Over Christmas break Brittany and I decided to take a quick couple day trip to Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. While we've done a handful of trips together we hadn't done anything going east, and neither of us had been there. Additionally, Brittany hadn't been up to Canada so we figured we could check that off the list.
Conveniently around the same time I stumbled upon a FS thread where red_toy was selling a handful of things to clean up his shop, located in Zeeland, MI. We ended up planning on hitting the road, driving up through NY into Canada, staying for a couple days in Niagara Falls, then driving back through Canada across MI to Zeeland then heading back home.
Unfortunately we decided to go at the least photogenic time of the year...during the winter while it WASN'T freezing. The couple days were cold, wet, and windy, but it was still cool to get to see.
After getting there late at night, stopping by one of the local brewpubs (Taps, was pretty cool and very reasonable for a pitcher!), and discovering the post-christmas-miracle unopened wine-coolerish thing in the hotel fridge, we woke up for a day of knocking around the area. We first went for a quick run to get a feel for things and got to check out the falls up-close, didn't get any pics because I didn't have my phone on me. After that we went to the Niagara Falls Historical Society (just happened to drive by on the way to breakfast and figured we'd stop in). Brittany didn't want to try the War of 1812 costumes on for the photo op?!:
We then did the touristy stuff and wandered around the falls...as you can see it was very gray while we were there:
Unfortunately between my lack of camera skills and the weather we left the falls with a total of 0 good photos...as cool/impressive as they were I doubt it's a place we go back to. Along with the falls there was a hell of a lot of this:
The tourism aspect of it was a little overwhelming!
That said, later that afternoon we discovered Niagara-on-the-Lake (aka the Loveliest town in Canada), which was an awesome town with a bunch of wineries that produce ice wine. Additionally, there was an awesome brewery in an old church called Silversmith...truly one of the coolest breweries I've been to (beers were good too):
The next morning we hit the road and pointed toward Zeeland...the drive ended up being a grueling 10+hours of freezing rain and hangover, definitely amongst the worst conditions I've ever driven in.
We made it to Zeeland around lunch, and Mike and I proceeded to fit all the parts into the truck, including an unorthodox mounting of an FJ40 hardtop:
Overall it was a good trip, and I'm very happy to have come out of it with a hardtop/year-correct doors as well!
A week or so later I got the hardtop and doors mocked up...didn't sit down on the tub fully as I think the posts on earlier hardtops go too deep into the channel of 79+ tubs, but it was cool to get a quick bit of inspiration:
Added to the list now is a quick restoration/respray of the hardtop and doors, with target completion date being when the snow and salt are gone from the roads.
Along with the hardtop and doors Mike sold me a pair of late model aprons and a couple hoods (early split hood in very good condition, late non-split in fair condition)...I'll post them in the FS section shortly, let me know if those are things you're looking for.
Chase
Do you know Ocean Isle beach?I live in Shallotte between those 2 beaches..I still kept my property down there ,going there once a while and even have NC licence plates.It was easier and lot cheaper to put my 40 on NC licence plates instead of TX.Less taxes,no safety inspection,no horn check ,less insurance etc...Anyway...does your speed and mileage still going of of GPS or you just used it to set it up once and now is going from your transfer case electronically?
