Ottawa, Parliament buildings

Randy, Vivian toured us around the nations' capital today. Gave us a Royal Tour. Totally amazing how large our parliament buildings are and how beautiful the architecture is. Totally impressed.

Lots of restoration work being done

Excellent Architecture

Fairmount Hotel

More locks

Beginning of the Rideau Canal, 8 flight locks

Chinatown

Sink hole in the middle of the city

Randy, Vivian and yours truly in front of the Rideau Canal entrance

Motorcycle tour of Ottawa, by Randy

Breakfast stop. Randy and Vivian know where the meals are large and the sausages are larger.

Cheese Factory stop. Picked up some stinky good stuff.

Brewery Stop, Beer! Says it all!

Yours truly, Karen, Vivian, Danny and Randy

Largest Log Building in the world! Very impressive!

Short ferry back to Ontario.

Great day of riding with good riders!

Kingston Pen Inmates

Was able to get last minute tickets for the tour of the infamous Kingston Penitentiary. Up, packed and out relatively early.  The tour of the old Pen may or may not be available after this year, guess it depends on the response. So far, it has been booked, so we are lucky to get this opening.

Numerous retired employees, most with over 30 years of history at the Pen, described in detail accounts of their memories. Very fascinating.

Suggestion mailboxes

Gate in and out of the yard

Ceiling of shops, where they were taught skills

Inmate labour built the prison 180 years ago with hand tools only.

Inside the Pen 

After the Pen tour, the museum...

Shives and shanks confiscated

More shives and shanks

confiscated distilleries

Waterboarding torture

After the Pen tour, we headed toward Ottawa to see Bob and Nanci's sister and brother in-law, Vivian and Randy who have been a wealth of information and suggestions for us as we travel through Ontario.

Rideau Canal

Told you in an earlier post that we like canals. Ventured out this morning to the nearby Kingston Mill locks, the first of 47 locks on the Rideau Canal System spanning 207 Kilometres. Thought we would be there for a few minutes, but were we wrong. As we travel east everything gets older and these locks and canal system are no different. Built between 1832-1835. The locks are kept in good working order and are manned for the season. Used by recreational boaters, all the locks are manually operated original equipment. Originally built after the 1812 war with the United States, this canal system was designed as a way to access the Great Lakes from the St Laurence River in the event of another invasion.

Yours truly helping to open a lock gate.

First lock in the system, last lock, going downstream

Cataraqui River flowing to Kingston and St Lawrence River

After lunch, rode the 1000 Islands Parkway and back. Nice roads, lots of history, but not very good pics for posting.

1000 Islands Tower

St Lawrence River

Kingston

Short jaunt to Kingston. "Gas Buddy" showed gas in Shannonville @$0.929/litre. Could not pass up the opportunity as the truck was running low.  Carried on to the KOA. They wanted over $60 per night. Felt this was highway robbery so continued into town and found Rideau Acres @ $42.50 / night. We are camped on the Rideau River just north of Locks #1-4 of the Rideau Canal system. Setup camp and rushed back into town for the 3pm 1000 Island cruise. They had to hold the boat for us, but we made it.. What a beautiful town. First Capital of the province of Canada. Sir John A. MacDonald (our first Prime Minister) narrated most of our cruise. Yes he knew he was dead... Saw Kingston, shore and islands from the water. Lots of history, beautiful architecture and old buildings. Found a brew pub too. Excellent beer, lots of character. Got back to camp and watched a thunderstorm roll in. Great light show, lots of wind and rain. Finished around 10pm.

Infamous Kingston Pen

Yours Truly

First Parliament buildings of the Province of Canada

"The Lads"

Great Brew Pub, filled with character