Today we drove from Montreal to Ottawa. As we are leaving Montreal, I find myself wishing we had seen and done more. I wish we had had time to see Prince Edward Island. I wish we had been able to see more areas in Nova Scotia There are more live Museums such as Sherbrook Village. The challenge of all traveling is what to do in the time you have. I want to do and see everything but we keep leaving things undone, unseen. Since we started full-timing I thought we would have time to see it all. Part of the problem is, to see everything, you need to stay through all the seasons. I watched a program the other night on our National Parks. There was a segment on Acadia (the park in Maine we just visited). In the discussion, 2 of the things they recommended was seeing Acadia in the fall, and taking a carriage ride. We did neither. We did not visit in the fall and we ran out of time for the carriage ride. Even full-timing we do not have an unlimited supply of time. Everyone has scheduled events with timelines that they must meet; weddings, family reunions, and for me Dr appointments. We always time things to return to Seattle. The other challenge is energy. Like the family on a one day visit to Disneyland, you can only do so much. If you go early and stay late, everyone is tired and cranky. Seems like a half day works best for us but sometimes that does not work for a place.
7/25
Today we took a bus into Ottawa to tour the Parliament Buildings. One of our neighbors in the Campground have come to Ottawa many times. They told us about a Park & Ride where we could get a bus to downtown. At the Park & Ride we met a gentlemen who told us where to get the bus, where to get off the bus, and then gave us some tickets.
We spent the afternoon walking around the Parliament Buildings and Monuments. The Parliament Buildings are glorious historical buildings. Ottawa is a very lovely city. We were surprised and pleased.
Parliament Building Center hall.
Parliament is on a cliff overlooking the Ottawa River. This is a view looking from Parliament to the river.
7/26
Today we took the bus into Ottawa again. This time we took the double-decker bus tour of the city followed by a tour of Ottawa River. No time to see the Museum of Civilization so we are staying an extra day.
This is a photo of the City Locks from the river below.
The boat tour began and ended just below the locks. As we were leaving we watched some boats heading up. These locks are run manually. Photos 3 and 4 show the people opening and closing the locks.
7/27
Today we saw the Ottawa Museum of Civilization. It’s a cool museum. The primary exhibit we went to see was one on Petra: a city of stone in the desert in Jordan. It was beautiful. No photos allowed of course . The museum building is very beautiful, all round edges and sandstone. Much of the regular exhibits are of the native peoples of Canada.
Some external shots of the buildings
Some of the statuary in and around the Museum.
7/28
Today we drove from Ottawa to Sturgeon Falls. Our Campground is on Lake Nipissing, a large lake among the many small lakes in southern Ontario. Tomorrow, however, we will be seeing Lake Heron, one of the Great Lakes. As we were driving into Sturgeon Falls we saw piles of tree debris on the side of the road
Our Campground including tree debris and the lake
As we were parking in the Campground, I was speaking to the owner and telling him it was a lovely park. He replied that it was not as lovely as it had been. They had a severe storm last week and they lost many 50+ year old trees. When I looked around just our site and counted 15 trees that had recently come down. I was remembering last week when we were in that thunder storm. How much worse it would have been if there had been trees coming down all around us as well and how sad to lose 50 year old trees.
Campground Beach. It really is a lovely Park.
7/29
Today we drove from Sturgeon Falls to Sault Ste Marie, USA. Sault means falls in french so we traveled to the falls on St Mary River. On the way we saw water everywhere: in Lakes, Rivers, Bogs, and Rain . In addition we say rocks and trees and a few buildings. Sault Ste Marie is a city on both sides of the border with a long bridge between them. The canadian Sault Ste Marie is a lot larger than the US version. We had planned to stay in one campground but it was completely full. Turns out they were hosting a boat race. Instead we stayed at a nearby casino with a RV Park. At the casino, if you got a gambling card, you could stay for two days for free, Rich played and lost about $3.00, so it was a pretty good deal.
7/30
Today we took a Boat Tour of the Soo Locks in downtown US Sault Ste Marie. The Boat took us on the St Mary River to and through the American Locks, up a short way on the upper St Mary River, to and through the Canadian Locks, and finally a short distance on the lower St Mary River. The lower St Mary River is at Lake Huron level and the upper St Mary is at Lake Superior level. The difference is about 21 feet, hence the locks.
Some small boats in the lock with us as we move down to the lower level.
Our view of the Lock as it drops with us.
1 comment:
Great photos! The shots of the river look straight out of a fairy tale. Beautiful.
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