By noon our new floor was in the RV and I was off to the Ottawa Campground while Carol had lunch with her friend Claudia and visited her elderly friend Peggy.
With the RV in a closer spot than Kemptville, we visited our friends Richard and Felicity in Bridlewood.
Saturday 1st August
After a quick Home Depot visit we leave the Ottawa Campground and head across the river to the Lac Leamy Casino in Gatineau to meet Ira and Ann in Rolling Thunder and grab an optimum spot for viewing the fireworks display.
We had the pretty good brunch in the casino and wandered around until supper time and then awaited the International Fireworks competition and Spain’s entry.
For us (Carol and me) fireworks neophytes it was pretty impressive but Carol spent most of it comforting a nervous Buddy in the RV.
After the fireworks we had to wait for the crowds to die down before we could drive off to what used to be the Hull Arena parking lot for the night – no overnight parking permitted in the casino grounds.
Sunday 2nd August
Sunday we woke up in the parking lot of the Robert Guertin Arena that is a great spot for free RV stays. It has a free dump station and water for tour buses. There were several other RVs there over the few days we stayed there.
After a quick trip to Rona we had some quarter round and I started work on the molding round the new floor.
Monday 3rd August
Time for some relaxation and a bike ride around Lac Leamy and up the side of the of the Gatineau River for a few miles without Carol who took Benadryl for a reaction to something and went to sleep.
Tuesday 4th August
We repeated the bike ride this time with Carol.
Wednesday 5th August
The weather was holding up so it was out on the bikes again and this time for a trip round Ottawa , Ira and Ann taking us on a trip round places we didn’t know existed in spite of living there for I don’t know how many years.
Here’s a test for Ottawa dwellers. Where and what is this building:
Here are the intrepid cyclists.
We rounded off the day with more fireworks at Lac Leamy with the German entry which all agreed was spectacular.
Thursday 6th August
We’d had the loan of a mitre box to cut the molding and since we planned to move on the next day and had plans that didn’t include big RV projects, I spent the day cutting all the pieces ready for glueing in at some future date.
That night we drove across the river to the parliament buildings to watch the Son et Lumiere performance.
Friday 7th August
After packing up and visiting the dump station, we headed the RVs back across the river and west on the Queensway to Ashton near Carleton Place to Mike and Janet Simms’ place out in the country. They had graciously agreed to allow us to leave the RVs on their land while we drove in our car to friends Geoff and Bunkey who introduced us to Ira and Ann in Georgetown, Exumas some years ago.
Saturday 8th August
It’s a long way from Ottawa to Tobermory at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula dividing Georgian Bay from the rest of Lake Huron.
With rest stops and stops for breakfast and lunch
it took 10 hours.
However, we arrived to a warm welcome and supper.
Geoff and Bunkey have a cottage there where they are now spending most of their summers . It’s been a work in progress for many years – they did all the finishing themselves – but now it’s pretty much finished and they’re doing a bit of B&B. Their web-site is www.drydockbandb.blogspot.com.
Sunday 9th August
We took a long walk through Tobermory and out to the water at Burnt Point on the Georgian Bay side. It was too hot for Buddy so we popped him in the water for a cooling.
Monday 10th August
Another long walk, this time with a short car ride to a park area and a visit to the famous ‘grotto’ that you can swim out of underwater to the lake. We asked a nice young lady to take our picture:
Lots of very pretty scenery here with clear blue water – cool though.
On the way back we had Buddy illegally off the leash. We had our punishment when Buddy found some poop to roll in and was covered in brown stuff.
This necessitated a wash in a stream to remove the worst of it.
However, he still smelled pretty bad and was relegated to the back of the car on the way home to a full shampooing.Tuesday 11th August
Another walk between showers, this time to the Lake Huron side of the peninsula and some interesting plant life like this pitcher plant .
Wednesday 12th August
Time to leave Tobermory and face the long drive back to Ashton near Ottawa where the RVs await.
We said goodbye to our hosts with promises to see them somewhere down south in the coming winter and after a fairly uneventful day, we get back to find our battery has gone flat and the fridge had stopped working. We moved as much as we could over to Ira and Ann’s fridge, cooked some of the previously frozen stuff and through the rest away. Just one of those things.
Tomorrow’s job – find out what’s using so much power.
Thursday 13th August
After a run in the car to Ottawa on various errands and a stop in Costco to replenish our frozen fish collection we drove the RV to Smiths Falls to meet up with Rolling Thunder and do some much needed laundry.
Our overnight stay was in a municipal parking lot that welcomes visitors.
Checked out what flattened the battery and found the fridge’s auto-defrost takes a lot of power. Won’t have that on when we leave the RV for a few days again.
Friday 14th August
Back in my working life we met a fellow called Sandy Twose and his wife Ellen. They went off to Calgary but since returned to build their dream home in Ontario cottage country. We’ve had a longstanding invitation to go visit and so we finally decided to take them up on the offer. So both RVs and our car head off first to Perth to drop off the car in a parking lot, then to Sharbot Lake to pick up a solar controller we’d ordered on the way back from Tobermory and then to Fifth Depot Lake near Parham somewhere in the triangle of Sharbot Lake, Napanee and Kingston.
It’s quite a drive from the highway to their place by RV – 1-1/2 miles of driveway. Before we got to the end we had to stop and cut trees down at either side to get through.
But what a beautiful spot!
We ate our meals in their screened porch of their ‘cabin’ which until more of the house is finished is their only home.
Saturday 15th August
I started the day by installing our solar controller so I can leave our solar panel permanently connected. No power in this place, they are completely ‘off the grid’. They don’t even have running water – a composting toilet is their only ‘facility.
After our work morning, Ira and I canoed across the lake.
We then all cooled off in the warm water. It was pretty hot with Ontario experiencing its first real taste of summer with a 30deg. heat wave.
Then more relaxing with happy hour on the porch. Man this retirement thing is tough.
The days all seem to end with fabulous sunsets.
Sunday 16th August
As mentioned before, they are in the (long) process of building a house. So for Sandy and Ellen weekends are work as Ellen spends the week in Ottawa working.
They have poured their basement and were putting down styrofoam to insulate their upcoming heated floor.
When the floor heating is in they will then be able to move into this area, hopefully for the winter.
Yes, that really is a basement. Concrete poured into a Styrofoam mold.Carol started doing a fine job cleaning the outside of the RV and Buddy took to going in the water voluntarily for a swim.
Supper was on the porch again and just before Ellen had to drive back to Ottawa we took this group photo.
Monday 17th AugustWe were supposed to leave on the Monday but it was such a beautiful day and this (apart from the deer flies and mosquitoes) is such a paradise somehow we never left.
It did give Carol chance to finish cleaning the RV and the rest of us to have a swim before a thunderstorm came through.We ended the day with a movie on the porch – “A Knight’s Tale” with Heath Ledger.
