. Although it was not a lot of money, it was very funny for 2 people that rarely go to a casino and won the money that paid for our dinner the night before and the lunch of that day. So, thank you Turning Stone. hehe......So, we headed home happily.

It was not the end of our vacation yet. We went to Howe Cavern the next Tuesday. Here are some pictures to share with you.

These are the only 2 stones that you are allowed to touch in the cave. (Sorry, Mr. Tour Guide, don't mean to put your face on the internet. But these are the only 2 pics that I got.)

There are quite a few couples getting married at this Bridal Alter every year.

The most exciting part in the cave was this Winding Way.

When I first saw this cave-aged cheddar cheese, the first person came out of my mind was Uncle Joe. He loves wine and cheese. This picture was taken for him.

That was the end of our vacation. It was so great. We always travel because we visit someone else. This is the first time that we travel for ourselves. And we decided to do the same thing at least once a year.

Click here for more pictures of Thousand Islands and Boldt Castle.

Click here for more pictures of Howe Cavern.