Road Trip

Road Trip

For our first week back in Canada we took a break from sailing, grabbed a rental car and hammered out 1708 km.  In a week me managed to have a quick visit with most of the family and even a few friends as well as a short side trip to our nations capital.When I phoned the rental car company, I asked for a midsize if they had a VW as shown on their website, but I was informed that branch didn’t have any VW’s, so I changed my mind and went smaller to save a few bucks.  We had a little (which was surprisingly big inside) Nissan Note for a Total tally of $215.07.   The cheapest I’ve ever pulled off 1700 km in my life.

First stop was Orangeville, my childhood hometown to visit family, and with a humid heatwave we picked a great time to leave the boat.  And the timing seemed to work out to see just about the entire family.  Maybe next time it will be a bit cooler and I can dust off the old golf clubs too.

Then we zoomed off to Ottawa for a couple nights to ourselves and to tour the nation’s capital.  Admittedly, Ottawa is a place that has come up in conversation as a place that might have most of the amenities that we would like in a place to live, but neither of us had been in over a decade.

As it turns out, I think this is the leading area on the list of places that we think we would like to live in.  Now we just need to figure out the income side of the equation and preferably before the snow starts flying.

After having lunch downtown we went on a bit of a walk.  Having just completed 35 locks, we didn’t feel the need to watch the whole operation on the Rideau Canal.  Although I suspect I could probably happily spend an hour or so watching in the future while Chrissy shoe shops.

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Through all our travels we have seen some great places and met a lot of interesting people, but most importantly it has reinforced how fortunate we are to live in Canada.  Sure I have a bit of home country bias, but we could do a lot worse.  And believe it or not, I look forward to the changing seasons.  Despite sailing away from winter, I actually enjoy the season and am hoping to live in a place that embraces it.  Anyone who doesn’t like winter, let me know and I may have a great deal on a boat for you!

Didn’t seem right to come this far and not stop at Parliament Hill.

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The bakery in the Byward Market has been selling “Obama Cookies” since his visit this past winter.  I’ll have to go back to try another time, but figured this is probably the closest I’ll get to having my picture taken with him.

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I do love this country too!

This article has 2 comments

  1. Dennis and Lorraine
    Friday 29 July 2016, 2:21 am

    Welcome home Jeff and chrissy