Canada Day in Ottawa

July 1, Canada Day on Parliament Hill. As we finally arrived in Ottawa it was only right that we spend Canada Day on the Hill. Mike and I aren’t real fans of huge crowds but since we weren’t there to see anything special and we were in no rush it was fine. It was great seeing so many people in red and white in a great mood. We happened to be on the grass in front of Centre Block when Justin Trudeau came out to give his speech. He and his wife sat around afterwards listening to some music. It was deafening where we were standing, I can’t image what it was like in the front row. Can you image the press if they were caught putting in ear plugs while a Canadian band was playing!

We wandered around the various venues. I was surprised that there weren’t more buskers, street entertainment and flea market type tents. I was glad we were there. There was no way that I was talking Mike into staying long enough for the fireworks. Our RV wasn’t close enough for us to go and rest in for a few hours before coming back to town. We took a bus into town. The buses had a private road coming in from the outskirts. That really helps encourage bus use. Just as we were getting on the bus to go back to our RV it started to rain. The three seconds that it took us to get on the bus was long enough to get soaked. There were thousands of people who would have been outside in that downpour. I felt sorry for them and glad we were inside.

Ottawa also has very nice biking and walking trails. We took our bikes out for our first ride (and still the only ride so far which is a bit of a disappointment). We took the boat for a spin on the Rideau canal and that was good fun. We were going to also boat on the Ottawa River but the Three Amigos summit prevented that.

We knew that the campgrounds near Ottawa would be full for the July 1 weekend and Saturday morning was not predicted to have good weather. Based on that we decided to just drive out of town Friday night and find a Walmart en route to Quebec City. It is great being able to stay there when you just want to turn up late at night and leave the next day. Sometimes you are lucky enough to be able to get their internet signal from the parking lot. It is good for Walmart also. We will go into the store in the morning and spend some money, we nearly always do. Once when we camped overnight in a Walmart parking lot we were in and out of the store six times. Between groceries, household items and a hairdresser they were well visited.

Happy Canada Day to everyone.