Ottawa, Canada

On Friday, we headed for the airport,  to catch a flight to Ottawa, the capitol of Canada.  We were flying Westjet via Calgary.  We had some frustration with Westjet; we received three messages announcing a delay in the flight within 20 minutes, each with a different departure time.  We worried about our connection.   Another frustration was being told, by three Westjet employees, that we would cross customs in Ottawa.  We were skeptical, rightly so, because we went through immigration and customs in Calgary.  Luckily, our flight was only a few minutes late, and there were no lines in Calgary.  We arrived in Ottawa a little after midnight, as planned, and checked into the Marriott, near the Parliament building.  

On Saturday, we slept in. The day was beautiful and sunny.  We started by looking at the Ottawa locks on the Rideau Canal.  The canal is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  There are eight locks in a row.  The locks were built in the 1820’s; the canal was dug by hand, mostly by Irish laborers.  We went to the canal museum, and watched a boat go through one lock.  We took a long walk to the History museum in Gatineau, on the other side of the river, in Quebec.   The history museum is excellent, with the largest collection of totem poles in Canada.  We were also interested in “Death on the Ice”, about the Franklin expedition, all 129 of whom died searching for the Northwest Passage.  We walked home, and had a nice dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant, Fairouz.

Sunday was another beautiful day.   We got up early and went in search of the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus tour.  After we bought a combination ticket for the bus and boat, we decided to first take a canal ride, in an electric tour boat.  Our tour guide was Haitian, and Richard asked lots of questions.  We learned more about the city and the canal. 

After the canal ride, on our way to the bus, we stopped for a memorial service at the World War I memorial. This was under the auspices of the Odd Fellows, as we found by talking to a man from Illinois.   Then we got on the tour bus, and drove around Ottawa and Gatineau.  We drove past museums, embassies, and  Justin Trudeau’s house, learning more about the city.  

We got off at the ByWard Market, had a quick lunch, and then got back on the bus.  We spent a couple of hours at the experimental farm, visited pregnant cows, and enjoyed petting goats, alpacas, and a donkey.   Sandi remembered lots of details about farm animals.    

We got back on the bus to our starting point, and walked to the Cathedral, for a mass in French, which included a first communion.  We spoke to one proud parent from Burundi.  The Cathedral is over the top, with an incredible interior and metal spires.  We had dinner in the Byward Market, and it started to rain.  Sandi wisely had us take a taxi back to our hotel.

Richard has been impressed by the number and variety of the new Canadians. We have spoken to people from many countries, including Haiti, Columbia, the Dominican Republic, and Burundi. He has been talking to people in Spanish, French, and English.  There was a lot of French spoken, and Richard got his ear tuned to it.

Monday we visited the art museums. We started with the Art Gallery of Ottawa, specializing in area artists. We had lunch in Byward market, and headed for the National Gallery of Canada.   The most impressive thing that we saw in the National Gallery was in the Rideau Chapel. The chapel was not remarkable in itself; however, an artist had set up 40 speakers, each one playing a recording of just one person, singing classical religious music A capella.  It was quite impressive. It was fun to watch people come in, walk around, and put their head next to each speaker, trying to figure it out. Basically this was a 40 channel recording, one microphone for each singer.

Tuesday, Sandi had to work, so Richard headed for Parliament.  He picked up a timed ticket for a tour. The tour was good, and included a visit to the top of the Peace Tower.
 
He was interested in the Parliamentary Protective Service, and asked a lot of questions. The security folks were wearing protest hats as a labor action. This group was formed a few years ago, from two other groups, and the security folks still do not have a contract. Years ago, they were unarmed, and only worked inside Parliament.   The change was probably a result of the 2014 terrorist attack on Parliament.

After a quick lunch, I took a bus in the direction of the air and space museum, and walked the final km to the museum. The museum is focused on Canadian contributions to aviation, and has a large collection of bush planes, which were very important in opening Canada's north. There were several WWII planes; the Lancaster bomber was particularly impressive. 

