August 27, 2024

Storm Crow Manor, Toronto

The main reason for my visit to Canada was to meet three men I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons Online with for the last 5+ years (HEY! do you play DDO? We’re on the Sarlona server. We’re all members of The Wulfepack). It’s not as scary as it sounds – I know people are always worried about meeting people this way, but we have all video chatted, talked at least twice a week during our gaming sessions, been through life’s ups and downs together. I’ve “met” their families through the same chats, talked to their wives and kids, mourned their losses, and celebrated their successes. I won’t be posting their pictures out of respect for their privacy, but the highlight of the trip was definitely spending time with these friends. AND… the most awesome part of the time with those friends was our visit to Storm Crow Manor, a beautiful old mansion that has been turned into a restaurant/bar catering to my most favorite types of people – nerds, geeks, et cetera.

We started out by driving from Niagara Falls to Burlington, where we took a GO train into Toronto. I think I already talked about that – it was my first time on a train. We did our sightseeing tour around Toronto, but ended up staying on the bus longer than originally planned because we had a reservation at the restaurant and didn’t have time to get off and look around, then wait for the next tour bus to come get us again.

Once inside the restaurant, two of my companions chose to roll a d20 to pick their meals.

I went a little more standard with mine, opting for a chicken sandwich and a salad, and a shot called “The Matrix.”

We followed our meal with a special delivery of “Infinity Shots,” which were accompanied by a musical serenade over the loudspeaker. This is by far the coolest serving tray I’ve ever seen. The shots were just a simple spiked lemonade-type of drink, but the tray gave them color and bubbles.

Finally, we wrapped up our tour of Storm Crow by wandering around looking at the various decorations in the building. There was a lot to see – from the DC & Marvel themed washrooms to the Han Solo in carbonite wall hanging, there were things to please every sort of sci-fi and fantasy fan out there. My favorites were the huge Beholder on the wall in the lower level dining area, the Zoltar machine, and the d20 vending machine!

I know Zoltar isn’t really from a sci-fi type movie, but it was still fun to see the machine there. Overall, this place was great, and I’d definitely love to visit again sometime. In fact, I’d love to go back to Niagara Falls and Toronto again just to see all the things I didn’t have time to see. It would be great to hang out with these friends again, but maybe I’ll just take myself on a trip next time!

Filed Under: Canada, Travel

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

This blog is a mishmash of things I feel like posting.

I’m a special education teacher in Missouri, working with students with severe to profound challenges and needs. My students don’t study a traditional academic curriculum, and we are focused on functional skills and communication. You won’t find math worksheets or science experiments on this blog, but I’ll post things that I use that work well for my students. If you can use them, that’s great!

I have recently had some life changes that have made traveling and exploring possible, finally. I post about those excursions from time to time, and hope to post more about that in the future as I get to go more places.

I also make digital designs – I started designing digital scrapbooking graphics way back in 2007, selling them off and on, but mostly giving things away. I have some items for sale in my Creative Fabrica shop, but there are also a few freebies here, and also in the Commons at DigitalScrapbook.com. I had an unfortunate hard-drive crash with my cloud storage failing as well (everything was corrupted due to the crash), so all of my older designs and freebies are gone.

I know that many teachers need a side-hustle, but the sites I visit are so full of advertising and pay-walls that I have pretty much stopped using resources that I didn’t make myself. When I make something I think is worth sharing – I’ll share it here, without making you sign up for anything or pay for things you can’t afford.