Canada tour - Day 7 - Ottawa to Toronto to home (by bus and plane)



Sunday Sept 11 was my only day without even a short bike ride. It was a beautiful morning in Ottawa and we were able to have fun seeing some of the sights without the need to focus on the usual post-ride concerns, such as food and water.



Tom and Chickie--the real hammerheads. I got this shot at breakfast on the last day. I barely saw these two on the road as they got out early and knew their way around well enough to invent their own routes (to avoid the off-road sections). On the last day, Tom surprised me with a comment to the effect that he was short. The guy has so much intensity that I hadn't noticed until he made that comment.

In our morning walk around Ottawa, we took in sights we'd seen at a distance the night before, such the giant spider in front of the art museum, a famous hotel where important people stay while visiting Parliament (and no, I don't recall the name of the famous hotel), and Parliament itself. We also did some shopping for gifts to take home.


Another Gung Ho team photo, with spider.

After I got home, I used the spider picture to make Gung Ho team wallpaper (click to download or view): 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200



This is the ornate interior of the church with the shiny steeples. A sign inside said no photos, so I turned off my flash and took this from outside the front door.



Parliament. There was a ceremony to honor fallen fire fighters.

This day was just a bit stressful as Pat, Nancy and I were the only three who were planning to fly out that night, creating a bit of time pressure on everyone else to get back to Toronto by 5 pm so that we'd have time to pack our bikes (my Friday in it's suitcase, the others in plastic bike boxes). Fortunately, the bus driver had a similar agenda (he had another long run to do that day after us) and made good time, leaving Ottawa at 11:30 and getting into Toronto at 4:30 or so, with one quick lunch-to-go stop.

As it turned out, we needn't have hurried as our flight (we were all on the same flight to Washington) was delayed over 2 hours. In the midst of the multi-step baggage-check/security/customs process I lost Pat and Nancy. I thought they were not-too-far behind me, but their bike boxes were a source of headaches.

We eventually found each other and had dinner together (my second--traveling is like that). Bt the time we boarded at 11 pm, we were punch drunk (at some point Pat and I laughed ourselves silly at a rather lame joke) and I had pretty much come to terms with my state of griminess. Seriously, one can only re-wear the same clothes so many times--I felt like the Pig Pen character in the Peanuts strip.

When I got home sometime past 1 am I was happy to be sleeping in my own bed.


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Canada Tour / Jonathan Krall / revised September 2005