Aughta be in Ottawa

 Sunday, May 21:

Today was driving along the Ottawa River north from Montreal to Ottawa. We stuck to the small riverside road, through rustic farmlands and small towns. Apparently this mid May sunny Sunday is a traditional day for les Vendre de Garage. Every little town had at least every fifth or sixth lawn with a garage sale. That, and the mobs of motorcycles and convertible cars on the road made for rather a festive atmosphere.

The only significant stop was Montebello, which was the manorial home of Louis Jaques Papineau, one of the leaders of the mid 1800s rebellion. The house was interesting enough, but more impressive was the next door Fairmont Resort, a huge rambling old hotel, built of logs. It was dark inside, but obviously a high roller kind of place.

We are set up for a couple of nights with an old friend, Devon Woods, in his lovely old house not far from downtown and the Parliament Buildings. Dev was an old high school friend of Pat when she lived near Ottawa in the 1960s, and we have kept in touch ever since, and visited a few times.

We will tour the town on bikes tomorrow.

Monday, May 22

Beautiful day for bicycling around Ottawa, with a few nice surprises. We set off from Devon's house on Lewis Street, near Somerset, and were riding down the Rideau canal trail in just a few blocks.

The first serendipity of the day was the tulip festival at a park along the river. This appears to be quite the annual event, with throngs of families and other tulip fans, many of whom were dressed in pretty spring dresses for the occasion.

We peddled along a couple more kilometres to Carleton University for a quick look around, then headed back toward downtown through Little Italy, with of course a stop at an Italian cafe for espresso and latté.

Another 20 minutes or so and we were back down at the Ottawa River. Anyone familiar with Ottawa will know that the Eddy match factory was a forbidding edifice on the islands below Parliament Hill. It is now under major redevelopment as a shopping/restaurant market area similar to Granville Island. Most of it is just beginning and behind fences, but the sidewalks around the edges are open, offering dramatic new views of the river and particularly the LaChute rapids above the city.

A bit of an obligatory look then at the Parliament Buildings... crowds today due to the holiday, but that made it a bit more festive feeling.

....and then to Byward Market, with more swarms of holiday families. There were lots of booths selling various shlock jewellery and souvenirs, but some nice cafes, eateries and pubs as well. Didn't get any pix there, but still a fun day altogether!

We then had a very nice evening with our friend, Devon, playing music and singing on the deck, and then supper and just a few too many glasses of wine!

Tuesday, May 23: Ottawa to Kingston

Setting off from Devon's in the morning we headed north a bit to the Lac des Chiens area to check out the house that Pat lived in for a few years in her early teens.

hen headed south on secondary roads paralleling the Rideau Canal to arrive at the St Lawrence River at Prescott. It has a very pretty little waterfront park and marina where we had our lunch picnic.

From Prescott we headed up the river alongside the Thousand Islands to near Kingston. After a bit os misdirection from Google Maps we hauled up at Rideau Acres Campground on a beautiful wide part of the Rideau a few kilometres above Kingston. This is one of the nicest campgrounds we have found... it is huge, well over 100 sites, some of which are long term vacation spots with semi-permanent RVs. The site they gave us is on a grassy point right on the water, with the nearest neighbour 5 sites away.

Tomorrow we'll tour Kingston a bit, then further up river to Prince Edward County tourist area.

Wednesday, May 24: Sandbanks Provincial Park

The first really rainy day, or at least rainy morning, of our trip. So we didn't linger long in Kingston... had a look at some of the heritage buildings and Queens University from the front seats of the van..

Our travel for the day was up the St Lawrence on the riverside road. There were a few quick stops in some of the pretty little towns... Picton was a particularly historic/quant little town on the Prince Edward peninsula. To access Picton there was a little 15 minute ferry ride, and you know how much we love ferries! And it was free! It was supposed to be picturesque, but the rainy mist hid much of that.

Pat had read about a sculpture garden called Oeno just beyond Picton. It turned out to be a very worthwhile stop, and the rain had ceased by then. The small gallery had some really great work, particularly by Heather Allen Hietala, and then we spent almost an hour wandering the outdoor sculpture garden.

We have settled quite early this afternoon at Sandbanks Provincial Park. It is quite a huge park set along the southern dunes of the Prince Edward Peninsula. There are four separate campgrounds, totalling some 850 campsites, though only a few dozen are taken this early in the season. The beach is beautiful, reminiscent of our Long Beach, with 2 to 3 kilometres of white sand. There are parking lots to accommodate hundreds, perhaps thousands of cars, so this place must really get hopping in the summer.

We're definitely starting to feel antsy about moving on westward, but we do have at least a full day northward through central Ontario to get around those pesky big lakes up there!