Day 60

7/21/09: Off Day in Ottawa, Ontario. BLOG PHOTOS NOW UP FROM LAST 10 DAYS

Did we ever need today? Let me answer that…..YYYYYEEEEESSSSS. My legs are just totally shredded this morning when I woke up, and they haven’t really changed an iota since then, as it’s now about 5pm EST. I used to do some stage racing 10-12 years back, and it’s that same dull, dead feeling in the quads that I had after 3-4 straight races. But it’s not only the legs, I’m talking like a full body beat-down here, a feeling of total lethargy, of complete and absolute cooked body and mind. Those 10 days in a row really took it out of both of us. We jammed through around 700 miles, and much of that was at 18-20 mph paces over the gnarly Canadian Shield. Then add the TT effort yesterday on the freeway………..DEAD. Thanks goodness we have just 3-4 days and then another recovery day in Quebec City.

Ryan was up at the crack of dawn, and I figured I might as well take advantage of the full day and roust myself to, and then spent several hours on my training work, putting pictures up with the last 10 days of blogging, skyping and looking at the next four days of routes up to Quebec City. I even cooked up Ryan’s 86’ed can of Chef Boyardee Ravioli and meatballs in our microwave – stuff he bought up in Norland, and swore off after the first can about melted his stomach. Back then I had eaten two cans of Chef Boyardee cold. But warmed up this morning, yuuuuuummmmmmy! So that was my first breakfast, that and a pot of hotel coffee.

       Jerry has been sending us pictures he’d taken while he was up with us along the Georgian Bay, and let me tell you, this stuff is spectacular. I cannot wait for all of you to see some of this up on the website. Problem is is that between him and I, we have over a thousand pics already, and I’ve got a ton more on the way. So he’s going to work on getting these things into more manageable sizes and into groups. So hold on and get ready for some really wonderful pictures down the road.

         I decided, as tired as I was, that I just had to get out in the downtown and do a little walking and shooting, and sampling this wonderful city that I’m so fond of, so I headed out around 9:30am, went straight to a local bakery on Elgin Street and bought some bakery for breakfast. Then I was off to the Parliament Bldg to try to find some different angles on shooting these buildings than what I’ve done here over the past 4 visits. There was a quite elaborate “Changing of the Guards” ceremony going on, so I hung and shot for that for a bit, and then rounded the back of the Parliament and did some shooting off the Ottawa River and the Province of Quebec on the other side of the river.

Then, as you can probably imagine if you know me well enough, I began to scout out my lunch venue, longing for a nice big beefy buffet as my first choice. And bang. There were two Indian buffets down around the Parliament area. Once opened at 11:30 am, the other at 11am. Winner is………..yep, 11am. So I hoofed it on down to the Rideau Canal for a walk and pictures to kill another hour of time. Trouble was that my legs were just not there at all. Just walking around for 1.5 hrs I felt like I’d hiked for a full day. I mean I just had to sit on a bench for a bit to take the weight off of my feet. So 11am finally rolls around and I’m in the Indian buffet before the serving spoons are even in all of the dishes. The gremlin was in no mood for a 12pm lunch, the sooner the better. Now this place was somewhat of a disappointment, as the food was mediocre and the choices were not that big. I should have tamed that damned gremlin for another half hour and opted for the other place. But the gremlin was sussed for a bit, so I took it on back to the hotel to take a nap.

Got back and literally just hit the bed and I was out for a good half hour to hour. Ryan’s been napping on and off the whole day. That’s how bloody tired we are. Got some more work done post food coma and nap, and managed to get back out in the city………to the bakery shop for 10 bucks worth of baked goodies. We’re going to go out this eve if we can keep from falling asleep, and maybe get some good dinner and a few brews.

We’ll likely sleep late tomorrow and then check out near the 11am deadline. Our ride will take us across the river to Hull, Quebec, and then we’ll ride northeast along the river for the day. We have about 260 miles to get to Quebec City, so we’re figuring on doing that in 3.5 days, maybe 3 days if all goes well. Already making the plans for Judy and Bill to meet us up in North Sidney, Nova Scotia, so this thing is really moving along quite quickly. Until tomorrow……..Pete