Institutionalized: 1940

The Canadian Motor sports Expo January 1953

Greg and I have been home for two weeks. It is now January. We leave for our trip to Toronto and to the Canadian Motor sports Expo. The Expo starts January 21. it goes through until January 23. Dario told us that he is appearing at the Expo on January 22, which is a Saturday. We leave for Toronto on Tuesday, January 18. we will arrive in Toronto on Thursday, January 20. We leave for Toronto in two days. We start packing for our trip. We decided after this trip we were not having any trips for a while. We get tired easily from all the travelling we have been doing. The next big event after the Expo would be the race in Vancouver, that race will be in July. It will be a nice break from big events.

Today we check our luggage to make sure we have everything for our trip. We leave for the train station. Ric will be driving us to the train station. It is very kind of him to drive us to the train station whenever we are going on a trip. We thank him every time. He tells us we do not have to thank him every time. We tell him we do it because we appreciate everything he does for us.

Anyway, back to our trip. Ric came early this morning to drive us to the train station. Our train comes at 9:00 am. We arrive at the train station at 8:45 am. 15 minutes early. We told Ric that we will be back home on Wednesday, January 26. we leave Toronto on Monday, January 24.

Our train has arrived. We are boarding the train. Once on the train, Ric waves to us and tells us to have a good time. We told him thank you and we will have a good time. We are moving eastward towards Toronto. We enjoy seeing the Rocky Mountains.

I forgot to mention that before we left for Toronto, Dario wrote to us telling us that he will be picking us up from the train station. It will be nice to see a friendly face at the train station.

A day has passed on our trip to Toronto. We will be arriving in Toronto in a few hours. Greg and I are getting excited. Even though we saw Dario a couple of weeks ago, it is still nice to see him. I wonder if Ashley is with him. I hope she is because she is always with Dario even at the races. It has been one day since we left Vancouver.

Today we arrive in Toronto in the late afternoon. We arrive in Toronto at 3:30 pm. We have been offered breakfast. We will be in Ontario by noon. A few hours have passed, we are now in Ontario. We will be in Toronto in three and a half hours. Greg and I are getting excited. Another few hours have passed. It is now 3:00 pm., we will be arriving in Toronto in 30 minutes. We are getting really excited. It feels like Greg and I have ants in our pants because we are moving around in our seats because of our excitement. The conductor announced that we will be arriving in Toronto in 15 minutes and told us to make sure we have all our belongings before we leave the train.

We have now arrived in Toronto. Before we leave the train, we double check that we have everything and we do. Once we left the train, there was a man who takes us to arrivals. Once at arrivals, Dario was waiting for us. Ashley was there with him. Dario took our luggage to the car that they were renting. Ashley walked with us to the car. Once in the car, we asked where we were going to stay for the weekend. Dario replied by saying that they paid for a hotel room for us near where the Expo was being held. We thanked him. He also told us that he will be driving us back to the train station on Monday morning. We thanked him again for being so kind. He told us that it was his pleasure and a very kind thing to do for his best friend.

Once we arrived at the hotel, we got our room. Dario helped us with our luggage into our room. Dario and Ashley were staying in a room across the hall. The Expo starts tomorrow, but Dario is not going to be seen at the Expo until Saturday. Tomorrow all of us will just go to the Expo to see what it is all about. Then on Saturday Greg and I will go walk around, while Dario signs autographs and chats with fans.

Today is Saturday. Yesterday we went to the expo, there were many different cars and car parts. Today Dario appears at the expo. He will appear for an autograph session at 11:45 am. To 1:00 pm. Once Greg and I arrived at the expo, Dario went to the main stage to sign autographs. We were surprised how long the line was to get Dario's autograph. Once Dario was announce to fans, the first words out of his mouth was "It's bloody freezing!" Greg and I were laughing at him because we knew he came from Florida from a drive test. A lot of the fans had die cast models of Dario's car for him to sign. After the autograph session, we went for lunch. Lunch was about an hour and a half long. He was appearing again at 2:30 pm. For a question and answer session. He was also going to tell stories about his friends. Once the question and answer session started, a lot of people were mentioning Greg even though he was there. Dario also said that Greg was the best and what he could have achieved if he did not have his accident during the war. Dario was talking about the fun times with Greg and Tony. Close to the end of the 30 minutes question and answer; a woman told Dario that his tribute to Greg in Vancouver was perfect. Before we left for the day, we went around to see the other things we didn't see the previous day. There was a woman dragster. I was so impressed with her that I asked to talk a picture with her and I got a card with her autograph on it. I forgot to mention that during Dario's autograph session, a lot of people took pictures with Dario after he signed the item they brought.

After we left the expo, we drove back to the hotel. Once at the hotel, Greg and I went to our room and Dario told us that he would be coming to our room at 5:00 pm. for dinner. He told us that he was treating us to a nice dinner. We thanked them and told him that we would see him and Ashley at 5:00 pm. Greg and I were tired, so we decided to have a cat nap before going for dinner.

At 5:00 pm. We heard a knock on the door, Greg went to open the door. It was Dario and Ashley at the door ready to take us to dinner. At dinner, we were talking about what was at the Expo on Sunday, so we could decide to go or just have a day with Dario and Ashley. We told Dario and Ashley that we wanted to go to the Expo the next day because there was an awards ceremony for the young up coming drivers. Dario thought it was a great idea because he could see his competition for next year's session. After dinner, Greg and I told Dario and Ashley that we would see them in the morning and went to our room. We spent the quiet night in our room and went to bed.

Today is the day of the awards ceremony at the expo. The awards ceremony is in the afternoon. Dario is going to the ceremony as well. We go back to the expo at 3:00 pm. The expo ends at 5:00 pm. tonight. We leave Toronto tomorrow.

It is 3:00 pm. We are leaving for the expo. We are at the expo now. The awards ceremony is about to begin. We are excited to see if there are any Canadian drivers that receive any awards. During the ceremony, there is one Canadian driver James Hinchcliffe who is from the Toronto area who received an award for being Canadian racer of the year. We cheered for him.

After the ceremony was over, we went back to the hotel to pack. We are leaving for Vancouver tomorrow, home sweet home. After we packed, Dario took us out for a farewell dinner.

The next morning, we woke up to check out and head to the train station. Once at the train station, Dario and Ashley said good bye and told us that we would see them in the summer. Once we had our tickets checked, we went up to the platform to wait for our train. Once the train arrived, we boarded. We are on our way home we are looking forward to a few months to relax until the race in Vancouver in July.