After a beautiful fall colour drive we arrived in Our Nation’s Capitol.  Or at least in the region.  We parked Juergen 24 km from Parliament Hill, straight down Bank Street in a small village called Greely.  It was a

beautiful “fall” campsite.  We were parked inside a tree lined street and enveloped in a yellow and orange canopy.

After settling in and getting a lay of the land we went into Ottawa and visited with our good

friends, Lois and Denver and their two lovely children Olivia and

Mason. It was fun spending time with the kids, picking them up at school and helping them with their homework.   We also had the chance to head up to their cottage in Quebec to take in the dock, which also featured a nice barbeque dinner before

heading home.  It was an absolutely spectacular drive with all the fall colours.  One evening Denver and Mason took us to their Taekwondo practice, it was so cute to watch Mason do his “thing”. We spent a lovely afternoon at the pumpkin farm and then had so much fun carving them.  On Halloween, we had a very fun night of trick or treating

with Mason, Denver, Olivia and some of their friends.  Mason and Olivia were very generous in sharing their candy, which June was thankful for!

When we booked our campsite, we had been planning on cycling into the city and using the nice bike paths that we had been on last summer.  Unfortunately, we were 15 kms from the start of the paths and  Ottawa roads and drivers are not good! The paths are great for getting to work and back, but not for cycling hard to get some exercise.   We managed to get 4 good rides in, with 1 of them going along the river over to the Quebec side with a beautiful view of Parliament.

The next few days we saw 60 straight hours of rain!  Very depressing, and then it got cold, so, we broke down and rented a car for our last week.

Another of the great sights of our Capitol is the RCMP Horse Stables where they house the horses for the famous RCMP Musical Ride.

All the horses were home and we got to see them practice and then got up close and personal in the stables.  A magical

morning.  The tour of the Royal Canadian Mint was short but interesting.  It is where the 2010 Olympic medals as well as commemorative coins are made.  We visited Rideau Hall, the home of the Governor General of Canada, currently

David Johnson, who,  has his real home outside of Wellesley, Ontario.  We were inside the Supreme Court of Canada,  (not being tried but having a tour).   Toured the Centre Block of the

Parliament Buildings where the House of Commons and the Senate meet and debate.  Also, The Library of Parliament, a beautiful library that was the only part of

the Parliament Building to survive the fire in 1916.  We also took in the Canadian War Museum on their free Thursday evening

event.  An impressive building and display and  Denver, Mason and Olivia were able to join us.  The only downfall to this day was that we received a couple centimetres of snow that night!

 

2 of the last 3 days through the night and into the mornings we had sub zero temperatures and our water hose was frozen.  Even though we love Canada it was time to leave the cold and start heading south.