Day 11 – Prince Edward County to Syracuse, USA

We set off about 11am back to the USA – but not before stopping for one last, and very disappointing, Tim Horton’s. The Tim Horton’s in Gananoque was the worst we’ve ever experienced, with only 1 flavour of Tim Bits left, and terrible coffee – which is a shame as I generally love Tim Horton’s! Still managed to get a Honey Cruller that was very good!

We drove through the 1000 Islands area on the 1000 Islands Parkway, and stopped at Ivy Lea where they run an hour long boat trip, which would have been great to go on if we knew about it beforehand! On the other hand, there were about 5 tour buses with loads of people going on the trips, so it may not have been that much fun. The 1000 Island Parkway is a really beautiful drive and carries on past the border crossing, and is definitely worth driving if you’re in the area. Crossing the border was once again painless and once we got to the USA we got on the US81 that took us straight to Syracuse.

On check-in the girl at reception asked me whether we were there for the Taste Of Syracuse, which I didn’t even know about, but it sounded right up my alley! The room in the Crowne Plaza was pretty good, with two double beds and lots of space. We took a walk around Syracuse and even if we didn’t hear about the food festival at the hotel, it would have been pretty impossible to miss. We walked round the Armory Square area before checking out the food festival, which was pretty crazy. It was only about 5pm but it was buzzing, with seas of people all eating and especially drinking, though to be fair it was a very hot day!

I’d read about Dinosaur Bar-B-Que online somewhere so instead of trying out one of the various foodstalls, which didn’t look that appetising anyway, we headed to the Dinosaur – which is described as a “restaurant, blues venue, and biker bar”. There were quite a few Harleys parked outside the place and it looked pretty rammed, so we headed up to the Press Room Pub for a couple of cold drinks before joining the Dinosaur queue. We got a table after only about 5mins wait and had a look at the menu while taking in the incredible place we found ourselves in! Pictures don’t do it any justice, but the place is amazing – and fortunately we can report that the food more than matched our expectations. I had a Tres Nino, which was a “petite sampling of brisket, ribs and pork”, mac & cheese and mash & gravy while Brian had a burger, and everything was great. The service was also very good and we walked out stuffed but happy.

The food festival was still going on outside but it was hot and we didn’t feel like fighting hordes of people for a drink, so had a quiet drink at Wolff’s Biergarten before heading back to the hotel.