Before I started the trip, I was wondering if there’d ever be anything worth writing about. If the adversity from the 1st day is any indication of what’s to come, there will be plenty!
First of all, I’ve got this nice Garmin eTrex Vista GPS with all of the U.S. and Canada maps on it (thanks Pfizer stars!). I put all of the waypoints for places I’d be staying, e.g. cousin Matt’s address in Ottawa. Of course, the minute I cross the border and try to turn it on to get nice directions to his house, the GPS is dead (yes, I tried replacing the batteries…3 times!!) Since my road atlas didn’t include Canada maps, I had to go find an Ontario map at a local gas station (which was ok for highways to Ottawa, but nothing more. So I booted up my laptop and dug around in the GPS software to hand-write some directions to his house. Of course, I got the directions wrong and figured that out on my way out of Ottawa! I found another place to pull over and ho through the same exercise with the laptop to get the “real” directions. This time, my directions don’t work because there are a whole bunch of 1-way streets in Ottawa. I stumble around for a while and eventually find his street, but miss the turn because someone’s riding my butt. After a couple of illegal U-turns (definitely at the end of my rope by that point), I get to his apartment (well kind of…I carried a whole bunch of stuff around from the car for a while before I actually found it…a nice rocket science moment!). Anyways, the entire time this whole saga is going on, I can’t make or receive calls on the cell because go figure Cingular/AT&T isn’t in Canada????? (at least this is what someone at a kiosk in a local mall told me – what’s up with that??)
Worth the trip though – Matt and I went downtown to the bars/restaurants frosties/eats, and then crashed at his house. On a side note, I’ve never been a smoker and Matt is (right now), so I did feel a bit green/yackish the next day. He says he’s going to quit soon…I’ll be sure to follow up ;)
Pics...
Finally got to Canada after way too long...
Cousin Matt has a nice little sauna in the bathroom...it's super hot all the time in there!
The cigs...I'll be following up with him to make sure he keeps his promise!
In the winter, the canals in Ottawa apparently become the biggest skating rinks in the world...
In the winter, the canals in Ottawa apparently become the biggest skating rinks in the world...
Nasty little storm on the way out of town (weird that it was an early morning thunderstorm)
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