I completed my first solo road trip to Canada and back during the first week of May. It was much longer than I've ever driven by myself before-- I spent 7+ hours on the road during my longer days. I saw some really incredible things during my drive, though-- a flying heron, endless farms, a military town, the Thousand Islands... honestly, I wish I could have stopped at a lot of places on my way!
FRIDAY
Initially, the plan had been for me to meet Brendan and his dad at his summer place near Ottawa. That would only have been a 7ish hour drive, which is about the threshold where I would consider a drive worthwhile and tolerable. Unfortunately, we found out fairly late on that he wouldn't be able to move in until later than anticipated, meaning either spending less time together or driving a couple extra hours to see him, then helping him move during the week. I chose the latter.
Partly because the drive was now much longer than I anticipated and partly because I had been planning to do this anyway, I decided to spent the night at a friend's house who happens to live along the way. She is getting married in September and both Brendan and I will be attending the wedding. Brendan is friends with the groom, I'm friends with both, and I am MOH, so it's kind of a big deal. I thought it would be a really good opportunity to see my friend and catch up a bit.
Like the typical Italian family, they love to feed their guests until they're totally stuffed. I hadn't been to her house since high school, so I had totally forgotten how MUCH they feed me every time I come over. My friend's mom is both a wonderful host and a fantastic cook, so of course on top of the amazing dinner she made, she also got a little cake that said "Welcome" on it for my visit. ;~; Then in the morning she made me the best french toast I've ever had and packed me a little snack bag for the rest of my trip to Canada. They are too good to me.
SATURDAY
I left at about quarter after 8 in the morning so that I could hopefully make it to Bden's place by 4. The drive was long and there were lots of things to see, but it was otherwise uneventful. I stopped at a rest stop close to the border and made sure to fill up my tank before crossing, since gas is like 30% more expensive in Canada.
Border control was surprisingly easy. I handed the guy my passport and he asked me a couple questions about where I'm from, where I'm going, the purpose of my trip, and what I do for work. We had a quick chat about my job and then I was off. I was surprised that he didn't ask if I had any particular items with me, but I'm not going to complain!
Finally, I arrived at Bden's place at 3:30 in the afternoon. He had been tracking my location using Google maps, since we each have our locations permanently enabled for the other, so he knew when I was arriving. It's not like a protective thing or anything-- sometimes it's just nice to be able to look on the map and see your partner there, you know? So he came out and greeted me shortly after I pulled into the driveway and helped me bring my stuff in. We relaxed for about an hour before we went to pick up one of his friends from school-- the only friend left in town, apparently-- and went out to dinner at a local place. Dinner was excellent, and we had a good time chatting with Brendan's friend and learning about each other.
Afterwards, we went home and just zonked out. I was so tired from the drive, but also really happy to see him.
SUNDAY
In the morning, Brendan took me to brunch at a tiny local place and gave me a tour of the town. It was fairly quaint, but large enough to contain a total of four (4) Tim Hortons, as we counted. Breakfast was pretty good except for this potato pancake thing I had, which I was expecting to be more like a latke than what it turned out to be. Thankfully Brendan liked it enough to eat it. The rest of my breakfast was really great and we both enjoyed it.
We spent the rest of the day packing the rest of his apartment up. Brendan's dad was driving up from his hometown (about 4 hours away) that afternoon and was going to take some things in his car so that we'd have less to load in the morning. It's a damn good thing he did, because we filled that Camry up so good. Turns out Brendan actually acquired a lot of stuff since he moved in, and there was no way it was going to fit in one car. After packing up that car, his dad headed to Peterborough to have dinner with Brendan's brother and stayed the night at a hotel nearby. Brendan and I scraped together a dinner with what little food he had remaining, then vegged for a bit until we were too tired to stay awake.
MONDAY
We woke up at about 6:30 and pretty much immediately started cleaning the house out and loading the car. Brendan was the last of his roommates to move out, so we did a quick sweep of everyone's rooms (at least, the unlocked ones) to make sure there was nothing left or out of place. When we were finally done, we left the keys in the house, stopped for breakfast at Tim Hortons (like true Canadians), and then hit the road around 9, hoping to be at the new place around noon.
The drive went smoothly, thankfully, and we ended up only a few minutes late to the new place. The landlord had already given Brendan a key and it seemed like the other roommates weren't home, so we kind of moved right in without saying hi to anyone. Eventually his landlord came out and greeted everyone, and helped us with moving some things into the room and replacing the desk that he had provided with Brendan's (which is bigger). We spent maybe an hour and a half moving things in and organizing them. Finally, everything that needed to be in was in, and everything that needed to go back home was in his dad's car, so we went out to lunch and chatted with his dad for a bit before he left for the 7-hour drive (seven hours!) back home.
