The rain has not totally abated yet. The final stats are in and July 2009 was the wettest month ever recorded in Ottawa and that is looking back over records going back almost 150 years. This long weekend turned out to be two good days and one wet one, which is better than we had been doing in July.
On Saturday we decided to get on our bicycles and do the 32 km round trip to Rideau Canal Locks 14, 15 & 16 at Manotick, Ontario. We took a picnic lunch and found ourselves a nice bench in the shade there to watch a flotilla of small boats negotiate the locks. It was a great trip, one we might repeat some time, maybe by quadracycle next time.
Sunday was a write-off for weather. It started raining very early in the day and poured all day until late in the afternoon. After it had finally stopped I gave the roads an hour or so to dry out and then carefully checked the radar and the sky and went for a little local bicycle ride to get a bit of exercise. I hadn't been out ten minutes when a thunderstorm welled up out of a small cumulus cloud and dumped rain and hail over our part of town. I got soaked to the skin before I made it home again.
Today was again a dry day. This was a holiday Monday, Colonel By Day locally. Yes, everything in Ottawa is named after Colonel John By. He supervised the building of the Rideau Canal in the 1840s and laid out the original town plan. He could probably get elected mayor today, although that is not much of a feat. We originally looked at the weather and considered a trip downtown. The trouble was that this is not a Sunday and so the parkways are not closed to motor vehicle traffic. We considered bicycling downtown on the pathway network, but Ruth's MS was acting up and her balance was definitely not god enough to be bicycling. She was having trouble walking unassisted as it was.
So we re-thought it and decided to quadracycle up to Mooney's Bay instead, about a 12 km round trip. Ruth made up yet another picnic lunch and we set off after 1100.
The roads were pretty clear of traffic, duie to the holiday and the sky was clear, too, except for a few cumulus clouds of little vertical extent. We covered the distance very quickly, even with the hills to climb and got there just after 1130. Ruth was already hungry, so we found a picnic table and set out our lunch. Mooney's Bay is Ottawa's beach on the Rideau River and with the better weather there were lots of people there. The day was not too warm, it had just reached a respectable 22C when we got there, but the wind was cool out of the south-southwest and getting gusty. At noon the city staff announced the beach was open and people did go into the water to do some swimming. For our part we were fending off the too-friendly gulls who thought they had been invited for lunch!
Ruth wanted some ice cream and found the concession stand was open and came back with two cones. Between the sun, sand, gulls and ice cream it was just like a day on a beach on the coast!
After lunch had settled and we had spent an hour or so watching the boats plying the canal system, the kids chasing the gulls and the pirate ship that calls the bay home (don't ask) , we decided to head out. We opted to not go straight home and toured through some of the neighbourhoods near Mooney's Bay, a really nice part of Ottawa. Finally we pedalled home and had popsicles on the front porch.
Ruth was pretty pooped out from out trip, but once again the quadracycle proved itself a very useful vehicle for her sake, since with her MS acting up, her balance and energy levels weren't at high-ebb today.
Total quadracycling for 2009 so far - 226 km
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