Summer Holiday in Ottawa

 We got tickets to a concert at the Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata, a suburb of Ottawa.  Then we went the weekend before to explore the area.  We had plans to visit as many of the big museums as possible because they are the bigger national ones.  That plan lasted only a couple of days before we decided to rethink our plans.  We hated the city.  We hated the city driving.  We switched out our plans to visit smaller museums, farther out of the area.  These required scenic drives and gave us activities with far fewer people and much less traffic.  We enjoyed it so much more. 

Lancaster - Winnie

We drove because it was only a 5-6 hour drive, and with a fuel efficient car it would be much cheaper than flying and getting a rental.   We left in the pouring rain.  It was miserable driving and I was just the passenger.   Just the other side of Toronto, the skies cleared and it was lovely driving the rest of the way.  We took the Trans Canada, so it was a pretty drive.  We had a picnic in Havelock and got to the hotel as it started to cloud over again and drizzle.  We were early, and our room wasn't ready yet, so we waited in the lounge area, where they gave us hot drinks and freshly baked cookies until our room was available.   When we got to the room, this was our view.  A rainbow suggests a good start to the holiday.

We did go to the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum.  We'd visited the other two plane museums, one in Winnipeg and the other just outside of Hamilton, this one was a no brainer.   This one had great displays and a fair bit of well written information available.  The War Plane Museum had functional planes taking off and landing which was exciting and the Winnipeg Western Aviation museum had fabulous, well informed volunteers.   We did however spend well over 2 hours exploring the Ottawa museum.  I think I've had my fill of historic planes for a while.

We went to the Canadian Agriculture Museum and then decided that was enough city stuff.  We drove out to the Cumberland Heritage Village, which was absolutely lovely.  We went to the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario in Smith's Falls, which was fun but short.  However' we'd done it in the afternoon, so had a nice drive back to the hotel.  On our last day there we found our way to Pinhey's Point, and the very well preserved Pinhey's House built in in the 1820's.  It was quiet, so very pretty, despite it raining.  We ended up finding a toy store that you could see from the highway, but had to drive through the bush to get to.  So much fun.  The concert that night was great.  Luke Bryan had a fabulous performance with a laser light show and everything.   While we have seen some great opening acts, two of the three were okay, and the third was mediocre.  However the main show was well worth it.  While taking the elevator down from the nose bleed seats, I glanced down and estimated that there were close to $2500 - $3000 worth of boots in the elevator alone.  giggle

Canadian Horse (Breed) at the Ag museum.  There aren't a lot of these left anymore, but I've seen a few and they all seem to be black.  They are sturdy, hardworking  horses: a true all purpose breed.  I've seen them being ridden, pulling carts and pulling ploughs.

Our trip to the beach was scenic, both in the drive there and back.  It wasn't a day for sunbathing for sure and the river was very cold.

A pretty stop along the way.  We'd stopped to pick up lunch as a bakery in Cumberland where we got baguette sandwiches which lasted us for two meals!  We had a picnic at a pretty roadside stop.

There were leaves starting to turn red and orange.  It really looked like early autumn.   The long range weather forecast said coolish weather, so I didn't pack shorts and that was a mistake.  We had crazy warm weather all week.  In all though it was a fun and pleasant holiday.  I'd brought my knitting and found that I could actually knit without getting car sick on the way home, until we hit the outskirts of the city so that was productive.   In all it was a fun and pleasant holiday.