Blogs from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, North America

We set out this morning from Ottawa around 11 am after Shelley did some morning work. I had finished my shift at Tunney’s Pasture at 2 am and woke up around 9 am or so. We were mostly packed and ready to go with just a couple of things to do before we left. We hit the road and made our way south. The weather was cold and we had received a fresh dumping of snow the previous evening. The roads were mostly bare though, which was nice. It was a very pleasant drive down towards the border. When we arrived, Shelley popped into the Duty Free to use the facilities. From experience, she knew that once we went around the bend, there was going to be a long line up of cars waiting to cross ... read more

Saturday, August 26 For the first time, we went to the Canadian War Museum. The museum is organized by eras. We skipped the earliest eras because two tour groups were just getting started there. I thought we could go back later, but we ran out of time. They were about the First Nations and the advent of Europeans; it would have been interesting to see how the history was written. Truthfully, throughout the main galleries much of the text on the signs was too generalized to be really informative, conveying only the broad strokes of accepted history. Women’s roles were faintly described, too often mentioning clerical positions in uniform and keeping up the home out of uniform. Missing entirely was the crucial role women played in ferrying all makes of aircraft from Canada to Britain. I ... read more

Only 19 hrs and 14 mins to go before we depart Canada to Germany, then on to Oslo. Shelley and I are packed up and ready to go tomorrow morning. We have some last minute things to do in the morning. Final prep, eat breakfast, load the car, and say goodbye to Maggie 😔. We have arranged to have someone stay here in the house with her, and for the last part of our vacation, Shelley’s Mom will come for a few days to hang out with Maggie. Time for sleep now. More to follow tomorrow.... read more

The day is finally here! Long day of travel started stressing out with wondering if we were going to make the connection in Montreal. We had 1 hr layover and because of covid airports were seeing delays. Turns out we got on the earlier flight standby and go there just in time....and then the flight was delayed 45mins. We managed to get on early and clean up and set up well. The only kicker was the food on the Lisbon flight had nuts or no ingredients. Wtf. We were stuck eating snacks we brought on. None of us got much sleep and were pretty tired but excited to arrive. After a long wait in customs, we were on our way downtown. Stopped in to pick up our key early- woohoo and they a walk to vodafone ... read more

Well, we picked up our RV this afternoon after I had finished a long day at work. Shelley and I drove to the Westboro area of Ottawa to meet our hosts Malcolm and Michelle, whom we rented the RV from (Outdoorsy.com). After receiving the required inspection and familiarization tour of the RV, Malcolm took us each out for a test drive of the RV through the surrounding neighbourhood and onto the 417 and back. Shelley did awesome!! This will be a fantastic adventure that starts tomorrow morning. We brought the RV home and the neighbours enjoyed seeing us loading her up in preparation for our departure the next day. It took longer than we thought loading things into the RV but we managed to get it done. Now it's time to shut down and get some ... read more