Oh Canada you are golden!

Oh Canada you are Golden!

Weekend Reflections #23

Royal Bank Building, Toronto, Ontario

Reflections in 24 cart gold!

For more reflections from around our world  join us at Newton Area Photos.

SkyWatch Friday and smiles...

Soon to be "four"!(March 5th) 

I am in Ontario waiting for my first grandchild to arrive..

The view from my housesit

 I am also a professional house/pet sitter which allows me to make my visits more like little holidays.  My destination two month housesit in Ottawa went "sideways" after I arrived in Ontario so I saught out another. 

On of my neighbourhood landmarks I am interested in.

 Today I will begin a new housesit in Toronto and make the trip to Ottawa when my grandson arrives. 

I will be in the Scarborough Bluffs area of east Toronto and look forward to exploring.

After meeting with my homeowner the skies cleared and I checked out the neighbourhood and found this Smart Car shoe-horned into a parking space.

Is a comment really necessary...it's a real parking ticket!!!!

For more great skies from around the world why not join us at

SkyWatch Friday

MyWorld Tuesday ~ Discovery Walks

Toronto has a wonderful network of urban wild areas just waiting to be discovered. 

Figured the best way out of the February blahs was to attack them head on!

Hidden in neighbourhoods behind homes there are well maintained boardwalks,

 markers,

scarsely any snow for this time of the year

escape routes

and other recreational activities

the weekend's left behinds

For more great spots to take a walk why not join us at

 MyWorld Tuesday

and remember all photos can be enlarged for more detail

Weekend Reflections #22

A house built like a float house or to be a float house when the waters rise!

Here's lookin' at you!

The arrangement of these three mirrors leaning against a house was an invitation for reflection!

Visit James at Newton Daily Photos

for more interesting reflections

SkyWatch Friday

Beautiful garden art at Harbourfront

I've been laying low this past week, I think it is the "February blahs" so I went through some of my recent photos taken in Toronto to cheer me up!

Dusk on Toronto Harbour

For more beautiful skies come join us at

 SkyWatch Friday

and remember the beauty is in the detail, click either photo, especially the first one to enlarge.

Weekend Reflections #21 ~ The unexpected....

While exploring Toronto's downtown one comes upon many reflections

Some expected

Some not.......

For other reflections from around the world why not visit James at Newton Area Photo.

SkyWatch Friday ~ "Nothing but blue skies do I see..."

Waiting...

Oops!

The Eagle and the Dove

Memories....

For more beautiful skies why not join us at

SkyWatch Friday

and remember all photos can be clicked on to enlarge or for more detail.

Watery Wednesday #73 ~ Along the boardwalk

Ward's Island Ferry Dock
When my time in the "big" city starts to overwhelm me I head out to walk on the Toronto Islands.
Disembarking ferry with Toronto skyline shrinking away!

A beautiful collection of natural and man made islands that can calm the weary soul by taking a 15 minute ferry ride at the foot of Toronto's financial district.
The island side of the The Eastern Gap

The Boardwalk on the southside of the Islands

Created as a result of winds carving out sands from the Scarborough Bluffs and lake currents carrying the sands west the islands were originally an isthmus running from the Don River to the foot of Bathurst Street in Old Fort York also known as Toronto!

The waves were the residual from the winter storm that hit the eastern USA over the weekend.

Known as a place of peace and healing and good fishing by the Mississauga First Nations the land was taken over as a recreational area by the first Europeans to settle Upper Canada.
Hmmm...reminders of home!
After wave action from a huge storm in 1864 opened up what is now known as the Eastern Gap the "Islands" were formed.

My intent was to write about some of the history and geography of these islands however there is way too much for one post so here is a taste of a walk along the southern boardwalk on a sunny winter day while I do some more research! Enjoy!

Centre Island Pier

To see more Watery Wednesday posts click on the logo below.

Scenic Sunday #82

Downtown Toronto at dusk as seen from the Toronto Islands.

For other great Scenic Sunday shots click on the link and remember this photo can be clicked on to enlarge and see more detail.

SkyWatch Friday ~ World Class

Looking west from the Beach Area of Toronto.

I am in Toronto again as my Ottawa housesit goes sideways. Wednesday was one of those wonderful winter days when the sun shone, the temperature rose and the winds calmed so I walked for miles along the Lake Ontario shoreline. As I headed home for dinner I realized my homing beacon was and is the CN Tower!

(Remember all photos can be clicked on to enlarge for more detail)

I haven't been up the CN Tower in years, mainly because I don't live in Toronto anymore but also any time I have wanted to go up the weather has been overcast or hazy. Yesterday dawned bright with puffy clouds so I took advantage of the day to see the largest city in Canada and environs from 446.5 m (1465 ft) or 147 stories!

Looking up, way up!

The CN Tower was and is an outstanding piece of construction. Construction began 37 years ago (Feb 6, 1973) and was completed ahead of schedule in 40 months at a cost of $63 million.
There have been $40 million worth of improvements since then including adding two more elevators by moving the 1776 stairs from their original location (behind the glass in the picture above) to the hollow hexagon core of the tower!

Looking south across the Toronto Islands towards Niagara Falls and the USA.
It officially opened on October 1, 1976. It held the World Guiness Book of Records for the tallest free standing structure until just recently, I believe surpassed by the tower in Dubai."SkyDome" home of the Toronto Blue Jays
The CN Tower was initially designed to improve communications in the boom years of Toronto's constuction of the 1960/70's when new highrise office buildings were interferring with radio and television signals causing what we older folk knew as "ghosting"(two signals coming in on top of each other). Remember "the rabbit ears"!
The original CN Tower design
The idea was to build a structure that would never be topped by building construction and to that end in Toronto they were successful.

The view looking north along Bay Street
One of the most unnerving features of the the CN Tower, other than the stomach churning ride on the elevator is the Glass Floor on the Observation Deck. I remember going up the tower when it first opened with my daughter and stepping off a packed elevator with a lineup of people waiting to go down and stepping on to what I thought was a free fall!
Looking down, way down!

I'm sure many of my grey hairs happened that moment! When I was up yesterday, the first stop is not the glass floor anymore and they have covered up much of the floor because of people's fears....believe me it is quite unnerving!

I still can not stand on the floor without shaking. I crawled out to take the previous picture and then someone offered to take my picture on the floor!

Messages in the snow....wish I had been there when it first snowed!

Despite the altitude the views are spectacular and I found I discovered things I did not know existed such as the Roundhouse(above) which I explored later!

Toronto's downtown financial district looking east north east towards Scarborough and Pickering
The building on the right is actually covered in real gold!
Lower left, Royal York Hotel, upper left Royal Bank Plaza, behind it Canada Trust Towers, lower right Union Station.

The building is the the Royal Bank Plaza and the 14,000 windows had 2500 oz. of 24 carat gold baked into them to help with insulation, believe it or not!

Train and transit entrance to Union Station looking east from the Skywalk.

The CN Tower was the brain child of the Canadian National Railway who had ventured into communications and was looking to rehab their old waterfront rail yards.

Looking east along the lakeshore to where the first photo was taken the night before!

For more beautiful skies from around the world why not join us at

SkyWatch Friday.