TUESDAY
The weather was gorgeous, but it was due to rain later in the week, so we decided to do the more outdoorsy bits of our week first. On Tuesday, we drove into Ottawa and stopped at a local brunch place that a friend had recommended to Bden. Then we parked in the underground parking at the National Gallery of Canada (it was easier than finding street parking, and they cap their fee at $14/day). We enjoyed a nice walk to Parliament Hill, left his bag with the free bag check across the street, and got tickets for the Peace Tower and Parliament tour. Unfortunately, we didn't anticipate the Parliament tours to fill up so quickly, so at the time of our arrival (around 10:30), the only tour they had was for 3:20 in the afternoon. We decided to do the Peace Tower first so that we could go do other things before coming back for the tour at 3:20. I kind of wish we had just asked to see the Peace Tower later... the security line was LONG!
It's not very big inside, and there's not a ton to see, but what's cool about the Peace Tower is the BELLS! When you go in, you have to wait for a single elevator to go up, but the elevator takes you past some windows where you can see the enormous bells that fill the tower. When you get to the top, you get a great view of Parliament Hill and other parts of Ottawa.
Afterwards we decided to go to the Royal Canadian Mint, which actually doesn't produce Canadian currency, but rather those expensive collectible coins and investment coins made of solid gold/silver. They had a $60k gold bar that you could try to lift (it wasn't THAT heavy...), and we got to see how their coins are machined, from stock metal to final production.
Since we still had some time to kill and we were getting pretty hungry, Brendan and I decided to find someplace to eat. We were kind of undecided for a bit and just walked around a block where there were lots of restaurants, accidentally discovering the American Embassy in Ottawa and overall feeling kind of overwhelmed by choice. Eventually we just picked a pub that looked good and went in. There was only one other group of people there, but the service was excellent and the food was genuinely amazing. Would recommend Earl of Sussex Pub.
Finally, our time for the tour came and we headed back to Parliament. The architecture in the building is really stunning, and the library is known for the story about when all of Parliament burned down except for the library, which the librarians saved by pushing the giant metal doors at its entrance closed to prevent the flames from coming in. Unfortunately, it was a work day, so we couldn't go in to see the halls where the house and senate sit, but the tour guide provided some images for us so we could get a feel for it. It was interesting to see how the House was colored all green (to represent "the people") whereas the Senate was all red.
Exhausted from our long day, we skipped plans we had to go out to another place a friend had suggested and just went straight home. The traffic was kind of bad since it was a weekday and it was rush hour to get home, but we laughed at the sign for the Canadian War Museum-- it's just a dinky little sign that say WAR / GUERRE on it with a picture of what I guess is supposed to be a museum. Every time we drove by it we'd shout "GUERRE" in the most dramatic French accent.
WEDNESDAY
This was the last day we'd have sun for the week, so we went across the border to Gatineau park in the morning to make sure we got there before the rain came in.
Our first stop was the welcome center, which is denoted by a giant "?" sign on the road leading up to it. We had fun looking through the little nature exhibit that they had their and quizzing ourselves on local fauna. Brendan spotted a T-shirt in the gift shop that he really liked, so I told him if he was good I'd get it for him.
Then we headed out to the park to start our walk. It was really beautiful! The walking trail in the park is just a couple km, but the park itself is huge! Seems like a lot of people do cross-country skiing and snowshoeing there in the winter. Brendan and I communed with nature; he identified trees and I listened, and we even saw a turtle sunbathing on the path! It was a pleasant hike all around and I'm glad we were able to get there when we did, because it ended up being a gorgeous day. At the end of it all, he asked me what I wanted to do. I said go back to the gift shop so I can buy you that shirt!
After our hike, we were both getting pretty hungry, so we looked up nearby places to eat. Since we were in Quebec, it was only natural that we sought out a place for genuine poutine quebecoise, right? We chose a place just down the road called Chelsea pub. Our waiter was very kind and didn't judge us for both getting the poutine for lunch-- Brendan got his with smoked meat on top as well. IT WAS SO WORTH IT!!!
After a very pleasant lunch, we drove back into Gatineau to the Canadian Museum of History and parked in their underground garage (why don't we do this more in the states?)... and then spent the next four hours browsing the exhibits. There was a lot about the aboriginal people (native Canadians), a lot of which overlaps with native American history, since the US and Canada weren't exactly "separate" until relatively recently in their history. My favorite exhibit, though, hands-down, was a special exhibit they had on the Franklin expedition. I was totally captivated by it. The whole thing has that eerie, twisted historical edge to it, and I couldn't get enough of it. Here's the wikipedia page if you're interested.
And guess what... after four hours, we didn't even finish the whole museum! There was a section that we pretty much skipped over because we were running out of time and Brendan said I'd learn about it at the Canadian War Museum.
After the museum, we went back home and decided to try a local place for dinner. It was a little... fancier than we were hoping, but like the good, frugal people we are, we each ended up with some of the least expensive items on the menu. Yeah! Then we went home and went to bed early because we're OLD.