Wednesday, Sandi was working. I took a city bus to the airport, $3.50 CDN. The bus was convenient, with a stop near the hotel.   Richard flew an Air Canada turboprop to Montreal, and made it through the many layers of scrutiny required to fly to the U S A.  His flight from Montreal to Denver was routine.

Jackson, the Grand Tetons, and Yellowstone

On Sunday morning, we packed up the cats and headed north, driving through Loveland, Fort Collins, and Laramie.   We noticed many herds of pronghorn antelope.  We found out later that they were in their fall migration; they winter near Rock Springs.  We drove north from Rock Springs, stopping at the Highline Trail RV park in Boulder Wyoming, having driven from Boulder to Boulder.   At the RV park, we met the new owners, a couple from Arizona who grew up on ranches, and who did not want to live in a city.   We learned that they had a 28 day growing season, and admired a small greenhouse.  We were told to watch for moose, especially the one that lives in town, but did not see any.

On Monday, we started the day in good weather, and continued to Jackson, and then to Signal Mountain Campground, in Grand Teton National Park.   We drove back  to Jackson by looping north, passing the Snake River, and coming into intermittent rain.   In Jackson, Sandi stopped at the knitting shop, and then took a conference call.   Richard walked around town, and enjoyed happy hour.  We had dinner in Gather Restaurant, a local favorite, and definitely upscale.   We drove back to the campground in the dusk, seeing some elk along the way.   It rained all night and into the next day.

Tuesday we declared a rain day, and decided to enjoy the local museums and galleries.  We started at the Grand Teton NP visitor center, checked out Gross Ventre campground for future reference, and then continued on to town.  We had good Lebanese food at Figs restaurant, in an upscale hotel owned by a Lebanese family.  We wandered in the rain and sleet, visiting various art galleries.  We were told that they had one week of fall, but now it was winter.  We stopped at the excellent National Museum of Wildlife art, and then continued back to camp.    Between the weather and the trees, our solar panels are not helping us.  We noticed that some people moved out of the campground, probably fed up with the weather.  We had on again, off again, rain, sleet and snow.  The mountains were white with snow.  At one point we were in the sun, but being snowed on.

Wednesday, we decided to hike around Jenny Lake.  We started at String Lake, walked along the west side of the lake, and then took a boat ride across the lake.  We walked back along the east side of the lake.  There were nice fall colors.  The wind was sharp at times.  We got to watch a group of deer browsing just a few feet away.  A nice hike.

We had signed up for the wildlife caravan, in which we joined a guide and twelve other cars, driving to look for wildlife.   We got to see a huge bull moose from 200 feet or so away.  We stopped briefly to look at Pronghorn Antelope, which are not really antelope, and the fastest land animal in North America.   We continued to a wetland near the river, where we did not see any impressive wildlife, but we got to hear the elk bugle.  We continued to another stop, where we saw a herd of elk at a distance.  Our last stop was more or less in the dark, listening to elk bugle.  We were all scared that a car would hit the herd of elk crossing the highway, but no animals were hurt in making this blog.   Our guide was Grace, a young lady from Indiana; whose job was funded by a foundation.  She aspires to a regular ranger job.   Many of these jobs are seasonal.  The wildlife caravan was one of the more memorable parts of the trip.

On the day that we were going to Yellowstone, it snowed.  We heard that some roads might be closed.  We drove north, stopping at West Thumb Geyser basin and Old Faithful, and continued to West Yellowstone.   Our battery charger had failed, so we needed to stop and buy a replacement, and charge up our batteries.  We visited a grizzly education center in West Yellowstone, where we got to watch grizzlies eat.  After two nights in West Yellowstone, we proceeded to Gardiner Montana.   We went through Bozeman, since some roads were closed.

We had signed up for a class from Yellowstone Forever, "Three days in the life of wolves."   The class exceeded our expectations.  Our guide, Brad, was excellent, and we saw more wolves than we would have thought possible.   The snow had forced the animals down, where we could see them.  We got up very early each morning, and got on the bus, aiming to be where we could see wolves by dawn.