Friday 4 September 2015

They came, they saw….

… and - whoosh! - they were gone, continuing their whirlwind tour of Eastern Ontario.
I had the pleasure of being host and tour guide for Roland and Sonja while they spent a couple of days in the Nation’s Capitol as part of their Blogger to Blogger Tour 2015.



En route we first had to stop so they could dip their feet (figuratively) in the Mississippi River where it flows under the 5-span stone bridge in Pakenham. Mission accomplished, it was on to Ottawa for the rest of the day.

Clearly you can only scratch the surface of a city of 750,000 people in one day, but we gave it a shot. We visited all the obligatory sites – the Market, Parliament Hill, the Rideau Canal, and the National War Memorial where a couple of reservists proudly guarded the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, this after a guard was brutally murdered there last fall. And we visited a wonderful, but little known, rock balancing artist, John Felice Ceprano (that genre is, apparently, a ‘thing’, with an international community of rock balancing artists that have conventions and competitions) and his work at Remic Rapids on the Ottawa River.





Of course the tour also included a great lunch at a new-to-me Vietnamese Restaurant in the Market and a post-tour beer at an also-new-to-me Bier Markt on the Sparks Street Mall. (link)

All in all a great day with great company.

15 comments:

  1. .... Whoosh!!!

    And then they were here... and now, Swoosh... Roland is on his way to Frankfurt.

    Sonja is now all packed up on Thunderbird and set to launch tomorrow morning.

    PS: didn't know you were an accomplished baker! Tasted your bread: yum ;)

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    1. Not sure I'd call myself "accomplished" but I muddle along. Glad you liked it.

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  2. What a whirlwind tour. I'm amazed at the balancing rock sculptures. When I first looked at the pictures, I assumed that there was some sort of mechanical support to keep them together. But their lack of permanence must be part of the beauty.

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    1. Richard - That guy really is amazing. He's been doing it there since 1986, I believe, and every year the come down over the winter with the ice and so on, and he builds them up again the next year with a different theme. This years theme was genetics. Although I didn't quite get the connection there did seem to be a consistency to the structures. Quite amazing.

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  3. I am surprised the rock balancing structures last all the way till Winter. I would think a strong wind would cause them to fall over?

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  4. Charlie6. They are pretty stable although you could push them over. He even said he 'never' has had a vandalism problem. That's even more surprising.

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  5. Very nice you could spend some time with Sonja and Roland. Sounds like you managed to see a lot too.

    The rock balancing is really neat.

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  6. Glad they got to see the Ceprano rock sculptures ... I found them fascinating the first time I saw them. Sounds like an awesome trip to the capital.

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  7. Glad you all had a great time together!

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    1. It's always fun to meet fellow moto-bloggers. You immediately have something in common.

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    2. It's always fun to meet fellow moto-bloggers. You immediately have something in common.

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  8. Thanks, Dave for everything. And in case you need a house sitter... you have my number ;-)

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