Mon Aug 29: Ottawa

Today we decided to get a jump on the day, as it was going to be HOT later on.  You can see from this Nebo photo that Blue Horizon is across the water, so it was a healthy walking day.

 

We opted to walk to breakfast, and chose a basic diner, which had an unexpected patron. He came in, got up on a stool and drank his coffee.  Then paid his bill!

He is probably also bi-lingual!

We walked around the By Ward Market area.  Col John By is the Builder of the Rideau Canal, and his name appears quite a bit in Ontario.  The area housed the Canal laborers in 1826, and many of the original buildings now house a melting pot of business/cultures, as well as one of the oldest farmers market in Canada.

Rick poses in front the the original market building. 

Public art is alive and well in Ottawa, as in all of the big Canadian cities we have visited.

Ready for a little history?!  Ottawa is the political center of Canada, and HQ to the federal government. The name 'Ottawa' comes from the Algonquin word 'adawe', meaning "to trade". Ottawa sits at the confluence of the rivers Ottawa, Rideau and Gatineau and existed as a trading area long before it was a city. When Queen Victoria chose the small area as the location of the capital in 1857 it was an unpopular decision.  With time, however, it has come to be seen as a good choice - located at the boarder between French-speaking and the English-speaking Canada.

Having started work on the city in 1826, you'd think they'd be about done by now (note the many cranes on Parliament Hill).... I guess those iconic Victorian buildings require some upkeep.  I'm only 62 and I require a LOT of maintenance.

Like all big cities, Ottawa is grappling with a homeless population.  Tents are fine for the summer, but we wonder what happens in the brutal winter.  Maybe, like all good Canadian snow-birds, they head to FL...

The main thing we wanted to check out today, is the 8-lock flight we will be doing tomorrow morning.  This is one of the most iconic pieces of the Great Loop.  It comes grandly up between Parliament Hill and the fancy Chateau Laurier Hotel. The lock crew works even harder here then on the other Canadian systems.  The equipment is ancient, and they get a serious workout cycling each of the locks, one right after the other. We had the chance to ask some questions, get a map of the entire Rideau Canal and watch a small pleasure boat lock up so that we could see what floats we would need where and what manner of tying up was used (each lock system is different). Yikes - it's going to be a big undertaking.  Hope my one-armed man is up for it...

Of course we had to go grocery shopping, and our favorite store, Farm Boy, was right by the locks.  Unfortunately, we were a bit hungry while shopping, and you know how THAT goes.  We ended up with 2 backpacks and 2 bags full of groceries, but only 1 human could carry anything.  The walk back across the water to the boat sure seemed longer then it had that morning.

We ended the day by FINALLY finishing this puzzle.  It had no business being as hard as it was, at only 300 pieces!

Book Corner - in case anyone cares:

Rick is reading Trevor Noah's memoir Born A Crime, which I just finished.  A riveting overview of the apartheid area through the eyes of someone both black & white - which was illegal at the time.  Anything that starts with the paragraph 'I was 9 years old when my mother threw me out of a moving car' is worth reading....

I've just finished Transcription, by Kate Atkinson.  She is the author of one of my all time favorite books, Life After Life.  Now I'm readying her follow-up to that book, A God in Ruins.  

We also are always listening to a book, while we drive or puzzle.  Right now we can't seem to settle on anything, but are trying out The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, because we really like the author, Sam Kean.